The Airport Advisory Board, in a memo responding to my questions about exploring a private option for handling passenger screenings at Colorado Springs Airport, recently recommended against replacing TSA. The costs and complications of making the change far outweigh any tangible benefits, in terms of improved service, according to the board. Relatively few passenger complaints have been heard at COS. And relations between TSA and airport managers have been good, according to the memo.
Fair enough. That no doubt will please those on council who do everything possible to not rock the boat. I still think the question was worth asking. I fear the situation will deteriorate once TSA screeners gain collective bargaining rights and the union ethos -- which I know first-hand thanks to nearly two years as a card-carrying member of the United Auto Workers -- seeps deep into the bureaucracy's pores. Airports should at least have an option regarding TSA, in my opinion, even if they don't take it, this being a free country and all.
Such discussions just became completely irrelevant, however, because Moscow .. . . sorry, I meant Washington . . . last week slammed the door on the option, by declaring that no more airports will be allowed to go private. That doesn't sit well with certain members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, who say Congress wrote an opt-out clause into the original legislation for a reason, so the last word on this has not been heard. Maybe a sharp reduction in TSA funding will lead to a change of heart. But the move drew loud cheers from the National Treasury Employees Union, which hates private sector competition and wants to turn every airport screening station in America into a union shop. Just think of the efficiency and improvement in work ethic and service that will bring.
There's no evidence that private screeners are less competent than federal screeners. I'm aware of no security breaches linked to airports opting-out. The 16 airports that contract-out these services (which suggests to me that there must be some benefit) seem perfectly happy with the choice they made. So why wouldn't Moscow . . . . there I go again, sorry . . . permit the expansion of a program that seems to be working well?
That could be the first problem: It's working well. Or this could just be another case of heavy-handed Washington lording it over the peons beyond the beltway. A third possibility suggests itself, however -- that this union-friendly White House fears a stampede of airports to the exits once collective bargaining rights are finally granted TSA workers, which could really put a dent in the union dues collected by organizations that gave (and will give) a lot of campaign money to Barack Obama
Could this administration's motives for slamming the door on the private option really be that base, that tawdry, that self-serving? Could this really be just another way for the White House to throw Big Labor a bone? With no better explanation to offer, that's the one I'm going with for now.
Showing posts with label TSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TSA. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Watch Your Behavior. TSA Will Be.
I wasn't the most easygoing air traveler even before 9-11. My customary rush not to miss the flight, combined with the dread that I'll get a middle seat, along with an active imagination about all that can go wrong during takeoff and landing, made me an edgy flier even under ideal circumstances. But the mostly-mindless security rituals imposed on air passengers since 9-11 have notched-up my stress level three fold, at least. Each running of the airport security gauntlet brings my blood to a slow boil, as I brood about the handful of homicidal maniacs who on that day turned America into a nation of sheep. I imagine the new indignities we'll endure if someone ever sets off an underwear bomb.
TSA conditioning hasn't completely worn me down yet. I still seethe each time I have to remove my shoes, empty my pocket change and metal jewelry into the plastic bowl, take off my belt, lift my cap, spread my arms, surrender the potentially-explosive hair products I left in my carry-on. I still chafe each time I have to take orders from some overly-officious TSA securacrat, who didn't have the right stuff to be a cop or flunked the CIA entrance exam and defaulted to this instead.
I seethe silently for the most part, because to rebel, or register anger or frustration -- to tell those glorified postal workers what you really think of this elaborate charade -- invites suspicion, retaliation, further delay. But sometimes -- when my wife isn't there to squeeze my arm or shoot be a disapproving look -- I act out on these frustrations and say or do something uncool. Like the time I dropped my pants after a wand-wielding TSA worker asked that I unbuckle my belt.
That's why I'm a little worried about recent reports that TSA "Behavior Detection Officers" will soon be fanning out to American airports, on the lookout for passengers who exhibit "erratic" or "suspicious" behavior. As someone who exhibits erratic behavior even when not passing through TSA checkpoints, but in the course of everyday life, I fear that airport visits are about to get worse.
