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"The minute they doubled the number of screeners, I felt vindicated," says Rep. John Shadegg, Republican of Arizona. Shadegg had joined a House majority in support of a plan that followed the Israeli and European model: a well-trained private-sector airport-security force under strict government oversight. But when the administration dropped its objection to a unanimously approved Senate bill that federalized the security force, GOP opposition in the House collapsed. Shadegg did vote against the final legislation, declaring, "If you think government employees can't make mistakes, you'll love this bill." Recently, the CEO of American Airlines finally voiced publicly the industry's conviction that the new government security gurus are far from mistake-proof. In a Dallas speech to hundreds of airport executives — who repeatedly interrupted his remarks with enthusiastic applause — Don Carty labeled parts of the security-reform regime "both nuts and needlessly expensive. . . . It is not unpatriotic, and it shouldn't be taboo, to acknowledge that there will be no point to any of this if we don't reconcile tighter security with a level of convenience that is acceptable to our customers." But fear remains about second-guessing the TSA's agenda. A senior appropriations aide explains that congressmen are willing to meet the TSA's sky-high spending demands because "if something bad happens," they dread being told that "Congress wouldn't give us the money we needed": "The degree of sensitivity on this stuff can't be overestimated." The TSA has resolved to spare no expense in its race to meet congressional deadlines for a federal screening force. As a result, its budget request for this year has almost tripled — to $6.8 billion — in the past few months. When the House recently provided $4 billion for the agency, transportation secretary Norman Mineta promptly complained about being "shortchanged" because he got only 90 percent of what he requested to cover the agency's plans for the remainder of the year. He warned senators that their constituents would experience long delays at the airport if the Senate didn't ante up. But a growing chorus of critics argues that airline passengers will face frustrating delays whether or not the TSA gets its money. A recent article in the New York Times travel section lambasted the present security system that treats all airline passengers as potential hijackers. A spokesman for the American Association of Airport Executives points out that either profiling or a "trusted traveler" option would "make the haystack smaller" in the search for that needle that poses a hijacking threat. Ethnic profiling, however, is a no-go for the Bush administration; and, according to a transportation-industry lobbyist, TSA chief John W. Magaw opposes permitting frequent fliers who undergo thorough background checks to avoid the TSA's "robust and redundant security." All of this redundant security demands redundant staff. By November 19, the TSA must assume operational control of security at the nation's 429 commercial airports. The agency is busily hiring 429 Federal Security Directors (FSDs, with a salary range of $105,000 to $150,000), most of them former military and law-enforcement officers. At the larger airports, FSDs will be supported by four assistant FSDs. FSD Area Directors will be based at TSA headquarters in Washington, along with about 900 other supervisors and staff. Airports will also enjoy the services of 900 new law-enforcement officers. In addition to over 25,000 screeners (armed with flier-friendly federal shoehorns) at initial checkpoints, the TSA plans to hire over 5,000 gate screeners for that second go-over. (Their uniforms will be adorned with the TSA's logo of nine stars and eleven bars, signifying September 11, and intended to make travelers "breathe a little easier.") All these new airport workers will need a place to hang their hats; airports are grousing about the demands being made for offices and screeners' break rooms. Although airline studies have found that four screeners at each checkpoint is optimal, the TSA has adopted a prototype that calls for seven people — which, the airlines maintain, reduces throughput (the processing of passengers) without improving security. Congressman Rogers complains that the FSA's total "overhead staff" amounts to about 3,600, and he has raised questions about the need for almost 50 percent of the new passenger-checkpoint positions the TSA is insisting on. He suggests that self-closing doors and surveillance cameras might replace 3,249 "exit-lane monitors," and that 1,405 federal customer-service representatives would be performing a function the airlines should assume. Rogers also points out that new magnetometer technology could replace thousands of the new federal workers, and has encouraged the agency to "put all machinery in place that you can before you hire people." When the TSA is urged to "go slow" — and take advantage of forthcoming technology that could save billions of dollars — it can certainly retort that Congress has only itself to blame for the speedy pace of hiring. Early in the year, the Transportation Department's inspector general testified that the "cost of good security will be substantially greater than most had anticipated," and that "a significant cost-driver has been meeting [Congress's] December 31st deadline to screen 100 percent of checked baggage." He estimated that to meet the congressional demand for machine screening, TSA will need over 1,600 additional explosives-detection-system (EDS) machines, 4,500 more explosives-detective-trace (ETS) machines, and about 30,000 additional staff. The cost of integrating the machines into the airports is estimated at over $2 billion; TSA has allocated $350,000 per airport to help offset the cost of installing EDS machines. Dallas/Fort Worth airport estimates that it will have to spend $193 million to accommodate the 40 EDS machines, and others, that it needs. Because there aren't enough of the truck-sized, million-dollar EDS machines that scan a bag's contents, TSA is encouraging airports to use a combination of EDS and ETS machines, although the latter are less reliable and demand thousands of screeners to open a large sample of suspect bags. The TSA hasn't yet approved a single airport's baggage-screening plan, and some airport executives have recently concluded that they simply can't meet the December 31 deadline. Congress's deadline was arbitrary, and clearly unmindful of the impracticality of the technology currently available. Experts predict that billions will be spent on "first-generation" machines — even as promising new technology is on the horizon. A lobbyist for a major airline explains that there is a growing realization in both Congress and the administration that TSA needs more time to think through the best use of resources, but that "no one wants to be the first to say so." During a recent hearing before a House appropriations subcommittee, Congressman David Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, angrily asked, "Does the [TSA] really take this committee to be a bunch of chumps, or do you simply expect we are going to supinely provide blank checks?" In the supplemental-appropriations bill, the committee responsible for allocating resources adopted the principle that the TSA should have "a 'pay as you go' philosophy, constraining its costs to the level of security air travelers are willing to pay for." In response to passengers' complaints about concourse closings and screening delays, Transportation Secretary Mineta has taken to admonishing that "Patience is a new form of patriotism." So too, apparently, is indiscriminate spending.
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Congress hastily decided last November that the federal government would
take responsibility for airline security, it was expected that 30,000
new federal workers would be needed to protect the flying public. Six
months later that estimate has shot, well, sky-high. By February, the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was outlining its need for
42,000 new federal screeners and supervisors. The figure then jumped to
68,000 — but not for long. "A month ago, the number of employees
had grown to 73,000, and we said, 'Whoa,'" says Republican congressman
Hal Rogers of Kentucky, chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on
transportation. The TSA plans to create a new law-enforcement agency —
responsible for security in every kind of transportation — that is
larger than the Departments of Energy, Labor, State, HUD, and Education
combined. 
