Transportation Security Administration

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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is a controversial U.S. government agency that was created as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 19, 2001. The TSA was originally organized in the U.S. Department of Transportation but was moved to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 01, 2003.

The Organization

TSA Org Chart

Edmund "Kip" Hawley - Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for the TSA
Robert Jamison - Deputy Administrator

The TSA is a component of the Department of Homeland Security and is responsible for security of the nation's transportation systems. With state, local and regional partners, the TSA oversees security for highways, railroads, buses, mass transit systems, ports, and 450 U.S. airports. The TSA's mission is to prevent terrorist attacks and to protect the US transportation network. The TSA employs approximately 50,000 people. Roughly 40,000 of its employees are Transportation Security Officers, commonly known as screeners.

Circumstances of Creation and Purpose

The agency was created in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon. Before its creation, security checkpoints were operated by private companies which had contracts with either:

an airline (in cases where the terminal was owned by an airline)
a terminal company (in cases where the terminal was privately owned)
an airport operator (in cases where the terminal was operated by a government agency).

With the arrival of the TSA, private checkpoints have not disappeared altogether. In the cities of San Francisco, CA; Kansas City, Mo.; Rochester, N.Y.; Tupelo, Miss.; and Jackson, Wyo. private security firms have been approved by the TSA to provide security. TSA supervises the private security firms. [1]

The organization was charged, in the midst of much confusion over appropriate safety procedures, with developing policies to ensure the safety of U.S. air traffic and other forms of transportation. Airport security and the prevention of aircraft hijacking are integral parts of the TSA mission, though it's widely debated whether the TSA actually improves these areas. The TSA oversaw the Federal Air Marshal Service until December 1, 2003 when the program was officially transferred to the authority of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the U.S. government's 2006 fiscal year, the Federal Air Marshal Program was transferred back to the TSA.

Criticism

There have been numerous criticisms leveled at the TSA, including:

Complaints of invasion of privacy
Incidents of theft by its employees of airline passenger possessions [2] [3] [4] [5]
Lavish spending by TSA officials on events unrelated to airport security [6]
Inadequate training and lack of background checks of employees[7]

"Kip Hawley is an Idiot"

On Tuesday, September 26, 2006, an airline passenger, Ryan Bird, was detained at the Milwaukee Airport after writing "Kip Hawley is an idiot" on a plastic bag into which TSA screeners had forced him to place several of his possessions. (The screeners were doing this under recently instituted orders from the TSA authorities.) Bird was held and interrogated for 25 minutes for what he said was a political statement made out of frustration with the TSA's treatment of passengers at American airports. Bird was told by one TSA employee that "you can't write things like that", and a TSA supervisor attempted to confiscate the bag. The incident made national news after it was reported on the website FlyerTalk.com, sparking over 83,000 visits and 30 pages of responses to the report in less than 3 days. [8] [9]

External links