• If you look at [the TSA’s] performance, have they ever stopped a terrorist? Anyone can get through. We’ve been very lucky, very fortunate. TSA should focus on its mission: setting up the protocol, adapting to the changing threats and gathering intelligence.
• Rep. John L. Mica • Arguing that the TSA should go away in some of the nation’s largest airports. Some of them have already made the decision on their own – sixteen separate airports have switched to private firms since 2002, some in cities as big as San Francisco and Kansas City. And DC’s two main airports are thinking of getting rid of the TSA, too. Not that we’re going out of the way to agree with GOP members, but we think that Mica is absolutely right that the TSA was “never intended to be an army of 67,000 employees.” The private firms, by the way (so we don’t get too crazy effusive with our praise here), have to provide the same level of security and must use the same tools (including the pat-downs and the full-body scans), and must follow TSA guidelines … so it’s not that different. But they can provide a personal touch that a blob like the TSA might not. source

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