From The Washington Post:
"FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. -- You might not see them, but they're studying you.
To identify potentially dangerous individuals, the Transportation Security Administration has stationed specially trained behavior-detection officers at 161 U.S. airports. The officers may be positioned anywhere, from the parking garage to the gate, trying to spot passengers who show an unusual level of nervousness or stress.
They do not focus on nationality, race, ethnicity or gender, said TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz. "We're not looking for a type of person, but at behaviors," she said.
Under the program, which started in Boston in 2003, a suspicious passenger might be given a secondary security screening or referred to police; detection officers do not have arrest powers."
My body language in an airport practically broadcasts tension, frustration, impatience and intolerance -- presenting the very picture of a homicidal hijacker on a martyrdom mission. I'm just the sort of brooding, jumpy, sweaty traveler some half-baked TSA behaviorist would pick out of a crowd. And my demeanor will only get more suspicious when I'm pulled aside by a TSA profiler -- armed with "four days of behavior training, which includes training to spot suicide terrorists, and . . . 24 hours of on-the-job preparation," according to the Post -- and subjected to additional search or interrogation. I'm likely to get mouthy. I'm likely to seem hostile. I'm likely to quickly have the TSA securacrat talking into his sleeve, calling for backup.
The Post cites several cases of TSA behaviorists flushing out suspicious characters:
"In one case, in March 2008, detection officers noticed a passenger about to board a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Charlotte, N.C. During a secondary screening, officers found 209 grams of the drug ecstasy, with a street value of $2.5 million, in a carry-on bag. The traveler was arrested.
In other instances, passengers have been arrested on charges of drug trafficking, possessing fraudulent documents and having outstanding warrants, Koshetz said.
In February 2008, detection officers at Miami International Airport noted that a passenger had suspicious documents and was acting oddly. When he was flagged for a secondary screening, he bolted.
Local police and TSA officers chased the man, who ran out of the terminal and jumped off a second-story road onto a sidewalk. He broke an arm and was arrested on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and possessing several identification documents."
Way to go, McGruff. But the paper doesn't cite a single case of profilers detecting an actual terrorist, or foiling a terror plot. A lot of suspicious characters travel through airports on any given day: a mule carrying cocaine; an illegal immigrant slipping into the country on a supposed business trip; someone high on ecstasy; a gambler heading to Vegas with $60,000 in cash. Some people may even begin to act suspicious in response to constantly being under state suspicion.
It's not TSA's job to apprehend anyone and everyone acting suspicious -- that casts too wide a net, in my view -- but to detect and foil potential terror plots against air passengers. And I doubt this new tack will be any more effective, in that regard, than TSA's mass confiscation of shampoo bottles and toenail clippers.
TSA conditioning hasn't completely worn me down yet. I still seethe each time I have to remove my shoes, empty my pocket change and metal jewelry into the plastic bowl, take off my belt, lift my cap, spread my arms, surrender the potentially-explosive hair products I left in my carry-on. I still chafe each time I have to take orders from some overly-officious TSA securacrat, who didn't have the right stuff to be a cop or flunked the CIA entrance exam and defaulted to this instead.
I seethe silently for the most part, because to rebel, or register anger or frustration -- to tell those glorified postal workers what you really think of this elaborate charade -- invites suspicion, retaliation, further delay. But sometimes -- when my wife isn't there to squeeze my arm or shoot be a disapproving look -- I act out on these frustrations and say or do something uncool. Like the time I dropped my pants after a wand-wielding TSA worker asked that I unbuckle my belt.
That's why I'm a little worried about recent reports that TSA "Behavior Detection Officers" will soon be fanning out to American airports, on the lookout for passengers who exhibit "erratic" or "suspicious" behavior. As someone who exhibits erratic behavior even when not passing through TSA checkpoints, but in the course of everyday life, I fear that airport visits are about to get worse.
