Republican skepticism of big government bureaucracies has been proven right once again with this week’s revelation that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is performing more like the DMV and the Postal Service than, say, Israeli airport security.
When the DMV or the Postal Service screw up, you wait in line longer or your letter gets delayed. When the TSA screws up, lives are potentially on the line.
For all of the changes ushered in after 9/11, bureaucratic ineptitude and political correctness appear to be forces that have proven too powerful to overcome.
Whenever I travel out of Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv – Israeli’s only International airport – I get flagged for special screening. It’s the Pakistan and Qatar visa stamps in my passport – revealing how Israeli airport security focuses on screening for dangerous people, not merely dangerous objects. 
The TSA’s big failure this week is the result of an internal report finding the agency’s inspectors failed to find fake weapons 95% of the time. In focusing on screening for dangerous objects, rather than dangerous people, the agency has set itself up for failure.
Ultimately, screening for dangerous people risks running afoul of political correctness guidelines. Senior citizens in wheelchairs must receive the same level of scrutiny as someone meeting the characteristics of 9/11 hijackers. Anything else would be “profiling.”
Yet, profiling is not what’s needed. That’s the product of lackluster training, which TSA appears to have in abundance. Behavior is the key and TSA agents, with their sky high turnover and infrequent drills, lack the training and guidance to screen for people with dangerous intentions.
When I fly out of Ben Gurion, between the time I enter the terminal and passing the last checkpoint, I’m asked questions several times by different people – and they are well trained. It’s clear from the way in which the screeners are looking me in the face, checking my eye contact and behavior, looking for signs of dangerous intent.
During more rigorous queries, they ask for seemingly irrelevant details. “Just how does one get elected a Republican chairman?” They’re not interested in my answers – they’re interested in seeing if my answers are consistent or cause me stress. A person providing a cover story about being a doctor probably hasn’t thought through to the level of where he went to medical school, for example.
They also review where I have traveled, by checking each page of my passport.
By contrast, the TSA agents I just passed a few minutes ago barely made eye contact with me at all. But they were very concerned about the metal framed sunglasses in my pocket.
The TSA agents themselves are not to blame – their bosses, and ultimately the politicians, are. Agents are working in a system they did not design, fund, or maintain. They’re men and women doing the job they were hired to do. The problem is, they’re doing the wrong job.
It’s not clear that doing the right job will cost more money than doing the wrong job. How much money is wasted each day by confiscating laser pointers and subjecting 80 year old seniors from Topeka to explosive swab tests?
What is needed is a shift in strategy, away from screening things and toward screening for people with dangerous intent. Until then, we will continue to hear stories of flight attendants unable to give away unopened cans of soda because they could be used as weapons – while ignoring the fact that anyone can take a glass bottle of vodka from the duty free shop, break the end off and have a far more dangerous weapon.
Security is not something that just happens at a single point in the airport. Focusing all security measures on the checkpoint is another mistake. When flying out of Ben Gurion, it’s clear that the security you see begins at the entrance to the airport grounds – nobody is there without a reason. Inside of the terminal one quickly realizes that security measures are being executed throughout the check in process, from the time you enter the building, to entering the check in line, to screening, to the passport check, and so on. A true multi-layered system is less likely to be defeated.
The TSA must stop being both a regulatory agency and a security agency. It cannot and should not be regulating itself. Perhaps security contractors competing with one another to pass rigorous tests and standards adopted by the agency consistent with a new strategy focused on dangerous individuals is an approach worthy of discussion. I’m sure there are others.
This week’s TSA report is an opportunity to shift strategy to one that is more effective, focused, and ultimately more secure. Unfortunately, the typical response to a report like this is to keep doing the same thing, just with more money, checking every piece of hay because it might be a needle.