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9/11 Ignored-Obama Undermines Airline & Train Security
In the aftermath of 9/11, Congress foolishly shifted airline security screening to the inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which has failed to detect explosive ingredients and fake bombs, in performance tests.
Now the Obama Administration is making matters even worse by undermining both airline security and railroad safety. A study found that the TSA is more than twice as likely to fail to detect a bomb as the private security firms it replaced. And TSA’s failure rate is three or four times as high as the few remaining private firms still allowed to handle airline security.
In tests, TSA failed to detect fake bombs 60 percent of the time at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, and 75 percent of the time in Los Angeles. Yet the Obama administration plans to make TSA even more bureaucratic by introducing collective bargaining, which will make it even harder to get rid of ineffective employees.
Rather than take over airline security screening, the federal government should have stepped up testing of the private companies that performed it, to weed out bad companies. President Bush initially objected to Congressional demands for a federal takeover, but knuckled under for political reasons. Ironically, even in European countries run by Socialist parties, airline security and screening is generally in the hands of private companies, which are are usually more diligent, innovative, and efficient, as well as less bureaucratic.
The Obama administration is also undermining the security of railroad passengers by gutting an expert, highly-rated, anti-terror agency at Amtrak, which Amtrak’s unions hate, because it is not unionized. Political cronyism also appears to be playing a role in the gutting of Amtrak’s Office of Security Strategy and Special Operations (OSSSO). Ultimately, OSSSO’s “highly-specialized officers” will likely be replaced by unionized employees with ”alarmingly low pass rates” in “basic” classes.
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Comments
Hmm...
There is a slight comparison problem here. The private security firms only control small airports at this point and due to the reduce traffic and ability to hire more competent employees (due to needing less of them) it's not surprising that screening would be more successful. I'm not sure how they would perform if they ran large airports like the TSA does. Would they run into the same problem of poor screeners being hired due to the higher capacity needed? Would they run into screening being rushed and missing things because of the high volume of traffic? I just don't know, but before we jump on the wagon of "privatize it now", that needs to be looked.
Coordinated shared partnership might be interesting. Let private firms set up alongside TSA in large airports. See if they have similar pass / fail rates. If private firms really do outperform so substantially in the high-volume airports rather than small airports, then shift control over to them. My suspicion is that they would run into the same issues as the TSA because of the problems I described. They don't have special things the TSA doesn't and that is the only discernible difference. Obviously, if private firms took over the TSA should have significant oversight to make sure they aren't cutting corners for the sake of profit.
Regardless of whether private or public security is the norm, all of them need to be reformed and improved.
Oh, and what Europe does the Competitive Enterprise Institute visit where the airports are so safe safe? Is there another one I'm not familiar with? Outside of the UK, the European airport security is pathetic. I went their for summer with some college friends; they were absolutely terrible - and we were traveling through the biggest airports in the EU. I could probably sneak on a dirty bomb no problem with their outdated security systems and equally indifferent staff. Don't tell me European airports are top notch security centers - because that is pure fantasy.