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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7424844/

TSA slated for dismantling
White House asks agency's director to step downBy Sara Kehaulani Goo

Updated: 11:32 p.m. ET April 7, 2005

The Transportation Security Administration, once the flagship agency in the
nation's $20 billion effort to protect air travelers, is now slated for
dismantling.

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The latest sign came yesterday when the Bush administration asked David M.
Stone, the TSA's director, to step down in June, according to aviation and
government sources. Stone is the third top administrator to leave the
three-year-old agency, which was swiftly created in the chaos and patriotism
following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The TSA absorbed divisions of
other agencies such as Federal Aviation Administration only to find itself now
the victim of a massive reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security.

The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations blunders and
criticism of its performance from both the public and legislators. Its "No Fly"
list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security screeners have been arrested
for stealing from luggage, and its passenger pat-downs have set off an outcry
from women.


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Under provisions of President Bush's 2006 budget proposal favored by Congress,
the TSA will lose its signature programs in the reorganization of Homeland
Security. The agency will likely become just manager of airport security
screeners -- a responsibility that itself could diminish as private screening
companies increasingly seek a comeback at U.S. airports. The agency's very
existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that the legislation
creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a clause permitting the
elimination of TSA as "distinct entity" after November 2004."TSA, at the end of
the day, is going to look more like the Postal Service," said Paul C. Light, a
public service professor at New York University and a Brookings Institution
scholar who has tracked the agency since its birth in February 2002. Light
calls the TSA "one of the federal government's greatest successes of the past
half century," and likens it to the creation of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration in the late 1950s, which was also born amid great public
excitement to serve an urgent national need.

More narrow role
But TSA's time in the spotlight is over and it should now step back to serve a
more narrow role, Light said. "It's a labor-intensive delivery organization
that is not going to be making many public policy decisions. Its basic job is
to train and deploy screeners," he said.

Bush administration officials say they don't expect the demise of TSA, adding
they will know little about the future of the agency until new Homeland
Security Sec. Michael Chertoff completes his review of the department, which
will likely prompt a major overhaul.

"TSA has taken significant steps to enhance the nation's transportation and
aviation security over the course of the past two years and TSA continues to
have the confidence, not only of nation's air travelers, but of departmental
leadership, to continue in this important mission," said Homeland Security
spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. "Secretary Chertoff is open to adjustments in the
way that DHS does business but will not advocate for or against any change
until a thorough review of the changes are complete." The review is expected to
be completed in May or June. The government has pumped more money into airline
security than any other Homeland Security effort. Much of it goes toward
salaries for more than 45,000 security screeners at over 400 airports.
Travelers know TSA mostly by its operations at the airport security checkpoint,
a highly public role that magnifies agency's smallest blunders and often forces
it to have to defend itself.

"Republicans didn't want to create this [bureaucracy] in the first place.
Democrats see security as an easy target. So you don't have anyone to defend
it," said C. Stewart Verdure, Jr., former assistant secretary for policy and
planning at Homeland Security's Border and Transportation Security directorate,
which includes TSA. "If someone sneaks a knife through an airport, it makes the
news. If the Coast Guard misses a drug boat, no one hears about it. "The TSA
won early plaudits for swiftly building the first new federal agency in decades
and restoring confidence in the nation's aviation system. It achieved 51 goals
demanded by Congress under tight deadlines and took over many responsibilities
from the Federal Aviation Administration, including the expansion and operation
of undercover air marshals. At its peak, it had 66,000 federal employees and
met deadlines that were unthinkable by the federal government, installing
luggage scanning technology and hiring a new workforce of airport security
screeners within a year.

Bit by bit, however, the agency's responsibilities have steadily dwindled amid
a succession of directors. Many of its operations have been folded into the
Department of Homeland Security, which it joined in 2003. TSA scrapped early
plans to create a broad law-enforcement division. The air marshals, who lobbied
to leave the agency, were transferred to the department's Immigration and
Customs Enforcement division -- to the dismay of TSA leaders. Next, the
explosives unit left. Now, the agency's high-tech research labs in Atlantic
City are also going to another division of the department. Last week, momentum
accelerated in the push to replace federal screeners with private contractors
at the nation's airports. firstling Transportation Security, a Cleveland
private security firm, became the first company to win approval for liability
coverage under the SAFETY Act, which means that if the firm takes over
checkpoints, claims will be capped in the event of a terrorist attack. The move
clears a major hurdle in the return of private screening companies. The law
creating TSA allowed for federal screeners to be replaced by private ones after
two years.

