Private vs. Public Airport Screeners: Who Gets to Touch Your Junk?
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently decided that it will not allow any more airports to adopt the private security option for passenger screening. This decision was made as part of the TSA’s rejection of a request from the Springfield-Branson Airport to use private screeners. Sen. Roy Blunt is introducing a measure that would require the TSA to allow private screening companies to operate in airports that want them. Who is right here? Should the TSA be the only entity allowed to screen passengers?
I think the key issue here is the idea of competition. In a report for San Diego, the authors at Reason put it well (emphasis added):
“Taxpayers win whenever there is competition, even when the competition is won by public sector providers” said Adam B. Summers, policy analyst at Reason Foundation and co-author of the report. “They get more accountability, better results, and lower costs. [...]“
Private screening companies are used at only 16 airports in the county. Springfield-Branson would have been no. 17. The very existence of competition brings a greater degree of efficiency to the TSA, even if it continues to do the screening in the vast majority of American airports. I know we aren’t used to thinking about the terms “government employees” and “complacency” together, but if the presence of competition in a small number of airports serves to reduce the TSA’s complacency, that benefits all of us.
One six-year-old report found that private screeners did a better job than government employees, but another report said that there are no cost savings because the TSA still overseees the private security companies, which operate according to the same requirements, rules, etc.
I believe the real reason for this denial of the private screening option has more to do with organized labor. From the KMOV Channel 4 report on this story:
The American Federation of Government Employees, the nation’s largest federal employee union, has praised [TSA Administrator John] Pistole’s decision.
TSA employees will be deciding on union representation shortly. Government unions are generally the most ardent opponents of any type of privatization.
Anytime I write anything about Branson, I always think, “What would Yakov say?” So, here is my best attempt at a Yakov Smirnoff–style joke about this situation:
In USA, people worry they the screeners will touch their junk as they board the plane. In Russia, people worry about the plane itself because the whole plane is made of junk!
Fire off better jokes in the comments, if you dare!
I hate to think of the worst, but since TSA etc. was in response to September 11, can I sue the private screeners for negligence? Are they insured? To what amounts?
My limited understanding is that the gov paid to compensate the victims of that day. I believe that the airlines and everyone in between should have been sued out of existence for negligence, assuming insurance didn’t cover the losses.
Should another 9/11 happen, would it be another example of privatized gains and socialized losses?
Comment by Papillon — February 3, 2011 @ 11:51 a.m.
Next time I fly I’m wearing a kilt.
Comment by Eapen Thampy — February 3, 2011 @ 12:55 p.m.
Im order to receive compensation from the 911 victim’s fund, families had to agree not to file lawsuits against airlines or the government. So, yes, the airlines were protected by the fund, but I don’t think there was anything wrong with that in this particular tragedy. I don’t think any good would have come from American and United going the way of Pan Am, especially when there were numerous failures of intelligence, law enforcement, etc. all along the route.
If another tragedy were to occur, I would hope the private screeners would be held liable if it is their mistakes that allow the tragedy to occur. Of course, any situation like that would almost certainly result in the bankruptcy of the company involved – putting compensation right back in the hands of the government.
Comment by David Stokes — February 4, 2011 @ 4:33 p.m.
Being held liable should be more than, ‘Well, our assets are three desks, three phones and three computers. Here.’ That is why I want insurance, and a lot of it, to be held by the screeners.
I don’t know if there is enough profit margin in being a screening company to afford the insurance for a World Trade Center type of loss. And letting the screeners skate may be the interest of the country, but it still offends my sensibilities.
Comment by Papillon — February 7, 2011 @ 9:37 a.m.
What a country!
Comment by Don — February 7, 2011 @ 10:15 a.m.
“What a country! In America, you worry that federal employee will touch your money-maker. In Soviet Russia, state owns method of wealth production!”
Comment by Mary Chism — February 14, 2011 @ 2:10 p.m.