How to prevent future air security debacles

OPINION:

U.S. airline passengers had good reason to be upset by the long, slow-moving lines at airport security checkpoints last month. Fortunately, the chaos is over — at least for now.

President Trump ordered government officials to effectively shuffle funds from one government account to another to ensure that Transportation Security Administration employees were paid.

This resolved the immediate problem, but the underlying cause remains: our near-total reliance on government transportation security officers to inspect luggage and screen passengers at most of America’s commercial airports.

To avoid a replay, we need to be asking more fundamental questions about the federal government’s oversize role in airport security and whether better alternatives exist. (Hint: They do.)

As most Americans know, the Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

Before that, local airport operating agencies, such as the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which operates Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport, were largely responsible for passenger screening. This was true at most overseas airports as well.

Tasked with “making America safe again,” the Homeland Security Department conglomerated, among other agencies, the U.S. Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Secret Service and the (then) newly created TSA, which became responsible for screening airline passengers before they proceed to their boarding gates.

TSA officers still perform this task at most U.S. airports.

Advertisement Advertisement

The security delays at U.S. airports last month were caused by TSA staffing shortages stemming from the “partial” government shutdown triggered by a budget stalemate over funding for the Homeland Security Department.

The shutdown, however, had nothing to do with TSA. It was sparked by opposition to the tactics used by two other Homeland Security Department agencies, ICE and CBP, in rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants (especially in Minneapolis, where two anti-ICE activists were fatally shot by federal agents).

Ironically, ICE and CBP operations were unaffected by the partial shutdown. They were assured funding through President Trump’s reconciliation bill passed in July.

Although frustrated passengers were forced to spend hours in slow-moving security lines at many airports, that wasn’t the case at other airports. Passengers at Kansas City International Airport, Sarasota-Bradenton International in Florida, San Francisco International Airport, one of the nation’s busiest, and others continued to go through security in minutes, not hours.

That’s because these are among the 20 U.S. airports that outsource passenger monitoring to private contractors through TSA’s Screening Partnership Program.

Advertisement Advertisement

Under that program, introduced in the early 2000s, the feds remain responsible for setting security rules, such as whether passengers must remove belts at checkpoints, and the protocols for conducting body scans and carry-on baggage searches. Preboarding passenger screening is handled by employees of private companies, such as San Francisco’s Covenant Aviation Security, whose funding doesn’t depend on Washington.

While passengers in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New York and elsewhere were reporting screening delays of two hours or more during the recent unpleasantness, wait times at San Francisco’s security checkpoints were averaging less than 30 minutes despite increased passenger traffic, as many Bay Area flyers shifted departures to San Francisco from Oakland and San Jose to avoid delays.

If security is privatized nationwide, then local airport authorities, commercial airlines and passengers would jointly bear the costs, sharply reducing TSA’s $12 billion annual budget.

It also would likely improve service because private security agents would have strong incentives to treat passengers as valued customers rather than as nuisances to be ordered around.

Advertisement Advertisement

Most important, privatizing airport security screening would eliminate the risk of nationwide disruptions caused by government- or agencywide shutdowns.

Private security firms screen passengers at commercial airports in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Spain, among other countries. Why not here?

Privatizing TSA is something all Americans should be able to get behind.

• William F. Shughart II, distinguished research adviser and senior fellow of the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, is the J. Fish Smith professor in public choice at Utah State University’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business.

Advertisement Advertisement