The current controversy and unhappiness regarding the TSA is
understandable. Prior to 9/11, passenger screening was the
responsibility of the airlines. At each airport, the carriers
got together and one airline, acting on behalf of all of them,
hired a screening company to staff the checkpoints. There was
no TSA, and it was the FAA which oversaw airport security.
The FAA job was to monitor and surveil the screening companies.
In the post 9/11 world, the TSA was created as part of the
Department of Homeland Security and responsibility for all airport
security was removed from the FAA. And then the inevitable
occurred...the TSA, over the ensuing 15 years, turned into just one
more behemoth, dysfunctional government bureaucracy. It also
became unionized and about as flexible as a steel rod. The
net result has been customer, i.e. the traveling public, service
that redefines lousy.
