Here's the problem I see. I had one government job. During the time I worked that job, I remember reforms being suggested. The reaction from the entrenched was "we tried that in xxxx and the idea didn't work out." The simple fact is that any structure being pressed to move out of a comfortable position can easily prove the nonworkability of any idea they don't like. It really takes an outsider who is willing to kick butt and be hated. I saw that person in my job. She came from Honeywell, and there were civil servants who found the mess to be very comfortable who, despite her position as the boss of every manager in the whole division, swore at her to her face. They believed there was no risk in flipping her off. She could so easily have folded her tent, but she was kinda feisty. She had big changes she wanted made, and they couldn't force her out with frustration. So before I left the place, I saw some real differences from the status quo. The biggest one had the finance application go completely online, eliminating about 1.2 million pages printed annually (paper is cheap but the OT for the printing wasn't). It also had the platform changed to Hitachi, with the county selling service to the city.

She saw all this through to success, then she shook the dirt of the place from her heels and moved on to a job where she got the respect she felt she deserved.

Having described all that, I have to ask, who the *beep* is there in TSA structure who even cares that much? To me they are all marching in place, participating in the fiasco of spending billions on "security" and refusing any accountability. As long as the heavyweights in politics don't back them up against a wall, the optimism of some TSO's here seems very naive.