Insecure Future

TSA could be killed just as quickly as it was created.

In retrospect, that moment after the Sept. 11 attacks when Americans fell back in love with big government, seeking protection from the fears raised by the most egregious act of terrorism ever perpetrated on American soil, seems to have faded as quickly as it rose.

But in that golden moment, a new federal bureaucracy, the Transportation Security Administration, was born. It was ushered into existence during the mad rush to assure the American public that the federal government was capable of decisive action in the face of the terrorist threat. Small-government conservatives on Capitol Hill who raised objections to federalizing the airport screening workforce were steamrolled.

It's inconceivable that TSA would have been created before 9/11, and no more likely that such an organization could win approval today. In fact, there's no guarantee TSA will survive in anything approaching its current form. The fact that the agency was so easy to create makes it that much easier to kill.

After all, TSA is not some hopelessly entrenched bureaucracy with beneficiaries, corporate backers or determined political supporters to rally to its defense. It is a precarious organization (on its third administrator since it was created, with a fourth on the way) that has befuddled, if not utterly alienated, a great many travelers. And the alternative to its existence-a return to privately run screening operations-is easy to envision. After all, such a system was in place just a few years ago and is being pilot-tested again at several airports across the country. In November, all U.S. airports will get the option to apply to opt out of federal screening.

Under such circumstances, TSA is doing itself no favors by providing a fair amount of ammunition for its critics. The initial buildup of the agency three years ago was a dramatic success story: Tens of thousands of screeners were hired and trained on very tight deadlines, and tough congressional mandates regarding security technology were met. Since then, however, stories about dangerous items slipping past screeners, some thefts and intrusive pat-downs of female passengers have taken their toll on public support for the agency. So has the implementation of policies that are hard to fathom: For example, no cigarette lighters will be allowed in carry-on luggage, TSA announced earlier this year, but up to four books of matches are OK.

The drumbeat of criticism grew louder this spring with the release of a pair of key reports on agency operations. First, the Homeland Security Department's acting inspector general, Richard L. Skinner, harshly criticized TSA's effort to lease and outfit a crisis management operations center in Herndon, Va., saying, "Breakdowns in management controls left the project vulnerable to waste and abuse"-such as a $500,000 purchase of artwork and silk plants.

Then TSA released a report prepared by consulting firm BearingPoint comparing the effectiveness of federal screening operations with those at the five airports pilot-testing the use of private screeners. The study was laden with caveats, but concluded that "privately screened airports have met the standard. . . that contract screening operations perform at the same level or better than federally screened operations."

The conservatives who only reluctantly accepted the creation of TSA are eager to make hay out of such assessments. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., pounced on the screening report, declaring that it showed "we have spent billions of dollars creating a Soviet-style centralized bureaucracy that has resulted in great inefficiencies and inflexibility with little improvement in screener effectiveness."

Mica has long been one of TSA's harshest critics. But at the rate things are going, he could soon be getting a lot of company in Congress.

During the debate in October 2001 over the proposal to federalize screening operations, Sen. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., took to the Senate floor as one of the few voices questioning the idea. "I don't think that over time, the American taxpayer is going to look at a bureaucrat bag screener and say, 'I feel safer because a federal employee is checking my bags,' " he said. Shelby's prediction already might have come true. If so, the case for continuing to operate TSA in its current form will be difficult to make.