TSA Slated for Dismantling

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A35333-2005Apr7?language=printer>

The Washington Post

washingtonpost.com
TSA Slated for Dismantling


By Sara Kehaulani Goo
 Washington Post Staff Writer
 Friday, April 8, 2005; Page A01

 The Transportation Security Administration, once the flagship agency in
the nation's $20 billion effort to protect air travelers, is now slated for
dismantling.

 The latest sign came yesterday when the Bush administration asked David M.
Stone, the TSA's director, to step down in June, according to aviation and
government sources. Stone is the third top administrator to leave the
three-year-old agency, which was swiftly created in the chaos and
patriotism following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The TSA absorbed
divisions of other agencies such as Federal Aviation Administration only to
find itself now the victim of a massive reorganization of the Department of
Homeland Security.

 The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations
blunders and criticism of its performance from both the public and
legislators. Its "No Fly" list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security
screeners have been arrested for stealing from luggage, and its passenger
pat-downs have set off an outcry from women.

Under provisions of President Bush's 2006 budget proposal favored by
Congress, the TSA will lose its signature programs in the reorganization of
Homeland Security. The agency will likely become just manager of airport
security screeners -- a responsibility that itself could diminish as
private screening companies increasingly seek a comeback at U.S. airports.
The agency's very existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that
the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a
clause permitting the elimination of TSA as "distinct entity" after
November 2004."TSA, at the end of the day, is going to look more like the
Postal Service," said Paul C. Light, a public service professor at New York
University and a Brookings Institution scholar who has tracked the agency
since its birth in February 2002. Light calls the TSA "one of the federal
government's greatest successes of the past half century," and likens it to
the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the
late 1950s, which was also born amid great public excitement to serve an
urgent national need.

 But TSA's time in the spotlight is over and it should now step back to
serve a more narrow role, Light said. "It's a labor-intensive delivery
organization that is not going to be making many public policy decisions.
Its basic job is to train and deploy screeners," he said.

Bush administration officials say they don't expect the demise of TSA,
adding they will know little about the future of the agency until new
Homeland Security Sec. Michael Chertoff completes his review of the
department, which will likely prompt a major overhaul.

"TSA has taken significant steps to enhance the nation's transportation and
aviation security over the course of the past two years and TSA continues
to have the confidence, not only of nation's air travelers, but of
departmental leadership, to continue in this important mission," said
Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. "Secretary Chertoff is open
to adjustments in the way that DHS does business but will not advocate for
or against any change until a thorough review of the changes are complete."
The review is expected to be completed in May or June.The government has
pumped more money into airline security than any other Homeland Security
effort. Much of it goes toward salaries for more than 45,000 security
screeners at over 400 airports.Travelers know TSA mostly by its operations
at the airport security checkpoint, a highly public role that magnifies
agency's smallest blunders and often forces it to have to defend itself.

 "Republicans didn't want to create this [bureaucracy] in the first place.
Democrats see security as an easy target. So you don't have anyone to
defend it," said C. Stewart Verdery, Jr., former assistant secretary for
policy and planning at Homeland Security's Border and Transportation
Security directorate, which includes TSA. "If someone sneaks a knife
through an airport, it makes the news. If the Coast Guard misses a drug
boat, no one hears about it."The TSA won early plaudits for swiftly
building the first new federal agency in decades and restoring confidence
in the nation's aviation system. It achieved 51 goals demanded by Congress
under tight deadlines and took over many responsibilities from the Federal
Aviation Administration, including the expansion and operation of
undercover air marshals. At its peak, it had 66,000 federal employees and
met deadlines that were unthinkable by the federal government, installing
luggage scanning technology and hiring a new workforce of airport security
screeners within a year.

 Bit by bit, however, the agency's responsibilities have steadily dwindled
amid a succession of directors. Many of its operations have been folded
into the Department of Homeland Security, which it joined in 2003. TSA
scrapped early plans to create a broad law-enforcement division. The air
marshals, who lobbied to leave the agency, were transferred to the
department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division -- to the dismay
of TSA leaders. Next, the explosives unit left. Now, the agency's high-tech
research labs in Atlantic City are also going to another division of the
department.Last week, momentum accelerated in the push to replace federal
screeners with private contractors at the nation's airports. FirstLine
Transportation Security, a Cleveland private security firm, became the
first company to win approval for liability coverage under the SAFETY Act,
which means that if the firm takes over checkpoints, claims will be capped
in the event of a terrorist attack.The move clears a major hurdle in the
return of private screening companies. The law creating TSA allowed for
federal screeners to be replaced by private ones after two years.

