Former TSA Head Kip Hawley Admits How Broken Airport Security Is
Hawley writes in the WSJ, echoing what so many of us have been saying for so long -- to no avail:
More than a decade after 9/11, it is a national embarrassment that our airport security system remains so hopelessly bureaucratic and disconnected from the people whom it is meant to protect. Preventing terrorist attacks on air travel demands flexibility and the constant reassessment of threats. It also demands strong public support, which the current system has plainly failed to achieve.The crux of the problem, as I learned in my years at the helm, is our wrongheaded approach to risk. In attempting to eliminate all risk from flying, we have made air travel an unending nightmare for U.S. passengers and visitors from overseas, while at the same time creating a security system that is brittle where it needs to be supple.
Any effort to rebuild TSA and get airport security right in the U.S. has to start with two basic principles:
First, the TSA's mission is to prevent a catastrophic attack on the transportation system, not to ensure that every single passenger can avoid harm while traveling. Much of the friction in the system today results from rules that are direct responses to how we were attacked on 9/11. But it's simply no longer the case that killing a few people on board a plane could lead to a hijacking. Never again will a terrorist be able to breach the cockpit simply with a box cutter or a knife. The cockpit doors have been reinforced, and passengers, flight crews and air marshals would intervene.
Second, the TSA's job is to manage risk, not to enforce regulations. Terrorists are adaptive, and we need to be adaptive, too. Regulations are always playing catch-up, because terrorists design their plots around the loopholes.
Disgustingly, Kip is suddenly open about all the TSA's massive flaws -- just as he's selling a book.
And I am certain that along with his book he will be opening a lobbying outfit, or selling even better solutions for scanning ala Michael Chertoff.
jerry at April 13, 2012 11:44 PM
I'm going to skip my standard screed on the TSA. You can read it here.
The thing I wonder about -- if post 9/11 the government had simply dictated to the airlines "You have to secure your flights against another similar attack," what would have happened?
Would they have built another Pinkerton? Would you have people flying in paper coveralls? Would you have airlines handing out Taser's to the people not carrying concealed weapons. All of the above? None of the above?
My typical view is that the TSA was not needed. Putting the onus on the free market to make a safe product with an open ended regulation and let them adapt to it is much better. Writing a paint-by-numbers overreaching and overarching regulation is a fail. I can think of about 25 ways to bypass the TSA systems and do it again, unless the passengers stop me. Which they will.
This is similar to my comment about the Titanic. If the regulations are written properly and open ended, then you don't end up with useless government red tape that is ineffective as time moves on. The market will adapt or die.
Jim P. at April 14, 2012 12:18 AM
The market will adapt or die.
Applies to this case, and also to the insurance and bank bailout bullshit.
TSA: not needed nor wanted by most of the traveling public. Pre 9/11 security would be as effective now, given the change in attitude by most people flying (as Jim P. has pointed out numerous times).
DrCos at April 14, 2012 4:59 AM
Thank you DrCos. I'm glad to know people are listening to me. I just wish the U.S. Government would too.
Jim P. at April 14, 2012 9:44 AM
Firing the TSA is just a start. How about getting rid of the unconstitutional checkpoints the Border Patrol operates well away from the borders on freeways (such as the one on I-5 at San Clemente which was specifically ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in US v. Ortiz in 1975!!!)
Bureaucrats who won't obey the Constitution they swore an oath to uphold cannot expect respect from the public. They've worked for us long enough. Time to fire them all, and their superiors all the way to the Oval Office.
John David Galt at April 18, 2012 5:15 PM
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