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Here’s an issue for the new Trump appointees to the Homeland Security Advisory Council: deep-sixing the Transportation Security Administration’s airport-screening work.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently ended collective bargaining with the union representing TSA agents after DHS found that more TSA employees are busy doing “full-time union work” than actually screening passengers on any given day, while 60% of “poor performers” don’t get fired.
But as any beleaguered traveler can contest, TSA’s issues go far beyond that: Virtually the whole security/screening apparatus is a pointless circus.
Having understaffed teams of low-wage workers screen millions of air passengers a day brings painfully long lines, contradictory and arbitrary “rules” (Are we taking off shoes today? Laptops out of the bags? It depends!) and countless invasive searches that turn up nothing but pocket lint.
Take off your belt, empty your water bottles, throw out your aerosols, step aside for a random hand-swab — it’s all security theater, and all for nothing.
Yes, TSA still catches thousands of guns each year, some even in carry-on — but it evidently misses even more.
In 2017 covert tests, DHS sent ringers through airport security lines with fake weapons: TSA agents reportedly failed to catch 80% of the fakes — an improvement on two years before, when 95% of weapons slipped through.
It’s been this way in testing since the agency’s founding.
How is this more than a make-work program?
Perhaps nothing reveals the scam more than the fact that for $78 you can buy your way out of the worst of the experience by signing up for PreCheck — or cough up $179 a year and skip to the front of the line with a private company like Clear.
Everyone else gets to sweat about missing their flight.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has been calling for Congress to abolish the TSA for years; his colleagues should listen.
At the least, privatize the screening work: That’s already the case at 20 US airports, including San Francisco and Orlando.
Set up to provide a sense of security amid the post-9/11 panic, TSA is still clunking along with little rhyme and less reason because that’s how government agencies roll.
America needs something less intrusive and less onerous — more efficient, competent and pleasant.