After reading both articles passed out in class, I have to talk about the Known Crew-Member (KCM) issue. It's not unusual for any government agency to botch things up. Even to a person who only flies occasionally and has very little knowledge of the screening process at airports, could read this article, and think to themselves, "you mean to tell me that the pilots and flight attendants don't have a separate line from passengrs to be screened to get into the airport to do their job?". This is absurd. What is even more baffling to me is the fact that 10 years after 9/11 ALPA is just now making progress on this issue. Although the KCM program has only been extended to pilots at this time, there is talk about including flight attendants to the program as well.
Another topic worth noting is the manufactured importance of an agency about it's own existence. This comment may not be entirely true, however it is becoming more prevalent in the industry of the TSA. Audry Hudson writes in her article, TSA Creator Says Dismantle, Privatize the Agency that the TSA has gone form a estimated cost of a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion. This jump in cost may be directly or indirectly related to the new boogeyman created by the TSA as stated by Jim Coyne in the article "Terrorism's Impact on Business Aviation".
The business of keeping terrorism out of the skies has ballooned into an agency out of control, and that under actual testing of itself from within has proven it to be only 60% effective. My faith in the TSA is less than what I would like it to be and believe that Rep. John Mica said it best when he said that "it's an agency that is always one step out of step". It seems unfortunate that the main thing the TSA has become good at is being the most hated agency in the United states.
The TSA is a reactive and not a proactive agency. The only way for any agency charged with the security of anything is to find ways to thwart attacks before they happen. This point is made well by Isaac Yeffet in the article How the Israelis do Airport Security, where he says most of our measures are reactive, and calls them "A patch on a patch". We have read in the articles provided that the United States is lagging in comparison to other countries. However since 9/11 we have been successful in stopping any attack that would have succeeded. That's not to say that these were stopped before the person boarded a flight with some intention of an attack. But that the person in question was neutralized in flight and arrested after the airplane landed. This is clearly reactive security measures. Even in the case of the shoe bomber where the TSA had many warnings about the person, well in advance. With no absolutes in how to make the TSA function effectively and efficiently, we can only hope that the people within the agencys can continue to improve upon what seems to be a security fiasco by working in cooperation with every side of the spectrum.
Well-written post with an interesting perspective on the economics of the TSA.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you bring up the KCM issue. It is rather preposterous that it hasn't happened before now. Along those lines, this link here, http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/trusted_traveler/ , gives info about a 'trusted traveller' program. This should be around already. As far as I can tell, it's only available for international entry, and not domestic use, which is atrocious. Streamline the security process, government saves money, customers save time, it's a win win.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the TSA is a reactive agency. I also feel that most things have to respond and adapt to challenges that arise. Even if the TSA were to come up with some new method of security that is proactive in nature, those that want to harm will ultimately find a new way around the security.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much it would cost to have highly trained individuals that the Israel has at all the airports in the United States. I don’t think that people would be willing to deal with a more costly method of security, or one that might be viewed as more intrusive.
The known crew member idea is a good way to make things a bit faster at security checkpoints, expanding this to airline employees like flight attendants is a good idea as well. The people that work for the airlines go through background checks and screening to get the job. I do thing there should be random screening on a regular basis in order to keep people honest, but the idea that they have to get checked every time is a bit overkill.
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