First, what I want to make clear is that I want the United States of America to have absolutely the safest transportation system in the world where security is concerned.  What I firmly believe however, is that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is not the way to achieve that goal.  In a previous post on this blog (“The TSA vs Israeli Security” – check the September archives) I described the techniques used by Israel’s airport screeners as opposed to what the TSA uses today.  Since that post, a report has surfaced which indicates that our vaunted TSA screeners  missed 95% of all fake explosives and/or weapons which were used by DHS “Red Teams” seeking to test the effectiveness of TSA security procedures in 2015.  I’ll repeat that figure.  95%!  Yet the DHS and TSA executives continue to state that airline passengers and crew are being sufficiently protected.  Are they kidding themselves?  What other product or service would you continue to purchase or support if it failed 50% of the time let alone 95%?  But then again, we don’t have a choice, do we?  It’s the government, here to help us.

That wasn’t always the case.  My former airline, Trans World Airlines, hired a firm to do our security screening on a model based on the Israeli system.  As described in the September post, it worked perfectly.  Even though passengers might have already gone through airport security, they still had to go through our own, prior to boarding the aircraft.  When TWA was sold to American Airlines in 2002, American terminated the contract with our security firm and retained their own.  Just a few weeks later the infamous “Shoe Bomber”, Richard Reid, nearly succeeded in blowing up an American flight from Paris to Miami.  He had failed to pass the French airport security check at Charles DeGaul airport in Paris and missed the flight.   After complaining loudly to American personnel, he was given a room and meals at an airport hotel and ushered through security the following day, with apologies all around, and boarded the Miami flight.  It was only because he was caught by fellow passengers trying to light the fuse connected to the explosive device hidden in his shoe that a tragedy was avoided.  American personnel later reportedly admitted that they were told to avoid “profiling” passengers because they appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent!  I can’t imagine how you might be in the least suspicious of Reid (pictured above) can you? Remember, this was just months after 9/11.

This “Politically Correct” attitude has infiltrated the TSA hierarchy since it’s inception, but particularly during the Obama administration under DHS Chairman Jeh Johnson.  No profiling allowed!  So, this dysfunctional agency continues to exist, continuing to grow more powerful and invasive, and at taxpayer expense.  Perhaps one of the things which can be accomplished under the Trump administration is the elimination of the TSA and the reestablishment of the practice of allowing airlines to do their own security checks, following strict government guidelines of course.  Using TWA’s example would be an excellent start. By the way, all those TSA employees wouldn’t have to join the ranks of the unemployed. They could just become part of the private workforce, working for the airline security departments or the companies the airlines hire to provide their security.