Report: TSA is Bloated, Ineffective and Outdated
The Transportation Security Administration has major problems and it needs to be overhauled and downsized, according to a congressional report released Wednesday, on the 10th anniversary of the day Congress created the agency.
The report, "A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform", says the ten year old agency is a bloated bureaucracy with 65,000 workers who have failed to prevent more than 25,000 security breaches since it started in 2001.
The report also says the agency's security technology isn't adequate for its task, pointing to 500 advanced-imaging machines that are "easily thwarted."
"Unfortunately, TSA has lost its way," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "It is time for reform," he added.
Mica's report recommended giving the TSA administrator more authority; reducing the TSA workforce; and turning luggage screening over to private contractors.
TSA also has friends in Congress. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, praises the agency, saying it's "remarkable" that there hasn't been a successful attack on the country's transportation network in the last decade.
Surveys suggest people outside Washington are more supportive of the TSA.
One survey by the A U.S. Travel Association found that two-thirds of the respondents were "somewhat" or "very" satisfied with TSA's overall performance for security, while only one in eight were dissatisfied.
Still, nearly nine out of 10 say it still takes too long to get through security.
And so it goes.
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