News item: TSA Puffer machines pulled from service
News item: Man sneaks into wheel well of plane, dies.
News item: Passenger boards international flight in Houston with loaded gun.
The time to invest in a big, expensive alarm system is before thieves break into your house and ransack the place, not after. That's not what we did in the United States, though. We had our collective house violated nearly ten years ago, and then went out and bought an alarm system as quickly as we could. We didn't care what it cost, and didn't take the time to give too much thought to what worked best. We just needed something, anything. What we got was a mess.
With all their vaunted security measures, how did a kid manage to stroll up to a jet unnoticed at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport and sneak into the wheel well of the aircraft? TSA has no answer to that question.
With all the strict devotion to state of the art security, how did the TSA manage to spend $30 million for 94 "puffer" machines that turn out to be absolutely worthless in the airport environment for which they were designed? Nobody proved the machines' efficacy in a real world environment before they were installed.
How is it that TSA employees at Honolulu International Airport couldn't be bothered to inspect baggage being loaded onto planes that would then be flying across the Pacific? Pick one: it's a training issue, a management issue, and/or a hiring issue.
TSA manages to fail its own department's internal investigations. Their current annual budget is more than $7 billion. That's around two years of aid to Afghanistan, more money than Major League Baseball makes in a year, and 1/16 of Exxon/Mobil's revenue in the first quarter of 2011.
There are countless more stories of TSA incompetence. Is it possible that those billions haven't been well spent? That's what I think, and I agree with David Freddoso: throwing good money after bad is poor public policy, and needs to stop. Of course TSA's inability to do its job long predates President Obama's administration, but it's now his job to fix this mess. This isn't an insignificant problem, since we're all told TSA is a key linchpin in our Homeland Security structure. If it was important enough to waste countless billions on to create and run, it's important enough to do it right.
This would be an excellent time to do away with some of the patently idiotic "security theater" rules that have been in place for years, such as making passengers remove their shoes and prohibiting liquids (those dangerous snow globes). What works in airport security? That's tricky, because the one structure that is an absolute proven success is the Israeli model, which wouldn't be feasible in the US.
What needs to happen? Sadly, we as a country need to do something we appear to have become incapable of doing over the past generation: have a serious, rational discussion about what's in our national interest. It's time to sit down, analyze what works, what doesn't, how much we're willing to spend for the safety we desire, and what we're willing to give up to get that safety.
The current alarm system is just plain broken, It's not making us safer, just more paranoid.
Image credits: Taxiing aircraft, USAirways.
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