TSA Airport Screeners Are Under Siege

Representative John Mica, the law-and-order Florida Republican who chairs the House Transportation Committee, helped create a government department many Americans have come to despise more than the IRS: the Transportation Security Administration. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, it was hard for anyone to argue against a trained corps of officers dedicated to keeping terrorists off airplanes. As the TSA grew larger and more expensive in the decade since Mica had second thoughts. He envisioned TSA having around 16,000 screeners. Instead, the number swelled to more than 50,000—without much evidence that all those blue shirts reminding people to take off their shoes are making anyone safer. Dozens of incidents, many caught on video, in which TSA workers have screwed up (missing a loaded pistol stashed in a carry-on bag in Los Angeles) or thrown their weight around for no apparent reason (harassing a young mom in Phoenix who packed breast milk for her baby) have made the TSA an object of public derision.

Not exactly the desired result for an agency charged with instilling confidence. “We have an army of bureaucrats that’s running this huge system that’s dysfunctional and is protecting its turf,” says Mica, who finally reached his limit when he saw a TSA help-wanted ad printed on a pizza box. Now he wants to cut the size of the $7.8 billion agency dramatically and hand over airport screening to private security companies. He says travelers weary of the indignities of the security line are on his side: “The pressure is building. It makes my job easier.”