The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) is actually part of the Department of Homeland Security. It came into being after 9/11 and its primary focus is on air travel: it screens luggage and passengers at air ports to help prevent another terrorist hijacking like that on 9/11. I chose this agency because I can remember there being a time when one could go to the airport without being frisked, and that time is now gone. Three interesting facts about the TSA are that 1) it actually oversees all four modes of land-based transportation and provides support in the regulation and oversight of maritime security as well, 2) “in 2016, TSA officers detected 3,391 firearms in carry-on bags at airport checkpoints around the nation,” and 3) TSA has a pre-check that allows travelers to get through security quickly (TSA, 2017).
While these points are of course interesting, some critics of the TSA argue that the agency is actually more harmful than good—so here are three contrarian interesting points about the agency: 1) In 2017 it disclosed a 94% failure rate when it came to actually detecting dangerous carry-on items at its airport checkpoints;...
These contrarian points indicate that there is still a great deal of controversy about the effectiveness of the TSA in terms of providing actual security for travelers and air transportation. Its work in the four main modes of land-based transportation receives far less scrutiny because most people are unaware of the TSA’s role in those areas.
2
One current event that recently occurred was the explosion of a gas pipeline in rural Ohio. The line was owned by Embridge, Inc., which is a Canadian company that owns the Texas Eastern Transmission gas pipelines, of some 9000 miles of pipe installed in the 1950s (Gatehouse Media Ohio, 2019). An investigation is underway to identify the cause of the explosion, but already there are cries of concern about the safety of the pipeline, as this is not the first significant explosion to result in property damage.…
