The Verdict Is In For The TSA

In case you missed it because you were stuck in long lines at the airport, a new study has been released regarding the TSA...those bureaucrats in blue that are tasked with frisking old ladies and kids so that our skies remain safe. And the results aren't that promising for the Transportation Security Administration.

The study, just released, reached the conclusion that many of us have felt all along. After 12 years of pat downs and metal detectors, the TSA has done about as well as chance at finding weapons, bombs, and other terrorist devices. That means you could stick a four year old with a lollipop at the head of the line and he or she would have just as much success in stopping a terrorist as spending the billions of dollars we've spent hiring, training, and deploying this army of security officers.

It's a slap in the face for the federal government. You'll remember, the TSA was started by then-president George W. Bush after 9/11. It was designed to make air traffic safer in the US and the American people went along with it. Since that time, the program has been upgraded, expanded, and has grown, like every other federal government program in existence to the point that now it is a behemoth. TSA now employs (as of 1/11) over 58,000 agents around the country. That's larger than many cities!

I hate like hell having to side with someone like Rand Paul. I'm not a libertarian by any stretch, but I do believe the federal government is out of control and needs to be reigned in. To have a program such as the TSA hanging around costing us billions (and yes, Virginia, you do pay for them every time you fly!) and untold hours of standing in line. It's time that the federal government puts a halt to this program and calls it what it is, a failure. But you and I know better, don't we?

When was the last time you saw a president, especially a Democrat, shrink government? Who wants to be seen, in a still-crappy economy, throwing 58,000 people out of work? Where will they go? What other jobs require the skills they've been trained for? Answer? None. These are not your top echelon CEO's from Fortune 500 companies here. These are basically high school educated people who do real well telling people to remove their shoes and belts, and pull their laptops out of the cases and put it into the bins, and that you can't bring any more than 3 ounces of liquid through, and only if it's in a plastic bag and it's in the bin. No, sorry to say, even though the TSA has now been proven to be a sham, it won't be going away anytime soon.

But we should have known better than to do something like the TSA back when Bush was president. Islamic terrorists weren't going to try and use the airlines much after 9/11. Oh yeah, there was the Christmas Day bomber that was going to blow up a plane over Detroit (real smart....blow it up over Dearborn....the largest Islamic community in America!). But he still got on the plane, didn't he? I mean, he wasn't stopped by security at any checkpoint. It was only a passenger that noticed him trying to light his shoes that stopped him. Let's face it...this guys wasn't a Rhodes Scholar to begin with!

Terrorists have moved on to other things. Even if TSA was there in force, if the Islamic terror groups wanted to use airplanes as a weapon again, I'm sure they'd figure out a way around TSA. They're looking at other things....like shipping containers in ports, or malls, or athletic stadiums, where they can injure and kill many times the 3,000 plus people that died on 9/11. No, the terrorists aren't any more afraid of the TSA than you or I are. And we are the only ones that are paying the price.

Let's do ourselves a favor. Either we adopt the Israeli strategy for airport security (and be prepared for intensive screening because those guys don't mess around), or dump it all together. Why waste money and manpower doing something so soft as what TSA does in the airports now.

I wonder how many bridges and roadways could have been fixed under Obama's original stimulus plan had they hired the 58,000 TSA agents to repair the bridges and roads? My guess is, we'd have a really nice highway system...and still no one would have blown up an airplane!