From The Washington Post:
"FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. -- You might not see them, but they're studying you.
To identify potentially dangerous individuals, the Transportation Security Administration has stationed specially trained behavior-detection officers at 161 U.S. airports. The officers may be positioned anywhere, from the parking garage to the gate, trying to spot passengers who show an unusual level of nervousness or stress.
They do not focus on nationality, race, ethnicity or gender, said TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz. "We're not looking for a type of person, but at behaviors," she said.
Under the program, which started in Boston in 2003, a suspicious passenger might be given a secondary security screening or referred to police; detection officers do not have arrest powers."
My body language in an airport practically broadcasts tension, frustration, impatience and intolerance -- presenting the very picture of a homicidal hijacker on a martyrdom mission. I'm just the sort of brooding, jumpy, sweaty traveler some half-baked TSA behaviorist would pick out of a crowd. And my demeanor will only get more suspicious when I'm pulled aside by a TSA profiler -- armed with "four days of behavior training, which includes training to spot suicide terrorists, and . . . 24 hours of on-the-job preparation," according to the Post -- and subjected to additional search or interrogation. I'm likely to get mouthy. I'm likely to seem hostile. I'm likely to quickly have the TSA securacrat talking into his sleeve, calling for backup.
The Post cites several cases of TSA behaviorists flushing out suspicious characters:
"In one case, in March 2008, detection officers noticed a passenger about to board a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Charlotte, N.C. During a secondary screening, officers found 209 grams of the drug ecstasy, with a street value of $2.5 million, in a carry-on bag. The traveler was arrested.
In other instances, passengers have been arrested on charges of drug trafficking, possessing fraudulent documents and having outstanding warrants, Koshetz said.
In February 2008, detection officers at Miami International Airport noted that a passenger had suspicious documents and was acting oddly. When he was flagged for a secondary screening, he bolted.
Local police and TSA officers chased the man, who ran out of the terminal and jumped off a second-story road onto a sidewalk. He broke an arm and was arrested on charges of resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and possessing several identification documents."
Way to go, McGruff. But the paper doesn't cite a single case of profilers detecting an actual terrorist, or foiling a terror plot. A lot of suspicious characters travel through airports on any given day: a mule carrying cocaine; an illegal immigrant slipping into the country on a supposed business trip; someone high on ecstasy; a gambler heading to Vegas with $60,000 in cash. Some people may even begin to act suspicious in response to constantly being under state suspicion.
It's not TSA's job to apprehend anyone and everyone acting suspicious -- that casts too wide a net, in my view -- but to detect and foil potential terror plots against air passengers. And I doubt this new tack will be any more effective, in that regard, than TSA's mass confiscation of shampoo bottles and toenail clippers.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
A Federal Holiday -- for as far as the eye can see
Most Americans are living under the shadow of economic storm clouds. But the forecast couldn't be sunnier for federal worker bees, who will see the hive thrive under queen bee Barack Obama.
Washington is recession proof. The government grows even when the economy, and the American standard of living, contract. Maybe there's even a causal connection there.
A recent Washington Post analysis of Obama's first budget found that tens of thousands of federal positions will have to be added to implement his grand design.
"President Obama's budget is so ambitious, with vast new spending on health care, energy independence, education and services for veterans, that experts say he probably will need to hire tens of thousands of new federal government workers to realize his goals.
The $3.6 trillion plan released last week proposes spending billions to begin initiatives and implement existing programs, and given Obama's insistence that he would scale back the use of private-sector contractors, his priorities could reverse a generational decline in the size of the government workforce.
Exactly how many new workers would be needed remains unclear -- one independent estimate was 100,000, while the conservative Heritage Foundation said it is likely to be closer to a quarter-million."
