Airports May Offload TSA In Wake of Pat-Down Protests

To say that the flying public isn't happy about the new full-body scanners and up-close-and-personal pat-down procedures is putting it very mildly. Well, nobody else is happy about it either and now there's pressure from Congress and airport managers to do something about it.

One unlikely-sounding solution is to turn over airport screening duties to private security firms, relegating the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to more of a regulatory and oversight function.

It may come as a surprise to most travelers to learn that airports are not required to use TSA screeners. In fact, there are at least 16 airports, including San Francisco International, which outsource screening and security to private firms.

There's no law that says airports have to use the TSA. All that's required is that they meet TSA regulations. TSA has the final say on which airports can use private security firms and to approve the firms the airports select.

No one is suggesting the airports would save money by hiring private firms but there's a growing suspicion that the 67,000-employee TSA is not as light on its feet as it might be and that private firms might be able to provide a more personal touch when dealing with passengers.

Besides San Francisco, Kansas City has been using private screeners since 2002 and Orlando's airport is in the process of making the transition. The agency that administers Washington, D.C.'s Dulles International and Ronald Reagan National Airports is also considering making the change, a spokeswoman said, The Washington Post reported.

Republicans take charge

The transition to Republican control of the House of Representatives is likely to move the issue to the priority lane. Republican lawmakers have long detested the notion of creating a new corps of unionized federal employees to do a job that was previously handled by poorly-paid employees of labor contractors.

Of course, it was those poorly-paid screeners who let the murderous 9/11 terrorists onto airplanes in Boston, New York and Washington but TSA's enemies on the Hill say there's no evidence TSA workers would have stopped them.

Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.) is the incoming chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and he has lost little time in letting airports know how he feels about it. Mica has written to 200 of the nation's largest airports, urging them to consider switching to provate companies.

"Before TSA was created, airlines provided for passenger screening," Mica said in a recent op-ed published by the Orlando Sentinel. "The failure to stop the 9-11 attacks arose from the federal government's failure to set appropriate, threat-based performance standards and guidelines for passenger screening."

Mica said he doesn't want to eliminate the TSA, but says it has become a "bloated, poorlly-focused and top-heavy bureaucracy" that does not perform well.

He said that since 9/11, "nearly all of TSA's security measures have been taken after a terrorist attack was attempted. Examples include banning box cutters after 9-11, removing shoes after the shoe bomber, liquid limitations after the liquid-bomb plot, enhanced pat downs after the underwear bomber and now limiting the shipment of toner cartridges on cargo aircraft."

TSA, Mica said, has grown from 16,500 screeners to an agency of nearly 67,000 personnel, including 3,680 administrators making an average salary of $105,000 per year.