Kip Hawley, Former TSA Chief, Opposes Privatizing Airport Security

WASHINGTON -- Former Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley said Wednesday that privatizing screening at airports -- a pet cause of a powerful Republican Florida congressman who oversees transportation on Capitol Hill -- would do nothing to improve security and would cost taxpayers more money for the same service.

"Privatization under the original law creating the TSA is: 'Do the same things that TSA does, pay your officers no less and here's a surcharge for your profit," said Hawley, President George W. Bush's fourth administrator of the TSA. "It really is outsourcing."

Hawley criticized Rep. John Mica's (R-Fla.) privatization idea during a stop at the conservative Heritage Foundation as part of a tour to promote his new book, "Permanent Emergency: Inside the TSA and the Fight for the Future of American Security." His assessment matches that of President Barack Obama's current appointee, John Pistole, who has opposed a wholesale transfer of responsibility to private contractors.

"There's no question the private sector can handle the security," Hawley told The Huffington Post in an interview before his appearance on Wednesday. The problem, he said, is that as currently configured, the outsourcing program "does not engage anybody in thinking, innovation, coming up with different ways to do it. All that is specifically excluded. You must do it exactly the way the TSA says to do it."

Hawley, who helped set up the TSA after the 9/11 attacks, ran the agency from July 2005 until the end of the Bush administration. It was during his watch, in August 2006, that British authorities broke up a plot to use liquid explosives to bring down as many as 10 trans-Atlantic flights. That foiled plot led to much-hated restrictions for carry-on liquids.

Nearly six years later, though, Hawley said it's time to allow all liquids on board and give passengers the choice as to whether they are willing to wait a little longer on a separate line to bring on a bottle of wine or soda.

Hawley also said it's time to lift the ban on most items that are currently prohibited and guard only against those items that could cause the catastrophic loss of an airplane and bring all air traffic to a halt.

"Knives, baseball bats -- everything except guns, explosives and toxins that can kill a lot of people quickly or take over an airplane" should be allowed on board, he said. "Nobody with a knife, no five people with a knife, are going to be able to take over an airplane today because of all the security that's in place. So the fact that we're still fishing through bags looking for things, it needs an adjustment in our attitude."

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Comments

[suvariboy]

09:44 AM on 04/26/2012

What do you wanna bet that if Mica was successful in his attempt to privatize the airport screening that he'd then leave and become a lobbyist for the company that gets the contract.

[BeatlesPrudence]

05:55 AM on 04/26/2012

"would cost taxpayers more money for the same service."
Thats because our all-knowing government does everything so efficiently themselves, huh?! Give me a break! Privatizing alot of things would save AND ensure other things would be there when we retire! Gov doesn't want SS privatized cause they take OUR freakin money out and use it on other bs! Privatizing it would KEEP it there and earn some interest on it, as opposed to it not even being there cuase some grubby hands removed it from its intended purpose!

[Totto]

10:10 AM on 04/26/2012

Yeah, privatization has worked out SO well with our privatized "healthcare insurance industry". Most insanely expensive on the planet. Don't you just LOVE your "privatized" police, fire department and libraries?

[ConspiracyTheory]

12:31 AM on 04/26/2012

The only way you're going to get really quality, knowledgable people in these positions, is to really screen/interview them, hire the best, and then pay them what they deserve. If you can do that via the government or private sector - fine. But no one with a college degree, who is moral/ethical; has manners/courtesy to work with the public; has the street-smarts or a law enforcement background is going to stand for being paid a nonsense wage. You get what you pay for. And that's why you have bone-heads strip searching 95 yr old grandmothers; chasing after "suspect" 4 yr olds, and knuckleheads stealing electronics, money, jewelry and medications from people's luggage.

[BeatlesPrudence]

05:59 AM on 04/26/2012

Yeah, thats called a moral check. What the liberals lack, so don't count on support from them with that. Violators, criminals, cheaters, losers all deserve jobs too. Doesn't matter where its at, either.

[demisfine]

10:15 PM on 04/25/2012

Pay to play, the republican way.
They have a lot of idiot nephews who need jobs, and none of the GOP CEO's can come up with a business plan.
They want to privatize all the services the government provides with just a few stipulations - no oversight, no regulations, no unions, no accountability. Oh yeah, and no bid purchases.
Darryl Issa will decide which congressman in which red state gets to run which agency.

[Joseph Glackin]

09:52 PM on 04/25/2012

The GOP follows a pattern. See a government function, hamstring it with oversight and outrageous funding requirements (see USPS). Declare it crippled, and turn over the profitable sections to donors and cronies. Abandon other parts.
Oh! And screw the public!

[bovine13]

05:10 AM on 04/26/2012

You example of the USPS is ridiculous.  Even with the pre-funding requirements saddled onto that agency...it would still be operating in the red.  Read the GAO reports stating as much.

[Joseph Glackin]

02:39 PM on 04/26/2012

Well, Bo, Maybe you should read this.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41024.pdf

Take a look at Fig, 3.
USPS was profitable until the Hastert/Frist Lame Ducks settled the $50BILLION$, 75 year pension debt on it.
Sabotage, in simple language.

[webwzrd]

09:08 PM on 04/25/2012

The only way it can be privatized without paying more is lowering workers salaries. The profit has to come from somewhere. Chances are that like everything else the defense contracting industry does, we will be paying for the equivalent of the proverbial $900 toilet seat.

[truthocentric]

10:38 PM on 04/25/2012

You ain't kidding brother.

[dukie1955]

01:27 AM on 04/26/2012

I worked several years for a defense contractor that produced quality work for the military, on time, with no cost over-runs -- this happens when the government provides the proper oversight (apparently Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR got no oversight at all in Iraq). But you are absolutely right in this case -- first, most of the people hired by the private contractor will be current TSA employees so the quality of work will be about the same; second, they will be paid higher than civil servant salaries; and third, it will probably be a "cost plus" contract which means the government (tax payers) will pay costs (salaries, insurance, retirement, vacation, etc.) plus 10 to 20% profit. Privatization of TSA doesn't sound like such a good deal for us tax payers.

[Don Glenn]

07:11 PM on 04/25/2012

We should privatize his job. Make him work for less, buy his own insurance, invest in his own retirement, and make sure he opens his own Social Security fund in, Oh lets say Lehman Brothers. That would save us all a lot of money

[They Call Me Mr Snark]

07:03 PM on 04/25/2012

Republicans want to privatize EVERYTHING!

[Angry White Guy]

06:17 PM on 04/25/2012

Isn't this the same man who stated that the TSA is a "broken agency"?

[Texas Dude 2K]

07:20 PM on 04/25/2012

Yep, and he is trying to fix it by privatizing it so that his cronies get a piece of the action.