TSA Mission Report

According to the former federal air marshal P. Jeffrey Black, “‘What we've got now is nothing but security theater, meaning all these bells and whistles that you see are only meant to make you feel safe.’” The documentary, “Please Remove Your Shoes,” argues that the TSA has grown into a “massive government bureaucracy with too much money” and “focuses on herding people through checkpoints as fast as possible and hires poorly-trained workers who dress up in uniforms and play cop.” Steve Elson was a security special agent with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He was hired to attempt to sneak guns, bombs, and other weapons past security. He got through security ninety percent of the time without his weapons being detected. Apparently, Elson said, the FAA did not validate his results because they only wanted him to try to pass security using a certain size gun (Mayerowitz). This reaction from the FAA was unacceptable to Elson because he knew that terrorists are crafty and unpredictable. As long as they have a different size gun than what the FAA planned for, they would more than likely pass security. One of Elson’s coworkers, Dzakovic, said that at most airports uncover bombs twenty percent of the time. “‘Usually the worse the results were that we had on any given project, the less we were tasked to test to see if they had improved,’ Dzakovic said.” To Dzakovic and Elson, their managers were incapable of acknowledging that their process might not be perfect. Another critic of the TSA is the House Representative John Mica. He said, “‘I helped create TSA and I've referred to it sometimes as either my b****** child or a monster that we've created, a bureaucratic monster. It didn't turn out exactly the way I

The Transportation Security Administration, more commonly known as TSA, is a part of the United States Department of homeland Security that supervises and manages the safety of travelers in the United States. Unlike other government operated tasks forces such as the military or FBI whose as been in existence since (), the TSA was only recently founded twelve years ago in 2001 after the devastating terroristic attack that took place in New York city’s twin towers earlier that year. There are more than forty eight thousand people employed by the TSA in airports, bus stations, railroads and freeways across every state, but you may never realize when they are nearby. Some have the typical security duties of checking bags, using different

As an aviation management major airport security is a concern that I have taken a huge interest in. Making travel safer to air travelers is one of the biggest tasks that will never end as long as there is a plane in the sky. However, there are many problems that come about when traveling because passengers feel as if they are being harassed, which doesn’t set a good look for the Transportation Security Administration. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) consist of 50,000 security officers, inspectors, directors, air marshals and managers who protect the nation's transportation systems so you and your family can travel safely. They look for bombs at checkpoints in airports, they inspect rail cars, they patrol subways with our

Another measure TSA took was to add body scanners to security. These scanners can see what a person is carrying underneath their clothes. There have been a few different designs to this machine due to some lawsuits in the past brought up because the TSA agents were making fun of a man’s gentile size or certain passengers would feel embarrassed because someone can see their bodies. Now what the TSA agent sees is an outline of the passenger’s body and whatever is on the body. The body scanner does not show a naked person anymore.

The Travel security agency, or the TSA, is an important agency whose job it is to protect our nation in airports and borders. Impressively, the Agency has stopped many weapons, and saved our citizens numerous times. According to several experts however, the TSA has never stopped a terrorist plot. Their methods have been questioned too. As our nation grows deeper and deeper in debt, the TSA is a huge cost that may need to be cut. In order to gain a clear understanding of the TSA, its successes, issues, and cost must be evaluated critically.

As a response to the 9/11 attacks, one would expect that the TSA would improve airport security. In reality, it's just security theater. Originally, the use of metal detectors and luggage x-rays in airport security checkpoints was enough. However, on December 25, 2009, an inbound international

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was created on November 19, 2001, and was signed into law by the 107th Congress (NMAH, 2011). The TSA was created to strengthen the security of transportation systems while allowing free movement of people and trade (NMAH, 2011). In recent years the administration has seen a lower budget due to the removal of three programs and the money will be diverted to fund the wall on the Mexico border (Halsey, 2017). Slow screening times from TSA are causing people to miss their flights due to the large lines. Also, numerous items of contraband are not being detected by the

