Stephanie Rowe: 100 percent secure air travel not possible

on board?

Rowe: I think that it is a false to say that we can support everything 100 percent of the time. You cannot support every metro station, every port, every airplane, and every airport twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year around the globe. It is an impossible standard. I cannot remember the exact number, but why is it that we accept the fact that we lose 40,000 lives to auto accidents a year?

It really is a cultural thing. At this particular moment, it is not politically accepted for anybody – whether it is the head of TSA or a Congressional member or anyone else – to say that we are going to lose a plane or two.

HSNW: TSA recently came under a lot of fire for its enhanced search procedures and a lot of lawmakers, including the House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica, have loudly advocated for the private security screeners program. In your opinion are there benefits to privatizing security screeners?

Rowe: I think it is important to have control groups to understand what we can get with privatization and how does that compare with a federal work force. It started out with a handful of airports as a control group. My data is a bit old, but my understanding from a purely performance perspective, there is not much difference.

I wonder – and this goes back to having a real honest conversation – about the benefits of privatizing security, the risks of privatizing, and finding that balance. We started, before 9/11, with a 100 percent privatized system. Then we said that we did not like that and we upgraded to TSA. So is this a back to the future thing?

For me, I think there is a role for both and I would ask “What is it that we are trying to achieve?” and based on where we are trying to go, looking at the data on a government work force versus a private work force to see what that data shows.

HSNW: Employees at TSA are set to vote on whether they should unionize on 9 March. If they do choose to unionize would this help productivity and do you anticipate any major changes?

Rowe: While I have been around TSA since its stand-up, I have not been involved with the specific negotiations with the unions. But what I believe is that TSA is an incredibly