By Jim Harper
It’s a good bet that news of a new thwarted underwear bomber will underlie more than one argument for the strip-search machines American travelers encounter even at the domestic terminals of our airports. According to the AP: The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit [...]
New Underwear Bomb, New Threat Information is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Jim Harper
Why is it that the head of the Transportation Security Administration comes out with his ideas for reform three years after leaving office? Is it the book he’s got coming out next week? That’s part of it. But he supplies the real answer: “TSA’s bureaucratic momentum and political pressures.” It’s possible to imagine an agency [...]
The TSA Won’t Be Reformed is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
By Jim Harper
Why is it that the head of the Transportation Security Administration comes out with his ideas for reform three years after leaving office? Is it the book he’s got coming out next week? That’s part of it. But he supplies the real answer: “TSA’s bureaucratic momentum and political pressures.” It’s possible to imagine an agency [...]
The TSA Won’t be Reformed is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
Want to cut government spending? Without compromising security? The Ryan budget is a good start, but we can do more. How about rethinking the Transportation Security Administration? We need TSA. After all, terrorists continue to target commercial aviation in the U.S. But, do we really need a massive, bloated bureaucracy and an army of government gropers tossing through our trousers and luggage? Probably not. With a budget bigger than the FBI, it’s time to seriously rethink whether TSA is giving us the biggest bang for our security buck. One key finding … More
Members of Congress have said it before, and their saying it again: It’s time for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to allow new members into the Security Partnership Program (SPP), the nearly eight-year-old program allowing U.S. airports to opt out of federal screening and instead privatize their security forces. In a letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole this week, Representatives John Mica (R–FL), Darrel Issa (R–CA), and Jason Chaffetz (R–UT) wrote: Airport operators have expressed tremendous interest in the SPP and that expansion beyond the small fraction of the U.S. … More
By Jim Harper
The TSA’s response yesterday to a video challenging strip-search machines was so weak that it acts as a virtual confession to the fact that objects can be snuck through them. In the video, TSA strip-search objector Jonathan Corbett demonstrates how he put containers in his clothes along his sides where they would appear the same [...]
Viral Video Strips Down Strip-Search Machines is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
Congress is at it again. Earlier this month, Representatives Bennie Thompson (D–MS), Edward Markey (D–MA), and Sheila Jackson Lee (D–TX), sent a letter to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) demanding to know how the agency planned to meet the congressional mandate requiring the 100 percent screening of air cargo. This letter came just days after the TSA announced it did not plan to meet the December 31 deadline for the screening of all international U.S.-bound cargo. In 2007, Congress passed the Implementing 9/11 Commission Recommendation Act. The bill included a … More
