Aero-News Instant Analysis by Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien
A Department of Homeland Security
overhaul announced by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael
Chertoff today will have some impact on aviation, but mostly it's a
reshuffle at the highest levels of the agency. The changes that
affect our industry are the return of Air Marshals to the TSA,
increased user fees to pay for the free-spending TSA, the end of
one minor rule for commercial-airline passengers into DC, and
increased fingerprint scrutiny for foreigners entering the US
legally.
Chertoff's Six Imperatives
Secretary Chertoff said that the reorganization encompassed what
he called "Six key imperatives:"
- Increase preparedness, with particular focus on catastrophic
events.
- Strengthen border security and interior enforcement and reform
immigration processes.
- Harden transportation security without sacrificing
mobility.
- Enhance information sharing with our partners, particularly
with state, local and tribal governments and the private
sector.
- Improve DHS stewardship, particularly with stronger financial,
human resource, procurement and information technology
management.
- Re-align the DHS organization to maximize mission
performance.
The new organizational chart is a model of management complexity
with at least 26 different agency heads of special staff members
directly reporting to the Secretary. Among them are two powerful
new under-secretaries who will have policy and preparedness
responsibilities.
The Undersecretary for Policy, not named, inherits among many
other things the policy responsibilities of the Transportation
Security Administration. These have long been rumored to be going,
leaving the agency little more than a large central staff running
hundreds of airports' worth of bag screeners.
The Secretary also announced that the embattled Federal Air
Marshals Service would return from the Bureau of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement to TSA. This was, according to DHS, "to
increase operational coordination and strengthen efforts to meet
this common goal of aviation security."
The Secretary had been expected to announce that the TSA would
be refocused specifically on aviation security, but made no such
announcement. Instead, he spoke of the need to "harden" rail
security. This appears to greenlight TSA to apply its peculiar
brand of screening to rail travel: it will be easier for jihadis,
but harder for your grandmother, or press critics of the TSA, to
travel.
Chertoff's Remarks on TSA
Under the rubric of Transportation
Security, Chertoff first addressed the expansion of the TSA into
"Transit Security." Then he spoke about its aviation role.
"After 9-11, TSA was created to deny terrorists the opportunity
to use aircraft as weapons and to defend our vital national
infrastructure. Extraordinary progress has been made, but more
remains to do. In aviation, our security and efficiency can be
strengthened by better use of technology, both existing and next
generation technologies."
Chertoff followed up with a cry for more money -- the TSA style
of management doesn't come cheap. "Let me observe that the Congress
intended TSA to be almost entirely supported by user fees, but it
is not. The Administration has proposed a modest increase in user
fees to fund the infrastructure needed for this job. I believe
travelers are willing to pay a few dollars more per trip to improve
aviation security and enhance efficiency. I call on Congress and
the aviation industry to work with me to find a formula that will
work. By collecting user fees for aviation, we can free up precious
DHS resources for other important security priorities."
This is, at a minimum, a missed opportunity to reform an agency
that routinely hires marginally qualified people in six-figure
management jobs, spends hundreds of thousands promoting itself, and
hides from accountability by crying "security."
He followed up with a call for rapid adoption of TSA's "Secure
Flight" and "Registered Traveler," programs, the latest iterations
of the Big Brotherish CAPPS2 system, which has been opposed by
civil libertarians on the left and the right. "Our job is to
identify people at airports whom we already know and believe to
pose a risk to aviation," Chertoff said. (Which doesn't explain why
this writer was put on the terrorist watch list immediately after
writing an editorial critical of TSA, something that has happened
to others at Aero-News as well). He went on to admit that, "Our
existing watch list does identify threatening people, but... it
yields an unacceptably high number of false positives."
In other developments, the old Immigration and Naturalization
Service, divided in a previous reorganization into two agencies,
now appears to be split in three.
One welcome bit of news -- Chertoff
was applauded by Department staff as he made the unexpected
announcement -- the annoying 30-minute seat lockdown when flying to
or from Reagan National Airport is no suspended. Chertoff feebly
defended the rule: "This 30-minute seating rule was a sensible
measure when first applied," as something that was once sensible,
but has been made obsolete by new security measures, including
increased deployment of Federal Air Marshals, and hardened cockpit
doors. He made no mention of what may be the strongest post-911
security measure -- alert passengers.
The rule has been a lightning rod for commentators who
criticized the ineffective, irritating, and expensive requirements
imposed by TSA and DHS bureaucrats post-911. It's worth noting that
the TSA is not rescinding the rule, only suspending it. That it was
changed so reluctantly and incompletely, after four years of
well-deserved ridicule, and with such fanfare, indicates that TSA
and DHS will fight fang and claw to retain many other
bureaucracy-building rules that have little or no effect on
terrorists.
Another "common-sense" change announced by the secretary now
requires a 10-finger fingerprint scan of foreign visitors, on their
first visit. Previously, they were only required to have two
fingers scanned. On second and subsequent visits, foreign travelers
will still have only two fingers scanned under the new plan.
This only applies, of course, to travelers who enter legally.
For the others, DHS says that in the coming weeks Chertoff will
announce "efforts to reduce the demand for illegal border migration
by channeling migrants seeking work into regulated legal channels"
-- in plain English, amnesty.