TSA Hiring Practices and Background Investigation Failures

Background and Origins of TSA

Though today's Americans normally think of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in connection with airline security screening, the United States actually began security screening throughout the country's airports in 1973 in response to multiple hijackings of domestic flights from 1961 to 1972. The Air Transportation Security Act of 1974 required security screening of all passengers and their carry-on luggage, resulting in a nearly complete elimination of domestic hijacking by the 1990s (Blackburn, 2012, p. 2). The success of that Act contributed to America's complacency and near-complete inattention to terrorism, particularly to the notion of suicidal hijacking. That complacency ended on September 11, 2001, and aviation security became a high priority for the Administration and Congress.

In rapid response to the 9/11 attacks, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act was enacted by Congress and signed by the President in November 2001, establishing the Transportation Security Administration. The subsequent Homeland Security Act of 2002 established the overarching Office of Homeland Security and brought the TSA under its authority (George & Whatford, 2007, p. 162). Consequently, the TSA is a stronger security entity than the arm of the Federal Aviation Administration it superseded in the 1990s.

While America was taken aback by the 9/11 attacks, global terrorism experts were not as surprised. Transportation conduits were already deemed "soft" targets for extremist attacks, though 9/11 certainly fueled increased security in four general categories: improved inspection; advanced notification; law enforcement; and transportation security funding. Inspection programs include the screening of passengers, luggage, and freight. Advance notification includes information regarding the contents of vehicles, trailers, and containers provided to customs officials prior to arrival at ports of entry. Law enforcement ranges from air marshals on commercial flights to additional and better-trained officers at every port of entry. Transportation security funding involves the direct costs of increased public security to governments and the private sector (Prentice, 2008, p. 4), which has caused ongoing debate about benefits versus expense.

The debate about security expense hampered the TSA from birth. Congress was hesitant about funding some TSA initiatives, swiftly limited the possible number of TSA personnel, and refused to increase the TSA budget, leading to severe criticism from the 9/11 Commission in its 2005 Public Discourse Project (Roberts, 2006, p. 340). Nevertheless, the United States government was the only world power that created a new national organization — the TSA — to monitor security in every transportation sector and to analyze threats to transportation infrastructure in the wake of 9/11 (Yoo, 2009, p. 38). That daunting task is reflected in the sheer size of the agency: as of early 2005, the number of TSA employees had grown to 49,200 (Jones, 2006, p. 6); as of 2011, the entity employed more than 65,000, making it larger than the U.S. Departments of Education, Energy, Housing, Labor, State, and Urban Development combined. Many of those employees are members of the American Federation of Government Employees, America's largest federal and D.C. employee union (Editors, Bioterrorism Week, 2010, p. 44).

Works Cited

Blackburn, Marsha — U.S. House of Representatives. (2012). "Not on my watch": 50 failures of TSA's transportation security officers. Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 112th Congress.

Editors, Bioterrorism Week. (2010). The American Federation of Government Employees: 250,000 members and growing! Bioterrorism Week, 44.

George, B., & Whatford, N. (2007). Regulation of transport security post 9/11. Security Journal, suppl. Special Issue: Terrorism and Security, 20(3), 158–170.

Joint Majority Staff — U.S. House of Representatives. (2011). A decade later: A call for TSA reform. Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 112th Congress.

Jones, E. (2006). Careers in homeland security: Many jobs, one mission. Occupational Outlook Quarterly, 50(2), 2–15.

Kolstetter, E. (2003). I-O's making an impact: TSA transportation security screener skill standards, selection system, and hiring process. Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 40(4). Washington, DC.

Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2007). A follow-up review of the transportation security officer background check process. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2012). Personnel security and internal control at TSA's legacy Transportation Threat Assessment and Credentialing Office. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2015). TSA can improve aviation worker vetting (redacted). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Prentice, B. E. (2008). Tangible and intangible benefits of transportation security measures. Journal of Transportation Security, 1(1), 3–14.

Roberts, A. (2006). The limits of control: The market state, divided power, and the response to 9/11. International Public Management Journal, 9(3), 313–332.

Thompson, J. R., & Mastracci, S. H. (2008). The blended workforce: Alternative federal models. Public Personnel Management, 37(3), 363–380.

Yoo, K. E. (2009). A study on factors influencing the performance of airport security and on responsibility assignment of security task at international airports. Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research, 19(1), 37–49.