The Post went on to report that many federal agencies are already gearing up for a hiring glut. And while die-hard statists and federal employee unions are gleeful, it marks the reversal of a trend toward more modest government that began under President Ronald Reagan and continued through President Bill Clinton, who famously (though prematurely) declared that "the era of big government is over."
Reports The Post:
Between 1940 and 1970, the federal civilian workforce swelled from 707,000 to 2.1 million . . . . But ever since Ronald Reagan swept into the White House in 1981 with a call to decrease the government's footprint, presidents have limited the size of the workforce. Although President
George W. Bush added tens of thousands of airport baggage screeners and other homeland security jobs, he offset much of that increase by limiting hiring at other agencies. In reversing this trend, Obama would make himself politically vulnerable to charges that he is growing not just the power of government, but also its size. If the outside estimates are realized, Obama could spur a government hiring spree on a scale unseen since President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society agenda in the 1960s.
"What group of socialists got in the room and wrote this budget? Do they have any idea what the implications are?" asked Republican Newt Gingrich, who as House speaker in the 1990s advocated a shrinking of the government. "This is the most aggressive 180-degree turn that we have seen in the American system."
Obama and the Democrats in charge of Congress are making other moves that will grow the federal workforce and empower federal bureaucrats. While private sector unemployment rises, and good paying jobs dry up, federal workers seem poised to get big pay increases.
Obama last week used executive orders to reverse a trend toward outsourcing and privatizing federal jobs, by attempting to redefine, and broaden, the definition of an "inherently government function." Reports GovExec.com:
"President Obama on Wednesday ordered the Office of Management and Budget to undertake an in-depth review of the government's contracting efforts, including the outsourcing of work historically performed by federal employees.
A memorandum Obama issued requires the OMB director to work with the Defense secretary, NASA administrator, General Services Administration chief, Office of Personnel Management director and others to develop guidance on strengthening contract oversight, ending unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus deals and maximizing competition in procurement. Obama said these reforms will save taxpayers $40 billion annually. The guidance, due by Sept. 30, must clarify "when governmental outsourcing for services is and is not appropriate."
The memo stated that OMB Circular A-76, the government's playbook for public-private job competitions, was based on the "reasonable premise" that taxpayers might get a better deal if activities that are not inherently governmental are subject to competitive forces.
"However, the line between inherently governmental activities that should not be outsourced and commercial activities that may be subject to private sector competition has been blurred and inadequately defined," Obama wrote. "As a result, contractors may be performing inherently governmental functions. Agencies and departments must operate under clear rules prescribing when outsourcing is and is not appropriate."
The Bush administration strongly supported competitive sourcing and engaged in a number of legislative skirmishes to push the initiative and defend it from congressional detractors. Lawmakers have continued to fight public-private competitions, however, most recently with a provision in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill that would suspend new Circular A-76 competitions. The provision also would require agencies to review current contracts and issue guidelines for considering if new projects can be performed by federal employees, or if previously outsourced work can be brought back in-house.
The move was hailed by federal employee unions, who have worked with Democrats in Congress to thwart any and all efforts to contract out government services. "We hope this is the end of the era of privatization during which agencies were forced to contract out regardless of cost or quality, and at the expense of integrity and accountability of federal programs," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
And the unions have a strong ally in Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat who now chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee. Lynch's agenda begins with a pay raise for federal workers and grows more ambitious from there -- culminating in winning collective bargaining rights for airport screeners.
If you think traversing the TSA gauntlet is excruciating now, just wait until the "thousands standing around" are fully unionized. It'll make a trip to the post office feel like a breeze.
Washington is recession proof. The government grows even when the economy, and the American standard of living, contract. Maybe there's even a causal connection there.
A recent Washington Post analysis of Obama's first budget found that tens of thousands of federal positions will have to be added to implement his grand design.
"President Obama's budget is so ambitious, with vast new spending on health care, energy independence, education and services for veterans, that experts say he probably will need to hire tens of thousands of new federal government workers to realize his goals.
