The T & A agency….we mean the TSA Agency…is going to be stripped of its powers and dismantled, according to reports.
The agency that has come under fire for various high profile bungles, allegations of stealing, messes over a no-fly list and humiliating pat downs of women (including grandmas) will apparently be no more:
The Transportation Security Administration, once the flagship agency in the nation’s $20 billion effort to protect air travelers, is now slated for dismantling.
The latest sign came yesterday when the Bush administration asked David M. Stone, the TSA’s director, to step down in June, according to aviation and government sources. Stone is the third top administrator to leave the three-year-old agency, which was swiftly created in the chaos and patriotism following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The TSA absorbed divisions of other agencies such as Federal Aviation Administration only to find itself now the victim of a massive reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security.
The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations blunders and criticism of its performance from both the public and legislators. Its “No Fly” list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security screeners have been arrested for stealing from luggage, and its passenger pat-downs have set off an outcry from women.
Well, no one’s perfect. And:
Under provisions of President Bush’s 2006 budget proposal favored by Congress, the TSA will lose its signature programs in the reorganization of Homeland Security. The agency will likely become just manager of airport security screeners — a responsibility that itself could diminish as private screening companies increasingly seek a comeback at U.S. airports.
The agency’s very existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a clause permitting the elimination of TSA as “distinct entity” after November 2004.”TSA, at the end of the day, is going to look more like the Postal Service,” said Paul C. Light, a public service professor at New York University and a Brookings Institution scholar who has tracked the agency since its birth in February 2002.
Uh, oh…if it’s going to look like the Postal Service that means it’s going to REALLY lose luggage.
Our view: TSA is a government agency. The private sector can bungle, steal, incompetently administer a no-fly list and conduct humiliating pat downs of women (including grandmas) just as effectively as a government agency. Perhaps moreso.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.