TSA prepares airport guidance on using private screeners
The Transportation Security Administration plans to give the nation's commercial airports detailed information next month about a program allowing them to begin using private security screeners for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
After the attacks, Congress required that TSA handle passenger and baggage screening for at least three years. Beginning Nov. 19, the nation's 429 commercial airports will have the option of applying to use private screeners instead of the federal workforce that is hired and managed by TSA.
Acting TSA administrator David Stone said the agency will begin sending guidance on the opt-out program to airports on May 19, to give them at least six months to make a decision on what kind of screeners they want.
"The preparations for opt-out focus on three areas," Stone told the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on aviation Thursday. "The first involves general determinations regarding how the opt-out program would be structured and managed."
"The second area is the application and award process, in which TSA will consider how many airports might apply for the program, how screener contracts will be awarded, and the timing of applications and awards," Stone said. "The third area involves delineating clear roles and authority for TSA headquarters, the [federal security directors at airports] and their staff, and the airports and contractors in order to provide clear guidance on effectively managing screening operations at opt-out airports."
Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., said up to 100 airports have indicated to him that they will choose to return to private screeners. Mica has repeatedly said he believes TSA is too bureaucratic.
TSA employs 39,000 full-time and 6,700 part-time screeners. It is unclear how those workers would be affected if airports choose to return to private security. Stone said one option that TSA is considering would be to give federal screeners at affected airports the right of first refusal for private positions.
Although Congress federalized airport screening, it allowed five airports to participate in a pilot program through which they continued using private screeners under the supervision of TSA. Those airports are in Jackson Hole, Wyo.; Kansas City, Mo.; Rochester, N.Y.; San Francisco, and Tupelo, Miss.
Stone said an evaluation of screeners at the pilot airports compared to federal screeners will be "a key element" in developing the opt-out program. The evaluation was conducted by BearingPoint Inc. and completed this month. A summary of the report was released Thursday but the full contents are classified.
Under the law, TSA may only enter into a private screening contract with an airport if the agency certifies that the level of screening services will be equal to or greater than the level that would be provided by federal personnel.
"The results of the BearingPoint study indicate that while additional study, analysis and refinement will be required as we move forward, TSA anticipates that it will be in a position to make this certification at the appropriate time," Stone said.
The General Accounting Office, however, conducted an independent review of the pilot airports and concluded that TSA did not permit contractors enough flexibility to demonstrate their effectiveness.
"Without data to better assess the performance of private screening operations and flexible practices, TSA and airport operators have little information on which to plan for the possible transition of airports from a federal system to a private screening contractor," GAO concluded.
Mica said classified reports on airport security reveal serious gaps regardless of whether screening is done by private or federal workers. On Thursday, he called for an emergency meeting within 10 days with homeland security officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
"We need to sit down and see how we can develop a more effective system to address the gaps in the current system that we have, whether it's public or private," he said. DHS did not return calls for comment Friday.
According to a Zogby poll released this week, a majority of likely American voters say they feel better protected by a federal workforce than by private screeners.
The poll, commissioned by the American Federation of Government Employees, found that 59 percent of 1,049 likely voters said they would "feel safer if airports used a federal baggage screener workforce" rather than a "private company screener workforce." Fifteen percent said they were not sure which would make them feel safer; and 26 percent said they would feel better with private screening.