Long Lines and Disasters: The TSA in a Time of Troubles

A conversation with former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Juliette Kayyem on the future of airport security.

The Transportation Security Administration is a perennial punching bag for air travelers, members of Congress, and municipal officials from coast to coast. However, the disappearance of EgyptAir Flight 804 en route to Cairo from Paris puts the ongoing furor over the long waits at TSA security checkpoints into a different perspective. "The [TSA's] priority is security, it is not ease of travel," says Juliette Kayyem, a former Homeland Security assistant secretary and currently an emergency management and national security lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

The EgyptAir tragedy comes at a time when public frustration with the TSA has been mounting. Last week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned that passengers could expect even longer waits during the summer travel season which sent members of Congress into paroxysms of criticism. House Republicans have scheduled a hearing on the issues, which is almost guaranteed to be an unpleasant affair for TSA chief Peter Neffenger.

The agency's problems go well beyond Congress. TSA employees have some of the highest attrition and job dissatisfaction rates in the federal government. The agency has been plagued by a lengthy list of security-related lapses, including failing 67 out of 70 tests during Homeland Security Department screening exercises in 2015. But Congress and the airline industry have also failed to do their part in creating a successful air security system. Congress has cut the TSA's funding and recently gave the agency permission to redirect monies between TSA accounts, so security officials could bring on new screening officers. Yet at the same time, airline profit-boosting mechanisms like baggage fees feed security checkpoint bottlenecks by compelling passengers to put more baggage through the carry-on screeners. "We can blame TSA, and there are going to have to be fixes to TSA," says Kayyem. "But the idea that this is TSA's problem that they made alone is just ridiculous."

Kayyem spoke with The American Prospect about the TSA and U.S. air travel in the wake of the EgyptAir disaster. This interview has been edited and condensed....

Continue reading: http://prospect.org/article/long-lines-and-disasters-tsa-time-troubles