Would you feel safe booking a business trip through San Francisco International Airport? What about taking your family to Disney World through Orlando Sanford International Airport? If you feel comfortable making travel plans through either of these airports, then you have already demonstrated you are comfortable with privatizing airport security. Both SFO and SFB are among the more than 20 airports in the United States that already use private security through something called the Transportation Security Administration‘s Screening Partnership Program.
When Congress hurriedly created the TSA weeks after 9/11, it did not do a detailed analysis of the costs or benefits of federalizing airport security. At the time, there were just over 16,000 private airport security employees nationwide. The TSA immediately hired over 40,000 airport security screeners, and that workforce has grown to 55,000 today at an annual cost of $12 billion.
If the TSA delivered better security than private airport screeners, there could be a debate about the costs and benefits of all the staff and hours spent in line at TSA checkpoints. But the data we do have show that private screeners do as good a job or better than TSA employees.
In 2005, a Government Accountability Office study found that domestic private screeners performed significantly better than their TSA counterparts. That same year, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general issued a report finding that “the ability of TSA screeners to stop prohibited items from being carried through the sterile areas of the airports fared no better than the performance of screeners prior to September 11, 2001.”
In 2015, an internal TSA investigation found that undercover agents were able to smuggle banned weapons and explosives past TSA employees at the Minneapolis airport 95% of the time. A later investigation nationwide put the TSA failure rate at 80%.
The problem, as former TSA chief Kip Hawley said, is the TSA is “too reactive and always finds itself fighting the last war.” “Much of the friction in the system today results from rules that are direct responses to how we were attacked on 9/11,” Hawley wrote. “But it’s simply no longer the case that killing a few people on board a plane could lead to a hijacking. Never again will a terrorist be able to breach the cockpit simply with a box cutter or a knife. The cockpit doors have been reinforced, and passengers, flight crews and air marshals would intervene.”
If the TSA costs so much more than private screeners and doesn’t deliver better results, why does it still exist? The answer is the usual one — that government unions are the most reliable source of Democratic Party campaign funds and votes. Immediately after the TSA was created, the American Federation of Government Employees unionized TSA screeners.
Since screeners are covered under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 and not the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, they do not have the full collective bargaining powers that other government-unionized staff enjoy. They cannot bargain over security policies, technology use, or deployment decisions. But they bargain over wages, a portion of which goes to the AFGE before it is then sent on to the Democratic Party machine.
There is no reason taxpayers should be funding wasteful, inefficient bloat at our nation’s airports that also wastes millions more hours of people’s time as they wait in line to be put through advanced imaging technology machines that are not proven to increase security at all. Worse, much of this money goes straight to government union coffers and then to Democratic Party campaigns.
TRUMP’S RIGHTEOUS BATTLE TO END GOVERNMENT UNION COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) have introduced legislation that would abolish the TSA, creating a new Office of Aviation Security Oversight within the Federal Aviation Administration that would be charged with regulating and overseeing the performance of private contractors at the nation’s airports. This would end the conflict of interest currently caused by TSA being both the monopoly provider of airport security and its sole regulator.
As the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency look for new ways to cut spending and deliver more efficient services to the public, abolishing the TSA should be at the top of their list.
