Quote

TSA serves as the operator, administrator and regulator for the nation's transportation security. But in fact, the TSA bureaucracy does all it can to thwart any conversion to a system with more private-sector operations and strong federal oversight and standards. This agency cannot, and should not, do it all.

We're not trying to harass the average American. We need to convert this now to a risk-based system, with TSA concentrating and focusing on intelligence, on security, setting up again the parameters of which we do this.

It would be unwise to say the least, irresponsible of us at the TSA, at the Homeland Security Department not to evolve our technology to match the changing threat environment that we inhabit.

What we're going to do is try to get TSA out of the human resources and personnel business and into the security business to connect the dots.

Airport security exists to guard us against terrorist attacks.

After Lockerbie, everyone thought, now we've learned the lesson of how to be proactive instead of being reactive. Unfortunately, September 11 came and we know the result. Thousands of people lost their lives. Security totally failed, not at one airport, at three different airports around the country.

Everything TSA does is reactionary - first they ban the box cutters, then of course you have to take your shoes off, then you have to take the liquids out, now we have to be patted down in our private areas because of the diaper bomber.

There has to be so many other ways of approaching airline security than demeaning ourselves by giving up a lot of our dignities and our liberty to do this.

I always thought security was a joke at New York airports, and in U.S. airports to begin with. You can go through any European or Middle Eastern airport and things are a lot tougher.

When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees. As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law.