Airports toy with the idea of tossing the TSA

Source: MSNBC

A new year has brought new resolve for airport managers who are fed up with the Transportation Security Agency.

"The TSA has grown too big and we're unhappy with the way it's doing things," said Larry Dale, president of Orlando Sanford International Airport. "My board is sold on the fact that the free enterprise system works well and that we should go with a private company we can hold directly accountable for security and customer satisfaction."

Dale isn't alone. Airports in Los Angeles, the Washington, D.C. metro area, Indianapolis, and Charlotte, N.C., are also considering tossing the TSA.

Full-body scanners and enhanced pat-downs have spurred a loud outcry from an angry public, as well as some big hitters on Capitol Hill, and airports are looking at moving away from federal TSA workers and moving toward private contractors.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40888102/ns/travel-news/

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No fan of TSA but the private "Mickey-D wages" private security was a joke before and the day of 9-11.

bounce the TSA. It's a cluster fuck.

it's worthless! they should phase it out though.

Rent-a-thugs will have to follow the same procedures as T&A thugs. The only difference is that they will get paid less and therefore be even meaner.

I plan on not flying anytime I do not have to fly. It is a very screwed up deal with the TSA.
But, do the airports get to make that decision? And, if they do, and also hire private contractors, will that increase the additional airport fess that get attached to the customers' tickets?

security companies airports can pick from. So, yes, absolutely airports can make these decisions and get rid of TSA.

joke. The TSA needs to be dismantled and rethought. The current approach assumes everybody from the tiniest infant to the most elderly senior citizen is a potential terrorist. It's just ludicrous and does nothing to make anyone safer.

That would be crazy when they can fuck with more critical infrastructure.

All those other "foiled acts" were a joke.

The Shoe guy would merelt have roasted his soles.

The Underwear guy just roasted his nuts.

And there is no ordnance person on the planet who could mix an effective liquid explosive in an airline lavatory.

It's all bullshit.

Sonoman

The private contractors will be paid for by the airlines (no way will subsidies be tolerated in today's D.C. climate), which means air fares will rise. I've heard estimates of $150 a round trip ticket.

Consumers are price inelastic right now and will stop traveling by airline when possible. I've been taking Greyhound for several years now as a cheaper alternative.

Then they'll have to contend with high speed rail in some states in a few years. If airlines are seen as too expensive, people will flock to the the rail system. Even if it's for a short time, the financial damage to the airlines will cause several to go out of business based upon their precarious finances now.

Just my 2 cents.

Someone here was predicting this months ago, I can't remember who. It's a perfect excuse to start bringing soon-to-be-idle PSCs from war zones into gigs on U.S. soil.

Great. :(

It's not the groping or pat downs or illegal searches or Gestapo tactics airports are worried about..

As usual.. the only thing that gets their attention is MONEY.

But the only human transportation where I live is by plane.

I am just curious.

The issue is that the TSA is "free" courtesy of the US government, so it's the cheap option.

If they were booted, the airport would have to use it's own money to provide an equivalent level of security screening.

They can pick from several private security companies instead.

solution must get rid of the Homeland Security and its draconian ways

This is very very bad.

Scanners - yes.

Enhanced pat downs yes.

Same exact stuff.

Unions? No. That's the real goal.

I hope the government tells them to get fucked.

pick a private company instead.

I would be perfectly happy if more airports ditch TSA.

They will cut corners in attempts to save money, that's one thing you DON'T want on public security

They still have to follow the same procedures TSA does. Number of airports are already using private security companies.

"They won't cut corners"

Everytime, they do. Look at private prison guards, privatized electricity, privatized ferry systems.... list goes on.

Time's gonna tell on this one, you'll see... every time it happens.

So I am not sure what it is you think I am going to see.

that's what you'll see.

When california privatized power, you got enron and massive fires and brownouts. In my province when they privatized the natural gas and oil pipelines we had a massive spill in the first two years.

