Airport security "isn't working," report, congressman say

Apr 30, 2004 11:35 AM

Tests still show serious gaps in airport passenger and bag screening, a General Accounting Office (GAO) report presented to the House aviation subcommittee last week says. "We have a system that isn't working," Rep. John Mica, chairman of the subcommittee, said at a hearing that involved allowing airports to return to private-run security.
Mica demanded an emergency meeting with the Department of Homeland Security -- possibly including Secretary Tom Ridge -- to craft a new strategy that may include a return to private security.
Congress created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and ordered the agency to replace the privately employed screeners with a better-paid, better-trained federal work force. Congress also ordered five commercial airports to use privately employed screeners who are hired, trained, paid and tested to TSA standards to serve as a comparison to the federal employees.
Homeland Security Department Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin told lawmakers that the TSA screeners and privately contracted airport workers "performed about the same, which is to say, equally poorly," according to The Associated Press.
Acting TSA Administrator David Stone agreed a meeting was necessary, as did Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the aviation panel's top Democrat.
A consultant that reviewed the program for TSA said private security was handicapped by restrictive government procedures. But the analysis found private security met important standards and private screeners outperformed their federal counterparts in an airport in Kansas City.

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