Mike Boyd's Comments on the TSA

[tonyw]

Okay, yeah, he's a media #####, but this is pretty damn funny. Mods, feel free to edit if you want, I don't have a link so I'm posting the whole thing.

You can't fight here! This is the War Room!

That, or something similar, was a key line from the movie, Dr. Strangelove. When one reviews that 1960s classic, it becomes disturbingly similar to a description of today's Transportation Security Administration.

All the key elements are in place. Totally inept characters implementing crackpot policies. Officials running in fear from everything but the real threats. (In the movie, it was fluoridation of drinking water, which, according to one of the flick's protagonists, was sucking the "bodily fluids" from American manhood.) There was a clueless president, surrounded by advisors who couldn't chew a stick of Double Mint without screwing it up.

Just like we have today when it comes to aviation security.

No Plan? No Problem. And, if there were any doubt, we can recount this past week's Gong shows that went on at Newark Liberty International and at Atlanta Jackson-Hartsfield.

The FAA guy in charge of security there was known to be semi-incompetent, yet he was later made the Federal Security Director for the airport. This individual had a track record of enormous performance lapses, but the weasels running the TSA refused to remove him. Instead, they gave him a $20,000 performance bonus - one that was applauded by New Jersey's own Senator Lautenberg.

Rather than fire this clown, the TSA sent in an heir-apparent named Mark Hatfield who has no security training or background whatsoever. As noted on the TSA website, one of his proudest moments was being a front man for the Beach Boys. Patronage is everything, apparently.

As the plot unfolded, it was discovered last week that EWR had yet to develop a comprehensive security plan - four and a half years after terrorists hijacked an airplane there. Think that might get the attention of Chertoff & Company? Not on a bet.

Now comes the theater. The story goes that Hatfield, the guy sent to replace the inept FSD, "discovered" - two months after he got there - that the airport had no security plan, and, by gosh, he went over his boss's head to get results. He's the hero, according to the TSA. He's cleaning up Dodge City.

Sure he is. Think about it - he's the number two security official at Newark, and it took him months to find there was no security plan? What was this patronage-appointee doing for two months? Does it sound illogical that the first thing he'd do as security #2 might be to review the airport's basic security plan? But he didn't. Now, there's real
professionalism. But there's more.

Then there's the TSA people in Washington. When contacted, they told the Newark Star-Ledger that they really don't track or review airport security plans around the nation. Yessir, that's a professional organization, all right. A spokesperson noted that the TSA has 400 commercial airports to watch, and doesn't have time to see if every backwater facility has bothered to complete a security plan.

So, Wolf Point, Kearney, and Newark all have the same terrorist threat level, supposedly, and the sheer weight of trying to assure they've all got plans in place is beyond the ability of the TSA. They spent $700 million hiring screeners, many of which had criminal backgrounds, yet they can't tell if commercial airports have security plans in place.

Anybody at the TSA hear about threat identification? Anybody at the TSA ever think about target priorities? Like assuring security plans are at the nation's largest airports, including the ones where terrorists had no problem hijacking four airplanes?

See It. Then Run Away Fast. Further underscoring the fact that there is no TSA plan beyond hiring inexpert management and wasting money, was the fiasco at Atlanta, where a screening glitch led the TSA to decide to shut the whole airport down for two hours. Airplanes were diverted. Dozens of flights cancelled. All because the screening equipment didn't work right. The glitch wasn't, however, the real story. The shutdown, also, wasn't the real story.

The real story was what the TSA did when they supposedly found a suspicious object. In a word, they had no plan, except to willy-nilly empty the terminals. No contingency program beyond trying to get people herded into close quarters out in the street - where they'd be a perfect terrorist target. No plan regarding coordination of crowd control, and no contingency plan in case that "suspicious" object really went boom. The fact is that the TSA's number one procedure to an airport security event is to run outside. Like a pack of panicked sheep.

TSA: Failure Really Means Success, If We Say It Is. As a kicker, when this screw-up was mentioned to Kip Hawley, the TSA Administrator, he practically cooed with joy, happy that "the system" worked. Certainly, terrorists would agree. It works for them pretty well.

Memo to Kip Hawley: your equipment failed. This time it was a test object that shouldn't have appeared. Next time, it could be something else. When equipment is unreliable, and your only plan is to toss thousands of people out on a curb, sorry, guy, the system isn't working.

If we had security professionals running the show, it might be different. But Congress and the administration are content to have former railroad executives and former PR flacks for rock bands making the calls.

Sorry, W, you're screwing this pooch big time. Leaving proven incompetents like Chertoff and Hawley in their jobs constitutes gross negligence. No getting around it.

As another indication of how amateur the TSA is, when confronted by the fact that one of New York's three major airports had no security plan, Hatfield hastened to tell the media that it meant nothing, really - the airport's security was still bullet-proof, he claimed. For who, we're not sure, but not having a basic plan sure isn't anything that showcases the expertise of the people running the show.

That's because they don't have any. Remember that the top three people at the TSA have absolutely no security experience or training. If Bush had people like that running the military, Saddam Hussein would today be shopping for a lovely pied-a-terre apartment on Park Avenue. But aviation security is not even a minor priority in the minds of congress and the Administration.

Republicans don't care. Neither do Democrats.

Wonderful bi-partisan negligence.

You can't be concerned about security! This is the TSA!

[flyover]

Well as Daschle said: "You don't professionalize until you federalize".

[NuevaLuna]

Originally Posted by flyover

Well as Daschle said: "You don't professionalize until you federalize".

That was the most ridiculous statement made in the days following 9-11.