Airline passengers have stopped more terrorist attacks than the costly and burdensome Transportation Security Administration (TSA), according to former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.
Americans would be "much better off" if Congress transferred the few constitutional functions performed by the Department of Homeland Security to other sectors of the government, and then shut down the entire department, Paul wrote in his most recent weekly column.
"The best case for shutting down this department is its most well-known component - the Transportation Security Administration," wrote the former presidential candidate and longtime libertarian poster boy. "More terrorist attacks have been thwarted by airline passengers than by the TSA!"
Paul ridiculed the TSA for subjecting airline passengers to rules that "seem designed to make air travel as unpleasant as possible," like when the agency recently forced a Campaign for Liberty staffer to discard a jar of Nutella that was stored in carry-on luggage. "I am sure all airline passengers feel safe knowing that TSA is protecting them from sandwich spreads," Paul said.
Another incident mentioned by Paul is that of a three-year-old wheelchair-bound child named Lucy Forck, who not only went through an intrusive TSA screening, but had one of her favorite stuffed animals taken away as well.
"The TSA may be ineffective at stopping terrorists, but it is very effective at harassing innocent Americans like Lucy Forck," Paul said.
The TSA has been a hotbed of controversy since its hasty formation in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Many Americans, like Paul, believe that the TSA is one of the worst offenders of the fourth amendment. Numerous reports have detailed the wasteful spending of billions of dollars on programs shown to provide few benefits, reported Town Hall.
Since 2003, some 507 TSA officers have been fired for stealing over $800,000 worth of goods from passengers, and to date, the TSA's program to identify suspicious passengers has not caught a single terrorist, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Back in 2011, the agency admitted that terrorist groups "present in the Homeland are not known to be actively plotting against civil aviation targets or airports," according to a TSA court document. Another TSA statement admitted that "due to hardened cockpit doors and the willingness of passengers to challenge hijackers," it's unlikely that there are any terrorists even attempting to hijack planes, reported Techdirt.
Inspector General John Roth said in January that the TSA has had a number of security problems at John F. Kennedy airport, but attempted to hide the embarrassing details from the public by claiming that revealing the information would create a security risk. A few air marshals have also come forward recently, alleging that the TSA covered up supervisor misconduct and targeted the whistleblowers who attempted to expose the behavior.
Paul believes that airports and airlines are best equipped and incentivized to handle security, rather than a perhaps mismanaged and bloated government agency.
"Private businesses have a greater incentive than a government bureaucracy to ensure their customers' safety," Paul said. "Those conservatives who think this is a radical idea should try to think of one area where they trust government bureaucrats to do a better job than private business owners."
