- Beginning late that year, Mr. Hoggan received $90,000 in bonuses over a 13-month period, even though a leaked report from the Department of Homeland Security showed that auditors were able to get fake weapons and explosives past security screeners 95 percent of the time in 70 covert tests.
...
Chicago, Mr. Neffenger announced that a new T.S.A. leadership team was now overseeing screening operations at O’Hare Airport, which has had some of the longest waiting times of any airport in the country.
Last week and over the weekend, hundreds of passengers, including 450 on American Airlines alone, missed flights because of waits of two or three hours in security lines, according to local news reports. Many of the passengers had to spend the night in the terminal sleeping on cots.
I don't understand just how sudden this all is. I see a lot of coverage and observation, but the analysis is lacking. Ineptitude? When has the TSA been anything but--that doesn't explain to me the recent surge in long lines. Bad management? It's hard to pin this all on one political appointee. Budget cuts? I wasn't aware that Congess has done anything recently, so was this one of those automatic sequesters?
This might be a super dead horse that I'm beating, but I only just barely made a domestic flight though I arrived over two hours early, at BWI (Baltimore's airport).
TSA's problem is that they aren't screening for threats but for appearance. Liquid bomber? Liquids go in bags. Shoe bomber? Take off your shoes. Underwear bomber? Microwave scanners for everyone! They're a reactive, not proactive, organization by design, but the problem is they're not even good at being reactive. Would we really be in much worse shape if we just went back to pre 9/11 security? I doubt it. Whatever a terrorist wants to dream up, they'll dream up specifically to get around TSA, so all we're doing is wasting our own time and money. Dollar for dollar, there has never been a bigger guerrilla success than 9/11. We invented an entire cabinet level bureaucracy in response to it (forgetting all about the wars for a moment) that serves almost no meaningful function other than to make it a headache when an American tries to marry a foreign national. I'm all for totally abolishing the TSA. The TSA (and Homeland Security generally) is a great example of what FDR meant about fearing fear.
Is there any way to get rid of them? At this point there's an argument (I don't know if it's a good one) that the TSA employs a ton of people who would otherwise be jobless. (Doesn't THAT say something about who we trust with our security) If there's a petition, I'd sign it, but the White House's petition site has proven exactly how ineffectual that kind of pursuit really is.
Probably not. There is an interesting phenomenon that has been written about from time to time about "internal" lobbying on Capital Hill. We hear about corporate lobbyists constantly during campaigns, but we rarely hear about the robust lobbying efforts that are conducted by each funded agency. No agency wants their budget to be smaller than the previous year's, so they spend massive effort convincing Congress that they aren't wasting money. I'm sure "jobs" is one of those rallying cries. Also DHS has a special place in hell, because if a Congressperson voted to cut its funding and an attack happened (whether or not DHA could have prevented the attack with the higher budget), then that person would be voted out of office in a millisecond. Because people are easily manipulated.Is there any way to get rid of them?
I think your last point is salient, in the same way that it's hard for any legislator to run on a platform to relax prison sentences--no matter how over incarcerated and racist a system is--because it's so easy for an opponent to play on fear. If the TSA continue on this road of mismanagement and long lines, maybe people would get fed up enough for something to happen. That's a really cynical way to look at it. Or way-too-optimistic, to those who think we'll never be rid of the TSA.