TSA News Blog Numbers Guy Bill Fisher Calls Janet Napolitano Out On Lie About TSA Lines
He quotes activist and author Becky Akers, "who has written extensively on the TSA and has a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the agency."
She notes:
Even Congress, no bastion of common sense, observed in that House report, "A private sector entity in the face of a shrinking customer base usually must downsize. TSA, by contrast, has continually grown its ranks despite fewer travelers."...Now, despite an annual budget of almost $8 billion, the TSA insists its poverty will keep us standing in line for hours. Fine: Let's return aviation security to the airlines, where it belongs and where it resided until the '60s."
Fisher blogs:
The agency has swollen despite a decline in the number of passengers. The agency had 45,500 workers in 2008 and screened 650 million passengers. But in 2011 the TSA needed 48,000 workers to process fewer than 640 million passengers. TSA staffing exceeded 50,000 workers in 2012, with estimates as high as 58,000....As we have written here before, the average cost per screening is $11.21. But the TSA 9/11 security fee is $2.50 per U.S. enplanement (or screening), which leaves taxpayers to pay $8.71 for every passenger who uses a U.S. airport.
Incredibly, the head of the Department of Homeland Security has now threatened to hold passengers hostage in airport security lines if there are even the most minuscule cuts in funding of this bloated agency. Napolitano's ill-conceived and baseless statement makes one question whether this was a threat of extortion or simply an indication of her incompetence.
"question whether this was a threat of extortion or simply an indication of her incompetence."
Why can't it be both?
David L. Burkhead at March 8, 2013 6:19 AM
It's not like this don't do this already. Of the airports I've frequented over the past few years, St. Louis has been one of the worst; there it's nearly always at least an hour wait, any time of day between 6 AM and 10 PM. I observed during my trips through there that TSA managed the number of lines open so as to maintain a minimum wait time of about 45 minutes; there were any number of times I observed that when the line started to get short, they closed a line and the employees disappeared. (But they always managed to keep on duty that employee whose job was to yell at anyone whom they thought was taking too long to put their clothes back on after exiting the line.)
Cousin Dave at March 8, 2013 6:28 AM
Somehow I missed the story about the air marshals shooting the Christian missionary dead.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_security_menace_8ih3jXZydNNon7udVBll2M
Also scary:
'...Federal investigators found last year that “at least 16 individuals later accused of involvement in terrorist plots [had flown] 23 different times through US airports since 2004,” according to CBS News. “Yet none were stopped by TSA ... officers working at those airports.”...'
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 8, 2013 6:57 PM
Scary?
What the hell is new here?
Glad you asked. I can tell you.
99% of the activities a criminal engages in are perfectly legal.
She can drive a car to your kid's elementary school, stand next to you at the bus stop, go to Disney World, borrow a gun from a neighbor for that pesky stray dog killing her chickens, vote...
All the stuff YOU do. Seeing the dim outline of this, some people crying for security invent snares that only catch them up in a web of misdemeanors and felonies, because the layperson thinks "the law" is what he or she thinks, not a definition to be applied uniformly.
Just as some say, "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it", they imagine they can see a criminal. It's an ego thing.
Now, here's the snare: if you insist that these people be apprehended on their first footstep in the terminal, you must accept more intrusion into YOUR life as part of the search.
Your reward? Long lines, the fondling of toddlers, your grandmother and even Hollywood stars, because somebody thinks that criminals are always committing criminal acts.
We got here by being abysmally stupid, by assuming that we must treat the valedictorian and the thug the same - and by assuming that everyone is guilty until proven innocent.
That last is what you should object to at airports, because public practice makes it into court, and you will shortly be required to prove your innocence everywhere you go.
You're welcome.
Radwaste at March 9, 2013 4:43 AM
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