Two decades after its creation, the results of the TSA experiment are a complete disaster. The agency has not made air travel safer. It has merely made it costlier and more time-consuming to fly.
Despite having a budget of over $11 billion, study after study has shown the TSA is essentially engaged in security theater, making people feel safe without improving safety. Undercover tests of airport security checkpoints have demonstrated that TSA agents failed to catch weapons and explosives up to 95 percent of the time.
The TSA has by their own admission never prevented a terrorist attack and should be abolished in favor of a privatized security screening process that is required to pass random inspections or lose the contract. The current system is nothing more than a government jobs program that inconveniences and violates the rights of millions without any added safety.
I truly do not know what the TSA has accomplished. Granted there must be something. But, if they are going to do a total search on a senior in a wheelchair or a baby in diapers (and yes I know that explosives can be smuggled in for both situations) and NOT search someone in a burka because of a religious issue, then the TSA has become part of the problem. Now, with the illegals being able to show a letter from the government, even felons, and to bypass the whole security screening process, then the TSA has become nothing but an illegal process of targeted harassment. If I, am an American, must go through the screening process, be patted down or seen naked in the x-ray machine while someone else is able to bypass that same security check point on account of a letter by the government having no idea if that person is a security risk or even felon for having committed a violent crime, then I am being discriminated against by the TSA and government. This, truly is no different from when the government did not allow being of color to use the same drinking fountain.
Here is a story about going through the TSA … I took a carry-on, as I was going on a very short trip. My husband and I are picky about what we eat and drink, so without thinking I packed a Zero Water filter and pitcher in its unopened package, I repeat it was sealed in its package, NEVER BEEN OPENED. I was pulled aside and questioned about what it was. I said, “It is a ZERO Water Filter, just like the package says.” In the meantime, my husband had not noticed I had been held up and finally came back to where I was being held. He by the way was wearing his military boots and had his military back pack on his back. The TSA guy asked him, is this your wife. He replied, “Yes, what is the matter?” The agent said, “We think she has a bomb.” “Are you kidding me,” I thought!! They called the head TSA guy, while continuing to open and dissect my filter. They had gloves on of course. After about 20 embarrassing minutes, where I was also strip searched by 2 female officers, down to my bra and underwear, they decided indeed it was a water filter. I was allowed to get dressed, pack my bag , which they tore apart, and go to my flight.
TSA Agents must go home at night and think about how many people they VIOLATE on a daily basis.
I can bet there is a way to streamline this- maybe not TSA but a process where your bags and your body is scanned but no random look throughs, I don’t agree with this one- I do think TSA needs restructuring and streamlining
Red tape bureaucracy on full display here. This is not security, this is a harassing check point of the people(Papers please…Papers!). Airport security in it’s original form failed on 9/11. We then rewarded these very people with creating a federal department called TSA. This made the failures, government employees with all the benefits that come with that.
Dealing with TSA employees is equal to the DMV, but they can make your life worse.
The TSA like 99% of all federal agencies violate the 10th amendment. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.