"We need to step back and look at the billions of dollars we spent on the
system, which doesn't provide much more protection than we had before
9/11," said Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), referring to tests conducted by the
Department of Homeland Security Inspector General that gave a "poor" rating
to TSA screeners for their ability to catch weapons at the checkpoint.
Mica, a key lawmaker who helped write the law that created the agency and
chairs the House aviation subcommittee, would like to see private
contractors take over screening jobs at airports. "TSA was something we put
in place in an emergency, but it needs to evolve. You could whittle TSA
down to a very small organization and do a much better job."

 TSA's three leaders each have had distinct management styles and
approaches to security, creating a culture of perpetual change. Its first
leader, John W. Magaw, was a former head of the U.S. Secret Service who
wanted to make TSA into a broad law enforcement agency with cops at every
checkpoint and agents directing investigations at airports. After six
months of protest from Congress and the airline industry, Magaw was
replaced by a popular, industry-friendly former Coast Guard Commandant,
James M. Loy. Loy spent much of his first year getting rid of what he
called Magaw's "stupid rules" such as the secondary screening at the gates.
Loy was so well liked that he was promoted to the No. 2 job at Homeland
Security, from which he resigned along with former Sec. Tom Ridge earlier
this year.

Stone, TSA's current leader, is new to Washington and has been known for
his cautious -- some say near paranoid -- approach to security. He presides
over a much slimmer TSA, with 52,000 employees, and said he supports the
president's proposed changes and is happy to give up programs -- even large
ones. "I'm a big optimist," Stone said in a recent interview in is office,
which looks out on the side of the Pentagon hit by a United Airlines jet on
Sept. 11, 2001. "I'm not really concerned about turf if that's what is best
for the American people. I want to look back 10 years from now and say we
did it right at TSA."

TSA and Homeland Security spokesmen declined to comment on Stone's
departure. "We don't discuss personnel issues," said Roehrkasse.

Every morning, Stone begins a daily two- to four-hour intelligence meeting,
in which he and 40 of his top managers review incident reports from the
country's 429 major airports and from train, bus and trucking systems. They
comb reports of evacuated terminals, unruly passengers and unattended bags,
looking for the next big threat.

Travelers, airport workers and flight crew members involved in incidents
are nominated to the government's secret "watch lists," meaning they will
be singled out for extra screening the next time they arrive at an airport.
So-called "selectees" wind up on the agency's secret list because they
disrupted a flight -- not necessarily because they are viewed as
terrorists. For at least six months, the selectees will be pulled aside for
extra scrutiny every time they fly. Several thousand names are believed to
be on the list.

Stone, 52, believes the exercise shows that TSA still serves a critical
role in the nation's intelligence network. He has told new Homeland
Security Sec. Michael Chertoff that he hopes the agency will keep this
role. Airlines have complained that hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent
passengers, and even pilots, have been added to TSA's "selectee" list or
that some names are confused with those on the "No Fly" list, subjecting
travelers to delays and hassles at the airport.

At a February meeting between TSA and 18 major carriers, airline
representatives were asked who had crew members on the list and "they all
raised their hands," said one airline source who was present. Airline
officials said crew members on the list must be stripped of their badges
and cannot perform their duties, according to TSA rules.

Stone said "one or two" pilots who are approved to carry guns in the
cockpit have been put on the selectee list in the past year. He said he
recalls a "handful" of other pilots who have been added to the selectee
list because they were involved in "outrageous" incidents. He cited an
incident last year in which an intoxicated pilot punched a patron at a
restaurant and threatened him.

"We take all of these incidents seriously and we work to resolve them
quickly because we know that people's livelihoods are at stake," said TSA
spokesman Mark Hatfield.

Going forward, Stone faces the challenge of keeping TSA's workforce
motivated. Many screeners took their jobs expecting that the new agency
would provide a path to a federal career. At a recent hearing, Stone
acknowledged that screeners suffer from low morale. According to an
internal survey last year, 35 percent of employees are satisfied with their
job.

Stone said security directors around the country sympathize with him,
saying: "You've got the toughest job in federal government. You're under
the gun for every little thing. You're constantly under the microscope."


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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