But why should we look at the history of privatization? Those TSA guys are jerks!

from the beginning. Apparently most passengers can't even tell the difference.
"Airport officials say most travelers don't know if the screeners performing pat-down checks work for the TSA or a private company. So far, no airport that joined SPP has opted back into the federal screening program."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40888102/ns/travel-news

But once it becomes more widespread, there's more of a chance of screw-ups.

:eyes:

Have you not read my above posts on this. You know what? I don't even fucking care, it ain't my country. But, you go ahead and allow the private sector to go on taking over legit law-enforcement responsibilities and watch what happens. If you're too daft to know of the history of privatization of public services, or actually look into, that's your problem, not mine.

I am tired of being strip searched and/or groped to get on a plane. It is not providing any safety/security and it is wasting a lot of money on equipment and personnel.

Because the private companies did so well prior to 9/11??

Doesn't anyone remember the minumum wage flunkies sleeping at the xray machines prior to 9/11??? This is just another plan to line the pockets on their contractor friends and relatives.

As I recall, the guys that boarded the planes on 9/11 weren't carrying anything prohibited. Box cutters were allowed as carry ons. I was carrying a pocket knife all the way up to 9/11 and never had it confiscated. Showed it to them every single time.

The screw up was that the government had several opportunities to detect that these guys were in country, and making these plans, as well as training for them, and never stopped them. The time to stop these guys is before they ever get to the airport.

But they were still allowed to get through security. Who knows what happened at the other airports or for sure that it was just boxcutters the hijackers were carrying.

WASHINGTON — Security screeners at Washington Dulles International Airport who allowed some hijackers to board the flight that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, drew criticism Thursday from the commission investigating the terror attacks.

A surveillance video obtained by news organizations on Wednesday showed that security screeners did not appear to question the hijackers about utility knives, which investigators believe they were carrying as part of the takeover plot.

The 9/11 commission report cited one expert describing efforts by airport screeners as “marginal at best,” and said hijackers who set off metal detector alarms shouldn’t have been permitted to proceed until the suspicious items were found.

The video represents the only footage known to exist showing any of the Sept. 11 hijackers boarding their final flights that fateful morning. It shows most of the hijackers in Washington were pulled aside to undergo additional scrutiny after alarms went off at metal detectors but then were permitted to board American Airlines Flight 77.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5485376/ns/us_news-security/

What little we know about tactics and weapons comes from phones calls made by passengers and flight attendants. As Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out, the evidence is incredibly paltry. No one on United Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center, reported anything about weapons or tactics. One flight attendant on American Flight 11, which also crashed into the World Trade Center, said she was disabled by a chemical spray, while another flight attendant said a passenger was stabbed or shot. On the Pentagon plane, American Flight 77, Barbara Olson reported hijackers carrying knives and box cutters but did not describe how they took the cockpit. And on United Flight 93, passengers reported knives but also a hijacker threatening to explode a bomb. The box cutter-knives story isn't demonstrably false, but it serves to divert attention from the other weapons and to mask the fact that we don't have any idea how the hijackings happened.

http://www.slate.com/id/2088092/

Will travelers still have to choose between irradiation and molestation?

The private screeners will get paid less and will therefore be even meaner.

Supporters of a privatized TSA here will be delighted to know that they won't have any difficulty getting a glorious bipartisan consensus on this, as below:

GOP House chair pushing TSA privatization while contractor is campaign donor

Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), the incoming chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has written to 200 of the nation's largest airports, urging them to consider switching to private companies.

"If you look at performance, have they ever stopped a terrorist? Anyone can get through," Mica said in an interview. "We've been very lucky, very fortunate. TSA should focus on its mission: setting up the protocol, adapting to the changing threats and gathering intelligence."

What the Post doesn't tell you, until the end of the story, is that one of the big private contractors is in the House Transportation chairman's own district.