"We need to step back and look at the billions of dollars we spent on the
system, which doesn't provide much more protection than we had before 9/11,"
said Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), referring to tests conducted by the Department
of Homeland Security Inspector General that gave a "poor" rating to TSA
screeners for their ability to catch weapons at the checkpoint. Mica, a key
lawmaker who helped write the law that created the agency and chairs the House
aviation subcommittee, would like to see private contractors take over
screening jobs at airports. "TSA was something we put in place in an emergency,
but it needs to evolve. You could whittle TSA down to a very small organization
and do a much better job."

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TSA's three leaders each have had distinct management styles and approaches to
security, creating a culture of perpetual change. Its first leader, John W.
Magaw, was a former head of the U.S. Secret Service who wanted to make TSA into
a broad law enforcement agency with cops at every checkpoint and agents
directing investigations at airports. After six months of protest from Congress
and the airline industry, Magaw was replaced by a popular, industry-friendly
former Coast Guard Commandant, James M. Loy. Loy spent much of his first year
getting rid of what he called Magaw's "stupid rules" such as the secondary
screening at the gates. Loy was so well liked that he was promoted to the No. 2
job at Homeland Security, from which he resigned along with former Sec. Tom
Ridge earlier this year.

Stone, TSA's current leader, is new to Washington and has been known for his
cautious -- some say near paranoid -- approach to security. He presides over a
much slimmer TSA, with 52,000 employees, and said he supports the president's
proposed changes and is happy to give up programs -- even large ones. "I'm a
big optimist," Stone said in a recent interview in is office, which looks out
on the side of the Pentagon hit by a United Airlines jet on Sept. 11, 2001.
"I'm not really concerned about turf if that's what is best for the American
people. I want to look back 10 years from now and say we did it right at TSA."

TSA and Homeland Security spokesmen declined to comment on Stone's departure.
"We don't discuss personnel issues," said Roehrkasse.

Every morning, Stone begins a daily two- to four-hour intelligence meeting, in
which he and 40 of his top managers review incident reports from the country's
429 major airports and from train, bus and trucking systems. They comb reports
of evacuated terminals, unruly passengers and unattended bags, looking for the
next big threat.

Travelers, airport workers and flight crew members involved in incidents are
nominated to the government's secret "watch lists," meaning they will be
singled out for extra screening the next time they arrive at an airport.
So-called "selectees" wind up on the agency's secret list because they
disrupted a flight -- not necessarily because they are viewed as terrorists.
For at least six months, the selectees will be pulled aside for extra scrutiny
every time they fly. Several thousand names are believed to be on the list.

Selectee list
Stone, 52, believes the exercise shows that TSA still serves a critical role in
the nation's intelligence network. He has told new Homeland Security Sec.
Michael Chertoff that he hopes the agency will keep this role. Airlines have
complained that hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent passengers, and even
pilots, have been added to TSA's "selectee" list or that some names are
confused with those on the "No Fly" list, subjecting travelers to delays and
hassles at the airport.

At a February meeting between TSA and 18 major carriers, airline
representatives were asked who had crew members on the list and "they all
raised their hands," said one airline source who was present. Airline officials
said crew members on the list must be stripped of their badges and cannot
perform their duties, according to TSA rules.

Stone said "one or two" pilots who are approved to carry guns in the cockpit
have been put on the selectee list in the past year. He said he recalls a
"handful" of other pilots who have been added to the selectee list because they
were involved in "outrageous" incidents. He cited an incident last year in
which an intoxicated pilot punched a patron at a restaurant and threatened him.

"We take all of these incidents seriously and we work to resolve them quickly
because we know that people's livelihoods are at stake," said TSA spokesman
Mark Hatfield.

Going forward, Stone faces the challenge of keeping TSA's workforce motivated.
Many screeners took their jobs expecting that the new agency would provide a
path to a federal career. At a recent hearing, Stone acknowledged that
screeners suffer from low morale. According to an internal survey last year, 35
percent of employees are satisfied with their job.

Stone said security directors around the country sympathize with him, saying:
"You've got the toughest job in federal government. You're under the gun for
every little thing. You're constantly under the microscope."

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