Republican: ‘I believe TSA is a failure’

The Transportation Security Administration is a “failure,” a member of the House Homeland Security Committee declared this week after a series of security breaches in the nation’s airports.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) wrote in an op-ed on the website AL.com that it is “unfathomable” to him that the TSA could fail to identify workers who have potential ties to terrorism, as a recent report from the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general alleges. 

{mosads}”I believe TSA is a failure because it is a bloated bureaucracy that wastes millions of taxpayer dollars while trampling on the privacy of innocent Americans,” he wrote. 

“We cannot take risks when it comes to the safety of our traveling public and our homeland,” Rogers continued. “TSA, as it is currently structured, is a massive failure that can’t even get its most basic task done right. It is time to clean house at TSA and reinvent it as a smarter, leaner organization that incorporates private sector ingenuity.”  

The TSA has come under for the report saying it failed to properly vet its workers, as well as a separate report that it failed to find fake bombs and explosives in 67 of 70 internal tests. 

Rogers said in his op-ed that the TSA has strayed far from its original mission. 

“Anyone across East Alabama who has taken a flight over the past few years knows what a long and frustrating event the passenger screening process can be as folks make their way with their belongings to their gate of departure,” he wrote.

“After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) was created to help prevent any further attacks and strengthen the security of our aviation system,” Rogers continued. “Unfortunately, TSA has become one of the most dysfunctional and despised agencies in the Federal government.” 

Rogers added that he “did not serve in Congress when TSA was created, but as a current member of the Committee on Homeland Security and former Chairman over Transportation Security subcommittee, I have been and remain an outspoken critic of the TSA.”