Our trip had been in the works for several months, so we did not think of possible disruptions in service from the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration). Even though some believed the present governmental dogfight and “shutdown” would impact travelers who fly, we knew that such was not the case. The TSA would be on the job!
A trip down memory lane will give us the background for this essay. On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center in New York was attacked by radical Muslim terrorists. Combined with the attacks on the Pentagon and the aborted attempt that ended in a Pennsylvania field, about 3000 people died because of the attacks.
Bipartisanship was easy to come by in the days that followed, and one of the results was the creation of the TSA on November 19, 2001. With the failures of airport security evident on 9/11, now the government was going to take over and fix the problem. Congress was doing its job, and created a new department to be filled with workers and administrators.
Up to date figures are hard to come by as to the effectiveness of this unit. One of the first comprehensive looks at the problems came ten years after the attacks. At that time, it was reported that over 25,000 breaches of security had occurred, including people not screened before boarding, banned items not caught, unauthorized people entering restricted areas. Several weapons were smuggled through TSA screening, mostly guns in carry-on bags.
A test, in 2015, to determine how well the agency does its job showed that 67 out of 70 items deemed contraband got through security — a 95% failure rate. In 2017, the system worked about 20% of the time, a failure rate of 4 in 5 instances. A smaller attempt to gauge the agency’s success efforts showed that 20 of 22 items smuggled on by government testers went undetected. On January 2 of this year, a passenger on a flight from Atlanta to Tokyo, Japan, managed to carry a gun onto the airliner. Not only was it not caught in the boarding process, but he reported the incident himself. A couple of years earlier, a passenger from Detroit to Chicago also told officials he had inadvertently had a handgun in his luggage, said handgun being missed by security in Detroit.
It has been said the one of the scariest phrases in the American lexicon is “Hello. I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. Like many programs our leaders have produced, the TSA seems not to have been too effective. Some might claim that with no similar attacks in the years since 9/11, something has been done right. Yet that statement does not take into account the vigorous fight against the terrorist organizations that our government has undertaken.
How do we improve upon the performance of the TSA? One solution is to let the market work — privatize the security at airports. Already several airports have done so, and security has not suffered. San Francisco, Sea-Tac (Seattle/Tacoma), Kansas City International — all have private firms handling security. Several smaller ones also use private contractors for their security apparatus. Those who are free market advocates claim that competing for this work enhances efficiencies, benefits passengers by treating them as valued customers, and certainly can outperform a bureaucracy that has 90% failures in catching contraband.
In addition to the frustrations of traveling by air, many complaints have been made that TSA agents have stolen passengers’ belonging, misplaced bags, and “groped” travelers when patting them down. One agent amassed over $800,000 worth of stolen luggage and stuff during his time with the agency.
Efficiency might well be improved if security is handled by a company that knows failure to do the job right might mean a cancelled contract. Many frequent fliers have to put up with delays getting through security lines, inconsistent or ridiculous regulations foisted on the public. This can be seen by just a few anecdotal incidents we encountered or witnessed in our recent trip to Scotland.
We began our trip in Indianapolis, and felt that our status of TSA-Pre would shorten the time in the security line. Jane had no problem going to the short line, but one TSA person looked at my ticket and said it didn’t have the right notification on it. To the long line I went. (It seems that various passengers can have that omitted on their ticket in order to better facilitate traffic through the various steps of security.) But the next agent I encountered saw my TSA-Pre on his computer monitor and sent me back to that line.
In the Indianapolis airport where we began our sojourn, the metal detectors worked well with Jane’s two knee replacements. Lights, sirens — well, not quite, but we knew she had set off the danger signals. In spite of the cards given to her for each knee, she still had to be wanded and patted down, and hands scanned for explosive materials. But the metal in my head for the cochlear implant I had was not worthy of a peep from those machines. Guess that no one thinks a terrorist is going to strap a bomb to his head!
Coming home the scene was repeated at the Edinburgh airport and at JFK in New York. This time Jane had her cards ready, but to no avail. Out came the wands and the pat down again. I decided to try to get to a shorter line, so produced the card which mentioned there was a steel insert behind my right ear. Waved over to the shorter line, I went through the same procedure as “regular” passengers, except the wand came out for me and the security person patted me down.
Also in New York at one of the security checkpoints, I noticed a sign that informed those who were 75 or over they would not need to remove shoes or belts. However, I could not do so as one of the TSA agents decided it didn’t apply to me — hopefully it was because I looked many years younger than my 76!
Also witnessed was one of the more exasperating of the practices of TSA. Not wanting to be accused of “profiling” potential problem passengers, a system of random checks on passengers was instituted. This meant that a 2 year old little girl had to have her mother remove her shoes and place them in the bins for scanning. Procedures like this served no purpose and only slowed down the traffic through the lines at security.
Several years ago we had taken my mother to the airport in St. Louis to fly to El Paso to visit my older brother. Mom was 85 years old, of course the very picture of a suicide bomber. Even with the cards attesting to the insertion of artificial knees, she was taken aside for more scrutiny. But the fiasco was not done. With a steell insert in her shoes, they had to be removed and examined. Still, it was not enough for the TSA. Since this obvious terrorist was wearing an “underwire” bra, another round of the wanding came about. By the time Mom was able to move through security, she was hopping mad as she had to redress herself, we were very amused and another exercise in futility and delay had been effected.
Foreign airports seem no better. In 2016, we were ready to board our flight home from Amsterdam. But it took at least two security checks, and they three places to show we were really booked on the Delta flight to Minneapolis! Budapest seemed to be a throwback to the 1950s in terms of going through all the steps necessary to get on the plane. Heathrow Airport in London also showed its sometime ineptness in handling the many travelers who landed there. We deplaned and, like many others, were in a line to go through customs. Two lines were seen, so like most, we opted for the shorter. What would appear but an airport official who told us that we couldn’t use that line since it was reserved for EU passengers. Others had to slog through the long line. Dutifully we trudged back to the now extended queue to slowly, very slowly, make progress toward customs. Finally, the same official explained that anyone who was “in transit” could take the shorter line! Fuming silently, we got in the short line and were quickly done with our business at customs.
When considering the problems and frustrations with TSA and airport security, I am close to being a libertarian. When any bureaucracy is created by government, it seems to grow out of proportion to the size of the job to be done. There are about 25 different administrative offices for the functions of the agency. Each of these has their own personnel, and these are apart from the 47,000 plus who do the actual screening at the airports. The top person at the TSA oversees all of this hierarchy. In the 17 plus years since its inception in 2001, there have been 13 administrators for the agency. Perhaps more stability at the top would aid in performance at the gates
Let the free market work. Privatize the work done by the TSA, and my bet would be that efficiency would improve, delays at security would be reduced and the traveling public would be in a better mood when they took a trip. With the documented failures of the TSA, could the situation be any worse under a private company?