The TSA is dead…long live the TSA?

MSNBC echoes (link dead) the Washington Post report that “The Transportation Security Administration, once the flagship agency in the nation’s $20 billion effort to protect air travelers, is now slated for dismantling.”

The Transportation Security Administration is a justifiably ripe target for ridicule:

The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations blunders and criticism of its performance from both the public and legislators. Its “No Fly” list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security screeners have been arrested for stealing from luggage, and its passenger pat-downs have set off an outcry from women.

The following two sentences in the article seem incongruous to me:

The agency’s very existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a clause permitting the elimination of TSA as “distinct entity” after November 2004. “TSA, at the end of the day, is going to look more like the Postal Service,” said Paul C. Light, a public service professor at New York University and a Brookings Institution scholar who has tracked the agency since its birth in February 2002.

So which is it? Will the airlines be put in charge of their own security, be more accountable for their actions, and let the market determine what price determines an acceptable amount of security? Or (following the Postal Service analogy) are we subsidizing another federal agency, and if we’re lucky, we can either pay TSA to do its job with a fee or seek a superior alternative? Where does the money go after this? Can we get this $20 billion back in lower taxes, or at least a lower deficit?

Re-privatizing security also carries the added benefit of not subjecting the public to secret rules. If people don’t like the way they are being treated, they can choose another security company with another airline. One may argue that private security didn’t stop 9/11. That is absolutely correct, and two airlines (United and American) would have paid the price for that failure had the industry not begged for public funds. The next airline company to allow such an occurrence would likely get a financial death penalty from consumers. Such an incentive can prompt airlines to be innovative in their search for cost-effective and customer-friendly security.

We need to define the TSA’s (and you could argue this for a majority of other government agencies) responsibilities into distinct tasks that can be performed by competing private companies. I am not advocating a government bid process; such a process makes a decision once for multiple job performances. By defining the tasks that need to be completed, multiple companies can spring up and offer per-performance prices to the public for these tasks. That way, when someone screws up, the consumer can choose a different company with a better performance record.

The maintenance of performance records can also be privatized; one needs only to look at Consumer Reports and other resources to see where this happens in other industries.