The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) should be relying more on the expertise of the private sector in modernizing passenger checkpoint screening at airports as well as for conducting security screening at checkpoints, according to a House Homeland Security Republican staff report released this week.
The report provides a laundry list of concerns about TSA and makes a number of recommendations to the agency. On the subject of risk-based screening, which TSA has moved forward with this year, notably with its PreCheck program for select frequent fliers and existing trusted travelers, the report says the program’s effectiveness hasn’t been maximized.
PreCheck still isn’t available to most travelers and doesn’t take advantage of including populations that are already vetted such as military members and people with security clearances, says the report, Rebuilding TSA into a Smarter, Leaner Organization. Moreover, the report notes that travelers who are cleared to use PreCheck screening lanes for one airline are not eligible to use PreCheck lanes from another airline.
“Common sense dictates that one’s risk-level should not change base on which airline he or she is flying on a given day,” the report says.
The report also says that the agency lacks a plan for how it will alter personnel, technology and security operations as its moves to risk-based screening processes at checkpoints and calls for the private sector to help TSA solve these issues.
The report also calls for TSA to quickly expand PreCheck access to active duty military service members, noting that the agency plans to provide this access by the end of 2013, 18 months later than Congress directed.
The Republican staff, in line with calls from House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.), also calls for TSA to make a greater effort to expand the private sector’s role in conducting checkpoint screening operations so that the agency takes on a regulatory role rather than an operational one.
Under TSA’s Screening Partnership Program, airports may opt out of using federal screeners in favor of private contractors, although only about 20 or so airports have done so. The report says that companies who may want to compete for screening work find it difficult to do so because the agency won’t share its own screening costs, thereby making it difficult for these firms to prove they can do it less expensively.
TSA needs to work better with the private sector in general, the report suggests. It says private firms struggle to understand the agency’s future procurement plans, which makes it difficult for them to invest in new technologies.
“Without such a plan, companies are left to take TSA at its word, and oftentimes TSA switches direction without so much as a phone call to the prospective companies involved,” the report says.