Airport security has nothing to do with the impasse over immigration enforcement that led to another partial government shutdown. Yet the Department of Homeland Security closed precheck lanes on Sunday to hurry along spending talks. The DHS walked back the policy change, but why does the federal government run airport security at all?
The Transportation Security Administration was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Before then, the Federal Aviation Administration regulated and oversaw airport security. Airlines hired private security firms to carry out security checks.
The old system failed on 9/11, but replacing private security with government agents has not been a stellar success. The TSA conducts covert performance tests but doesn’t share results with the public. A 2017 leak revealed that operations had a failure rate “in the ballpark” of 80 percent during stealth tests. Two years earlier, a report found that agents failed to identify potential weapons over 90 percent of the time. Legislation to increase transparency has gone nowhere.
What the TSA has created are bureaucratic hurdles that tangle up passengers in the politics of D.C. With no market-based mechanisms to improve the experience for the flying public, the agency has earned its poor reputation. From ridiculous reports about treating pickleball paddles as weapons to far more serious accusations of theft, airlines and airports could surely do a better job.
In fact, they have. The majority of commercial airports across Europe use private services for security screening. Frankfurt Airport in Germany and Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom work with private firms, but no one considers these major hubs to be any less safe.
In America, airports are allowed to apply to run their own security with private companies, and they’ve had success. San Francisco International Airport operates under this model and routinely ranks as one of the best in America. A big part of that is because it’s so easy for passengers to move through security.
Yet the process of applying for the Screening Partnership Program is difficult and nontransparent. Even when it’s approved, the TSA is still required to be involved. Expanding the program and making it easier to join would be a good place to start for a broader privatization push.
Every time a politician floats privatizing the TSA, public employee unions act as if they’re calling for no airport security at all. If anything, private contractors — who could face financial penalties for any mistakes or failures to meet agreed-upon standards — would be more effective than government bureaucrats who are difficult to hold accountable.
Meanwhile, the government running airport security means that politics will inevitably influence the process for the worse. Truly private enterprises aren’t held hostage to arbitrary budget gaps in Washington, as the TSA is now. Of the many tasks government needlessly takes on, airport security would be one of the easiest to give up.
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