Aviation securityMica says TSA needs more independence from DHS

Published 18 July 2011

According to Representative John Mica (R-Florida), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) needs more independence from DHS so that it may operate more efficiently; in an interview with Bloomberg, Mica, the chairman of the House Transportation committee said, TSA should be given “the authority to whack and hack some of the bad out”

According to Representative John Mica (R – Florida), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) needs more independence from DHS so that it may operate more efficiently.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Mica, the chairman of the House Transportation committee said, TSA should be given “the authority to whack and hack some of the bad out.” As it stands, TSA takes too long to implement changes because it requires too much approval from DHS officials, Mica said.

The transportation chair added that the role of the TSA chief should receive greater attention and be among the first officials the president appoints, receive higher pay, and have more authority to determine the agency’s security operations.

“It shouldn’t be a third-tier appointment — it should be right upfront so somebody’s always in the position,” Mica said. “You’ve got to have somebody in charge, you’ve got to have a better definition of what they do, you’ve got to be able to pay them better.”

Mica said that currently more than 200 hundred TSA employees make more money than the agency’s head, and since it was created in 2001, the agency has had five different administrators and even gone through multiple periods without one.

At a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing last Wednesday, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)blasted TSA for the 25,000 reported security breaches at U.S. airports in the last decade.

“I don’t understand it, and it’s unacceptable,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we have to be right all the time,” Chaffetz said. “Terrorists only have to be lucky once.”

In response to a Government Accountability Office report that found TSA needed to develop an explosive detection system for baggage, Representatives Chaffetz and Mike Rogers (R – Alabama) suggested that the agency use more bomb sniffing dogs in airports.

 

Mica blasted the proposal stating, “That scares me, because if TSA gets a whiff of that, we’ll have the biggest kennel in the world.”

In February TSA Administrator John Pistole told lawmakers that he was working to make the agency “more agile” and “high performing.” The ability to quickly adapt procedures based on intelligence information and threats is “paramount to effective security,” he said.

In a statement, Greg Soule, a spokesman for TSA, said, “TSA has been part of DHS from the beginning, and we believe the productive relationship we have with our partner agencies is critical to our continued shared goal of keeping Americans safe.”