Huge cost overruns; irrational, ineffective screening policies; allegations and arrests for theft and smuggling (not to mention aiding and abetting criminals – like the Buffalo, NY agent who confessed to helping a drug dealer sneak through security), and just plain incompetence:

In 2006, screeners at Los Angeles and Chicago O’Hare airports failed to find more than 60% of fake explosives during checkpoint security tests.

 

Welcome to the Transportation Security Administration – poster child for everything that’s wrong with big, fat, intrusive government.
 
When even Rep. John Mica (R-FL), author of the legislation that created the agency, says “the whole thing is a complete fiasco” – you know we’ve got a problem. Mica pulled no punches in a recent interview with HUMAN EVENTS: TSA Creator Says Dismantle, Privatize the Agency.
 
So could the TSA be a much bigger disaster? Well, yes.
 
Earlier this summer, President Obama, always on the look-out for ways to make a bad situation worse, decided that TSA employees should be given collective bargaining – at least on a limited basis.
Hey – what a great idea! Let’s make sure the TSA has the ability to totally shut down air travel in America if union demands aren’t met.
Jena McNeill at the Foundry wrote about the administration’s obvious political pandering:

Efforts to placate labor unions shouldn’t form the basis of security policy…
…(As Rep. Mica) stated, “TSA needs to get out of the personnel business and get in the security business.”

 
Back in June, Rep. Mica’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee issued a report that strongly recommended privatizing the TSA.
 
Until January of this year, airports had the opportunity to do just that on an individual basis; the Screening Partnership Program (SPP) gave them the ability to opt of using federal screeners. But, caving to political pressure (heavy lobbying from the public sector unions), the TSA stopped offering that option, a move that will make our skies less safe as McNeill argued at the time:

This action makes no sense. Private security screeners, under the oversight of TSA, are a perfectly legitimate and secure method for handling the screening of airline passengers. This move—as well as recent changes in the primary screening process, including the extensive deployment of full-body scanners (and/or physical pat-downs), at U.S. airports—raises serious concerns about the Administration’s aviation security strategy…
 
…Politics has no place in the nation’s security policy. If airports want the flexibility to improve their customer service or have additional reasons why they want to privatize in a manner that maintains security, the government should encourage this effort.
Privatization is the only sensible solution at this point, both fiscally and from a national security standpoint.

 
Rep. Mica’s report cited several clear benefits of privatization:
• Lower cost to taxpayers – about 40% less per passenger! ($2.42 vs. $4.22)
• More efficient – by 65%!
• Better morale and more flexibility = better customer service

 
In fact, the ONLY “benefit” to continuing the status quo at the TSA is more votes for the Democrats. What a surprise.
 
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Up-dated:
See also ~ End Of Its Grope? at Investors.com