I had to rewrite this column at the last moment. Originally, the story centered on the news reports from Honolulu Int’l Airport: TSA was quoted as “moving to fire” 36 TSOs for not screening luggage of certain airlines for explosives. This was apparently based on complaints to management from two other TSOs about the sloppy work. I took an admittedly reactive stance: “Moving to fire”? Seems to me they should have been escorted directly to jail without passing Go. It’s not clear if this was a deliberate avoidance of responsibility, old-fashioned laziness, plain ol’ stupidity, poor training, or all of the above.
Without waiting for the other shoe to drop, I noted that TSA leaped into the breach, announcing that “managers have been dispatched … to ensure that proper procedures were being followed.” I am reminded of the famous line from “The Guns of August” in which a German general was dispatched to salvage the front-line battles “whose training had not quite reached the adequate.” Where was the necessary quality control from those TSA managers who didn’t notice that a sizeable number of their staff serving at least 12 international carriers over a period of weeks were apparently doing a really crappy job? Make some room in the paddy wagon for them, too.
Plunk. %$*&@x#. [That’s the sounds of the other shoe … and me]. Comes now the second wave of news that TSA has indeed issued termination notices for the employees and their bosses in the biggest mass firing for misconduct ever in the TSA – about 5 percent of the entire TSA HNL staff, which implies a full complement of about 750, although I’ve not verified that figure. It's impressive to me that TSA headquarters can move so quickly when it is so inclined.
But it gets more interesting. Some of the employees intend to contest the firing, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, which claims the employees were forced to bypass approved screening practices because TSA wanted them to speed up the process. Further confusing the issues are additional reports that they may have been without the aid of an automatic baggage scanner and felt pressured to do their job quickly rather than stick to TSA standards, which in the absence of the assistive technology would have required significantly more time-consuming manual procedures.
I suspect this story will get a good deal murkier as it progresses, and even assuming the veracity of the counterclaims, there’s certainly enough blame to share among all the players… local HNL management, for either allowing or forcing the lapse in judgment; 36 employees for their malfeasance; 700 other employees for not noticing and/or not reporting it sooner; and the apparent absence of any quality control, which should be a constant, ongoing process, not an occasional peek behind the curtain. I know this will bring me buckets of hate mail, but one has to wonder whether the 36 were just the ones that got caught.
I leave you with a quote from Congressman John Mica (R-Fla) with whom I often disagree, but not this time: "Our conclusion is that TSA should not be the operator, the auditor, and the regulator at airports." It was said in the context of switching to private screeners that would be overseen by TSA regulators. His committee claims TSA screeners cost roughly twice as much as private screeners and don't do the job any better. I haven't seen the financial justification, but I also haven't seen any Honolulu-type reports from the 16 airports that have already privatized the screening process.
