How long will TSA be around? Forever?
 

I wonder....

Do you think they are here for good?

Would another terrorist act involving planes get rid of them, or do you think that the longer we go without incident will cause more reason to get rid of them?

I fear the current political climate is not going to do anything anytime soon to ease angst towards this country, and as long as that exists the TSA will be around.

Although I tend to think that in 20 years, there will not be any TSA. I am curious what you think, why, and when you predict their downfall?

Any federal agency as large as the TSA with a geographically distributed employee base won't be disappearing entirely any time soon.

The only way this thing will go away is if there is a big push for privatization with the TSA rump (perhaps renamed) made into an oversight organization.

I think the OP hit the nail on the head.

TSA will never go away. If there are no attacks, it "proves" TSA is doing its job. If there is an attack, it "proves" we need to give even more power and liberties to the TSA.

Privatization, with strict government oversight, would be ideal, as a private company might actually return some semblance of "customer service" to the screening process, an idea that TSA management has no familiarity with.

I do hope that one day, US airports are rid of this disease of an agency but it's unfortunately unlikely to happen anytime soon as long as we remain a nation of cowards and allow our elected representatives to behave in such a disgusting, un-American manner by creating and continuing to maintain the TSA. :(

I hope they go away tomorrow, but like others have said....
dont see that happening anytime in the hear future.

What is the alternative to no TSA? back to private, or careless at best? Do you think independent would be better, or worse? Neither one will prohibit the next attempt, but would it make it that much easier for you to travel ?:confused:

The other problem behind this is that no politician is going to want to be seen as casting a vote for removing the TSA lest they be seen as being "soft on terror" or "against the safety of the US" or some such rot.

Now that cockpit doors are essentially impenetrable and flight-crew protocols prevent a hijacker from taking control of a plane, I see no fundamental reason why airplanes need to be any safer than, say, shopping malls. Therefore, I would have no more "security" than exists at a typical shopping mall. I might actually dismantle the whole airport apparatus, except for the x-ray machines, and rely on FAMs to provide security in the air. I would continue to x-ray checked baggage for bombs. The rest is unnecessary.

Bruce

What it all boils down to is accountability.

The Government carefully crafted the TSA to do everything that private screeners did, but did a great job at stripping away accountability.

Seriously....thank about it. At the checkpoints right now, what is done differently that private screeners couldn't do? TSA is using the same magnetometers and the same x-ray machines the privates used. The additional equipment being used at checkpoints are longer tables leading up to the mouth of the x-ray machine and the additional hand-held magnetometers. What's the difference?

It was even caught on tape, some of the 9/11 bad guys were given a secondary. None of them broke any rules in place on that day.

The difference right now is procedure when people go through the WTMD and the appearance of the screeners, those nice white shirts TSAers wear. And the prohibited items list was updated.

The only consistent, tangible, mechanical item consistently added into the mix of screening is the CTX machine. And I sincerely doubt private screeners could not operate that.

As I said at the beginning, it all boils down to accountability. That is meant in two-fold.

First, the TSA's lack of it.

And secondly, once the suits figure out how to disperse accountability and liability (the airports don't want to go private for fear of legal action upon them if a plane goes down), the TSA as we know it would reduce in size dramatically. That is Kip Hawley's greatest fear, because if that ever happened, the privatization floodgates would burst open.

That said, the TSA will never go away entirely, because as once Government gets power, it does not let go very easily. But the TSA would clearly be restructured.

The Soviet Union fell. There's always hope.

Once the new members of the House Subcommittee on Aviation have settled into their new roles and gotten the lay of the land, I will resend the letter and solution that went to Rep. Mica and his fellow members. They ignored it.

For giggles, I will try it on their Democratic replacements just to see how they react....but I won't hold my breath.

I am not hopeful that such a huge chunk of the federal government will be downsized any time soon. We currently have no major political parties advocating a smaller federal government.
:mad:

I certainly wouldn't expect a different response.

The TSA is the goverment's ultimate dog and pony show. In reality it does very, very little to stop terriorists. Most of their job should be done with technology that offers ease of use and very unobtrusive in nature. Unfortunately, there is no politican alive that would suggest that we do away with nearly strip searching granny at the security point or even allow us to travel again with enough tioletries to sustain us for more than one day (anyone who can survive on what you can place in a baggy for several days would to me have hygiene that is somewhat suspect).

In other words, the TSA, or some other version thereof, will not be going away in my lifetime.

It's bigger than the TSA -- it's about the entire DHS. Of the 23 agencies that were merged into the DHS, the TSA was the only one that didn't exist, except for a few functions contained in the former FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security. Unlike Customs, Border Patrol, FEMA, etc, the TSA had no existing infrastructure or culture. So, in some sense, the DHS IS the TSA.

In theory, you would have to disband the entire DHS and send the staff functions of the TSA back to the FAA. Congress would never let that happen because the TSA has become an economic boost to lots of industries and has become a non-trivial government employer in some pretty backwoods areas. One could probably make a case that contractor screeners would be cheaper, but, the DHS isn't about saving money.

Finally, the government (executive and legislative branches combined) are basically risk-avoiders. They would have to take a risk to disband the TSA, so, it won't happen.