Covenant, based in Mica's home district in northeastern coastal Florida, has airport screening contracts in Sioux Falls, S.D., Tupelo, Miss., and seven small airports in northern and eastern Montana. Its deal at San Francisco International is by far its largest. Covenant employs nearly 1,100 people in the bay area, who make up nearly all of its 1,150 workers. The last four-year contract, from 2006 to 2010, totaled $314 million. A new contract has been put out for competitive bids. Meanwhile, Covenant is operating on a two-month contract ending in February.

Full story -- http://www.americablog.com/2010/12/gop-house-chair-pushing-tsa.html

went through Indianapolis, Chicago and Schipol (Amsterdam) airports and I must say, it was not that bad at all. Even while going through costumes in Chicago on the way back was a breeze. We had no issues and we were not sodomized by the TSA or any other security.

Low pay, high turnover for airport screeners
September 15, 2001|By Marshall Wilson, Chronicle Staff Writer

At San Francisco International Airport, the people who clean the food- court tables earn more than those assigned to assure no one sneaks a bomb, gun or knife aboard a jetliner.

In fact, nearly everyone who works at SFO or any other airport earns more than the people responsible for checking passengers and bags for explosives and weapons.

But the $10 an hour that screeners earn at SFO is big money compared to the $8 an hour they make at San Jose International or the $6.70 at Oakland International.

"I've never been in an airport where I've found that the preboard screener is paid more than the person working at the newsstand," said Charlie LeBlanc, managing director of Air Security International, a consulting group. "It leads to extreme amounts of turnover."

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At Boston's Logan International, where two of the planes used in Tuesday's hijackings took off, the entire staff was replaced twice during the 11-month survey period.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-09-15/news/17616434_1_screeners-oakland-international-passenger-screening

My point in OP was let's not let the bastards go back to this either!

I flew from India last week and changed planes in Dubai. I had to go through the normal metal detector, but before I could get into my gate, they had mandatory patdowns for *everybody* -- no machines available (despite the insane amount of money in that country). The women were segregated into their own line and taken into a small booth, but the men like me were patted down in the open. Then they rifled through our carry-ons.

Do you think the fact that both men and women can be patted down in the open makes us lucky, or what?

In Dubai, everybody (and I mean everybody) is patted down. Period.

My comment about the gender-specific differences was just an observation.

Even after going through the scanner someone can still be patted down.

In which case the patdown becomes mandatory.

Few people go through both, and even then, they can request a private patdown in a separate area. In Dubai (if you are a man), that option does not exist. And like I said, everybody there is patted down. It is *not* done randomly like it is here.

I'm frequently amused by the hyperbole on this site regarding things like this. Yes, the procedures can be invasive, but the methodology is better than in places like Dubai. Since the majority of Americans have little contact with foreign countries, they have a limited worldview when it comes to things like this. It's like when I hear cries of how we're turning into a third-world country. Yes, things are bad now, but anybody who's actually been to a third-world country knows it's hyperbole.

We have an option of an x-ray scanner. I realize that TSA is claiming that radiation is low and harmless, but who exactly is verifying these claims? That ignoring all the privacy issues that come with the scanner.

"The FDA has not field-tested these scanners and hasn't inspected the manufacturer. It has no legal authority to require owners of these devices — in this case, TSA — to provide access for routine testing on these products once sold, FDA press officer Karen Riley said."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013733774_scanners22.html

A spike in the intensity of the scanning beam, or a slowdown or pause in the timing of its sweep across a body, could cause significant radiation damage, according to a radiologist and two radiological health physicists.

Really? Which ones? What are their names? This is very shoddy journalism.

"TSA also frequently cites a study it commissioned by the noted Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). But the Hopkins work did nothing to ensure consistent safety of those exposed to radiation from the scanners."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013733774_scanners22.html

How soon we forget how privatization fucked up everything else because we don't like the TSA touching our privates. Short-sighted and right wing bullshit.