It’s about time. Over the years, we learned of numerous TSA making headlines and over-stepping its boundaries, such as a breast cancer survivor being humiliated through a pat-down at JFK airport, a pregnant fliers insulin and ice packs confiscated at Denver airport, forcing a leukemia battling 95 year old woman to remove an adult diaper at Ft Walton Beach airport, taking a toy away from a mentally disabled man at Detroit airport.
We also learned TSA workers at several airports like the one in Honolulu, did not screen bags as they are required to. Learning of this breach, law makers asked for a study by the “Congressional Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure” – resulting in Republican leaders calling for TSA reform and ” to minimize its role in passenger screening.”
Florida Rep. John L. Mica went so far as to call the TSA “a bloated bureaucracy employing beyond 60,000 in need of major changes”, losing the focus on security issues instead of zeroing on security standards and protocols in light of massive personnel overload! The report also stings “The TSA use of $800 million on behavior detection program, which will cost another $1.2 billion over the next five years”. and “$40 million the TSA spent on explosive detection machines”, when the same machines were not capable detecting explosives.” Responding, the TSA criticized the report “a disservice to the dedicated men and women of the TSA”.
On the heels of the Congressional report comes another TSA report, this time by the General Accounting Office (GAO), saying “the TSA lacks the criteria to determine which airport outside the US have the greatest security risks, when the agency has not yet developed a criteria and guidance assessing foreign airport vulnerability. (Dozens of TSA employees inspected airport and airlines outside the US, checking for compliance with international security standards.) When do we learn? Get rid if the entire TSA – they will likely want to retire as other Federal employees after 20 years of service and at a full pension paid for by the taxpayer.
@MikeFriemann – on Twitter