The $3.6 trillion plan released last week proposes spending billions to begin initiatives and implement existing programs, and given Obama's insistence that he would scale back the use of private-sector contractors, his priorities could reverse a generational decline in the size of the government workforce.
Exactly how many new workers would be needed remains unclear -- one independent estimate was 100,000, while the conservative Heritage Foundation said it is likely to be closer to a quarter-million."
The Post went on to report that many federal agencies are already gearing up for a hiring glut. And while die-hard statists and federal employee unions are gleeful, it marks the reversal of a trend toward more modest government that began under President Ronald Reagan and continued through President Bill Clinton, who famously (though prematurely) declared that "the era of big government is over."
Reports The Post:
Between 1940 and 1970, the federal civilian workforce swelled from 707,000 to 2.1 million . . . . But ever since Ronald Reagan swept into the White House in 1981 with a call to decrease the government's footprint, presidents have limited the size of the workforce. Although President
George W. Bush added tens of thousands of airport baggage screeners and other homeland security jobs, he offset much of that increase by limiting hiring at other agencies. In reversing this trend, Obama would make himself politically vulnerable to charges that he is growing not just the power of government, but also its size. If the outside estimates are realized, Obama could spur a government hiring spree on a scale unseen since President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society agenda in the 1960s.
"What group of socialists got in the room and wrote this budget? Do they have any idea what the implications are?" asked Republican Newt Gingrich, who as House speaker in the 1990s advocated a shrinking of the government. "This is the most aggressive 180-degree turn that we have seen in the American system."
Obama and the Democrats in charge of Congress are making other moves that will grow the federal workforce and empower federal bureaucrats. While private sector unemployment rises, and good paying jobs dry up, federal workers seem poised to get big pay increases.
Obama last week used executive orders to reverse a trend toward outsourcing and privatizing federal jobs, by attempting to redefine, and broaden, the definition of an "inherently government function." Reports GovExec.com:
"President Obama on Wednesday ordered the Office of Management and Budget to undertake an in-depth review of the government's contracting efforts, including the outsourcing of work historically performed by federal employees.
A memorandum Obama issued requires the OMB director to work with the Defense secretary, NASA administrator, General Services Administration chief, Office of Personnel Management director and others to develop guidance on strengthening contract oversight, ending unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus deals and maximizing competition in procurement. Obama said these reforms will save taxpayers $40 billion annually. The guidance, due by Sept. 30, must clarify "when governmental outsourcing for services is and is not appropriate."
The memo stated that OMB Circular A-76, the government's playbook for public-private job competitions, was based on the "reasonable premise" that taxpayers might get a better deal if activities that are not inherently governmental are subject to competitive forces.
"However, the line between inherently governmental activities that should not be outsourced and commercial activities that may be subject to private sector competition has been blurred and inadequately defined," Obama wrote. "As a result, contractors may be performing inherently governmental functions. Agencies and departments must operate under clear rules prescribing when outsourcing is and is not appropriate."
The Bush administration strongly supported competitive sourcing and engaged in a number of legislative skirmishes to push the initiative and defend it from congressional detractors. Lawmakers have continued to fight public-private competitions, however, most recently with a provision in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill that would suspend new Circular A-76 competitions. The provision also would require agencies to review current contracts and issue guidelines for considering if new projects can be performed by federal employees, or if previously outsourced work can be brought back in-house.
The move was hailed by federal employee unions, who have worked with Democrats in Congress to thwart any and all efforts to contract out government services. "We hope this is the end of the era of privatization during which agencies were forced to contract out regardless of cost or quality, and at the expense of integrity and accountability of federal programs," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.
And the unions have a strong ally in Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat who now chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee. Lynch's agenda begins with a pay raise for federal workers and grows more ambitious from there -- culminating in winning collective bargaining rights for airport screeners.
If you think traversing the TSA gauntlet is excruciating now, just wait until the "thousands standing around" are fully unionized. It'll make a trip to the post office feel like a breeze.
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