In November of 2001, the United States was still reeling from the attacks on September 11 of that same year. President George W. Bush created a new organization to prevent future attacks on American flyers. The organization was called the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA. The TSA was tasked with implementing security measures to protect travelers. At first, the measures were welcomed by the public. They were seen as a necessary measure to protect against future 9/11 style attacks. But now, 15 years later, the measures the TSA have put in place have been questioned repeatedly by members of the public, the press and congress. Incidents such as the Underwear Bomber, where a Nigerian

Surely the TSA has foiled some sort of terrorist plot in its nearly fifteen years of existence. But in reality, as far as we know, the TSA has not caught any! Nearly 200 million dollars a year goes into a hidden layer of airport security referred to as “behavior detection” which is where specially trained agents watch out for particular patterns of body language that might indicate that somebody is planning something malicious and apprehending them. However this supposed “vital layer” of security has done nothing more than catch drug smugglers and other such criminals. (CITATION 3) Which is great, but it was not drug smugglers that crashed planes into the World Trade Center. Adding more salt to the wound, an investigation conducted by the Government Accountability Office found in that sixteen individuals later linked with terrorist activities flew 23 different times through United States Airports and not a single one was stopped by the so called “behavior detection officers.” (CITATION

The TSA have caught “TSA officers discovered 2,212 firearms in carry-on bags” (“TSA releases 2015 statistics.” Transportation Security Administration, 21 Jan. 2016) The TSA screen up to 1.9 million people per day to see if their trying to pass with any illegal traveling weapons or if they have any firearms. The TSA “screened more than 432 million checked bags, more than 1.6 billion carry-on bags and 12.9 million airport employees”, they check everyone and try to ensure that everyone who enters and leaves the airport travels with safe passage and with nothing to worry about. The TSA also put Air Marshals on planes so many times to make ensure the safe passage of citizens that if the total amount of miles were to be added up it would be more than a billion miles that Air

For PA-TSA-Safety Illustration I started creating my design by writing down ideas of what I could do on safety. Once I picked driving safety, I thought of doing a picture of a person in the driver's side of a car and him or her having thoughts in a thought bubble about drinking, texting, and distracting music while driving. I went on a website called https://search.creativecommons.org to search for pictures so I could complete my illustration. The pictures I chose to use included a man in a car, a phone, a beer bottle, and a few music notes and inserted them all onto Google Drawings which is where i created my illustration. Then on Google Drawings I inserted a speech bubble. With the pictures, I edited the contrast

Airport security in the United States has been a controversial topic since the terrorist attacks of September 11th. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was established to ensure the safety and security of US airports. New regulations such as taking off shoes and full body scanners soon became the new normal in airports across the country. Travelers voiced concerns and complaints over the heightened security measures, arguing that they invade privacy and are unethical. On the other hand, Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport takes a very different approach to tackle terrorism in airports. Instead of high-tech machines, the airport focuses on the use of intelligence data and profiling to effectively identify terrorists. In the

Many years ago airport security was not even an issue. People felt secure and safe and rarely worried about being searched. As time went on, the prevealance of terrorism became an increasing issue. There began more acts of terrorism by threatening and holding hostages on board commercial planes. As these acts continued, the government as well as citizens became vulnerable and an airport safety procedure was implemented as a way to ensure the safety of the United States. The implemented procedures over the years included a check and scan of all carry on and checked baggage, body scans, hire government airport employees, and a strict list of carry-on items. This made travelers feel safer as it decreased the ability of terrorist to commit

“‘We are frequently reminded that our enemy is creative and willing to go to great lengths to evade detection,’ the director of the TSA, Kosketz said. ‘TSA utilizes the latest intelligence to inform the deployment of new technology and procedures, like the pat-down, in order to stay ahead of evolving threats’” (“Mad as Hell”).

Finally, the TSA is “hopelessly bureaucratic” according to Kip Hawle, a former TSA chief (Edwards, 2013). That bureaucracy often leads to extended retention of inefficient, ineffectual employees largely because the hiring and firing process is arduous. One study on TSA staff members suggests that employees may not take action because not adhering to the rules and regulations set forth comes with great penalties. Therefore, the employees are typically not free-thinking problem solvers, but people who want to complete their tasks without getting any attention. Unfortunately, this may lead to oversight if a terrorist threat does occur (De Gramatica, Massacci, Shim, Turhan, & Williams, 2017).