Tue, Feb 01, 2011
AFGE Applauds The Move To Not Consider Any Additional Airports
In SPP Effort
Just a month after saying it was "neutral" on the issue, TSA
Administrator John Pistole (pictured) has said he will not
expand a program which allows airports to hire private contractors
for passenger screening. The head of the agency said Friday that
the program would be shut off at the current 16 airports which
currently have contract screeners.
As recently as December, TSA had said it was willing to work
with a airports which were looking into hiring private screeners,
which would have supervised and paid by TSA and using the same
screening procedures as the government agency. But media sources
including CNN and Fox News report that Pistole said in a statement
that he has "examined the contractor screening program and decided
not to expand the program beyond the current 16 airports as I do
not see any clear or substantial advantage to do so at this
time."
Florida Congressman John Mica (R-6), who chairs the House
Transportation Committee, told CNN he plans to call for an
investigation into the matter. "It's unimaginable that TSA would
suspend the most successfully performing passenger screening
program we've had over the last decade," Mica said Friday night.
"The agency should concentrate on cutting some of the more than
3,700 administrative personnel in Washington who concocted this
decision, and reduce the army of TSA employees that has ballooned
to more than 62,000."
The American Federation of Government Employees praised
Pistole for capping the privatization of airport screening
functions, also known as the Screening Partnership Program
(SPP).
"The nation is secure in the sense that the safety of our skies
will not be left in the hands of the lowest-bidder contractor, as
it was before 9/11" AFGE National President John Gage said. "We
applaud Administrator Pistole for recognizing the value in a
cohesive federalized screening system and workforce."
Airports have had the option of opting out of the federal
screener system since TSA was created. Pistole's memo to the TSA
workforce said "to preserve TSA as an effective, federal
counterterrorism security network, SPP will not be expanded beyond
the current 16 airports, unless a clear and substantial advantage
to do so emerges in the future."
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