The Navigator: Is the TSA’s 10th birthday cause for celebration?

Happy birthday, TSA.

The federal agency charged with protecting the nation’s transportation systems turns 10 Nov. 19. And although its supporters will probably spend the coming days talking about its apparent successes, including the absence of a 9/11 sequel, the question of whether we’re better off with this fledgling $8 billion-a-year federal agency remains very much unanswered.

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Maybe it’s a good time to ask it. Not only has the Transportation Security Administration been with us for a decade, but it’s also the one-year anniversary of the unpopular pat-down rule, when officials arbitrarily decided to either send air travelers through the agency’s new body scanners or frisk them. A citizen-initiated petition on the White House Web site encouraging the government to eliminate the agency is gaining momentum, having collected more than 30,000 signatures.

So what are the TSA’s major achievements? Greg Soule, an agency spokesman, offers a list that includes the TSA’s quick formation after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the fact that no major terrorist incidents have happened on its watch. “Through significant improvements to our processes and technologies, as well as the ongoing professionalization of our workforce, transportation systems are safer now than they ever have been,” he says.

Several experts who have been supportive of TSA policies in the past agree that the agency has done a respectable job during its first decade.

“The TSA’s greatest accomplishment is treating transportation security like the serious, professional, your-life-depends-on-it law enforcement job that it is,” says Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general with the Transportation Department and now a lawyer in Mount Pleasant, S.C.

She says that air travelers have forgotten pre-9/11 airport security, which was run by the airlines and was porous and shoddy. Do we really want to return to that? “The airlines allowed 9/11 to happen,” Schiavo says. “They caught [9/11 hijacker] Mohamed Atta at Boston Logan Airport on May 11, 2001, knew he was photographing, filming and watching the security checkpoints at the airport, and they let him go.”

Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, believes that the TSA deserves recognition for adapting to meet the terrorist threat since its creation in 2001. When it comes to aviation security, he says, there’s no quick and easy fix, and the agency’s approach of building a layered defense and using intelligence underpinned by technology and a well-trained workforce is keeping air travel safe.

But other TSA watchers aren’t so quick to label the agency a success. Steve Lord, the director of homeland security and justice issues with the Government Accountability Office, considers the TSA a “work in progress.”

It has made significant improvements in some areas but is “still trying to meet other key goals, such as meeting the congressional mandate to screen inbound air cargo,” he says. “Also, they need to adopt more risk-based screening measures to deploy resources more effectively. A one-size-fits-all approach is inefficient and tends to frustrate the traveling public.”