A new series on the Traffic Security Administration, running in the Seattle Times, reminds us of something that is obvious to anyone who has flown after 9/11: centralized government property protection is always a bad idea. An excerpt:
Four months ago, at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport, a conveyor belt jammed at 9 a.m. For 90 minutes, hundreds of bags piled up while planes waited to leave. In passenger concourses above, TV newscasts reported on the terrorist railway bombings in Madrid the day before.
TSA managers huddled to discuss the expected deluge of luggage once the belt was fixed.
Their solution? Examine what bags you can, the managers told screeners, and send the rest through — unscreened.
The screeners, stunned, didn’t say anything. But they didn’t go along, either. They inspected every bag they touched, using scanning machines or hand searches to look for bombs or other weapons. Meanwhile, two managers grabbed at least 80 unscreened bags and heaved them onto a conveyer belt headed for the bellies of waiting planes.
“I thought to myself, ‘You sorry-ass dog. Your ass is not on that aircraft, how do you know what’s in that bag?’ “ one screener told The Times.
