Transportation Security Aggravation

Debating the balance between privacy and safety in a post-9/11 aviation industry.

Robert Poole & Jim Harper from the March 2005 issue

(Page 3 of 6)

Government's Essential Role in Travel Security

Robert W. Poole Jr.

Jim Harper and I agree on several points. But we appear to differ on a fundamental one: the need for government involvement in aviation security.

This need stems from the underlying fact that America (indeed, the whole West) is engaged in a war not of our choosing. Islamist terrorism is a deadly global threat, different in nature from that of Soviet communism but no less global and ongoing. And since Job No. 1 of government is national defense, it is very properly involved in defending Americans against this diffuse but deadly enemy.

In my opening comments, I noted the limitations of target hardening as a defensive strategy against terrorism. Operations researcher Manuel Trajtenberg of Tel Aviv University has applied game theory to the war between terrorists and society. Terrorists have to decide whether or not to strike and, if so, which targets to hit. Potential targets must decide how much to invest in their own security. And government decides what and where to invest in fighting terrorism. In his model, Trajtenberg compares two different government approaches: fighting terrorism at its source or hardening particular targets. Applying plausible numbers to his model, he finds that the former strategy is hundreds or thousands of times more effective than protecting individual targets.

So when I said that aviation security needs to be rethought from the ground up, it was with this kind of analysis in the background. In my view, the most important thing the federal government can do to counter terrorism is to find and kill the terrorists. That, in turn, depends on extensive intelligence work. And that provides the key to rethinking the role of whatever federal entity exists (call it the TSA or simply X) to address terrorist threats here at home.

The TSA or its replacement should be primarily an analytical agency, one that uses intelligence information to sort out and prioritize the terrorism risks facing America on its own territory. Only a federal entity with full access to comprehensive intelligence information can be in a position to carry out such analyses and make intelligent recommendations as to what kind of target hardening provides sufficient deterrence against such large potential losses as to be worth the investment.

Harper puts great stock in the role of insurance as a way of both incentivizing efficient levels of target hardening and of coping with the risks of loss from such events. I agree but must point out a huge caveat: If a risk is unquantifiable, it is uninsurable. In the wake of 9/11, aviation terrorism coverage was simply not available. Nobody in the insurance (or airline) business could quantify the risks, so nobody would offer a policy. Today, after three years of government efforts, however ham-handed, to strengthen aviation security, some very expensive coverage is starting to be available.

The TSA that Congress created is a far cry from what I'd like to see. To begin with, the failure of airport screening to prevent the 9/11 attacks stemmed directly from the Federal Aviation Administration's failure to define any sort of meaningful performance or training requirements for airport screeners. In a gross overreaction, Congress stampeded into nationalizing the screening industry while tripling screening's cost and making it far more intrusive. Yet after more than two years of full TSA operation, the agency has yet to demonstrate that the quality of screening is any better than it was pre-9/11. Thus far it has even failed at the most inherently governmental aspect of its aviation security task: providing real-time access to comprehensive intelligence information to identify people who pose a risk to aviation.

Harper and I agree that it is wrong for the TSA to "stop everyone without regard to individualized suspicion." Yet in his very next paragraph he undercuts his own position by opposing efforts to identify air travelers who may pose a threat. There are only two ways of dealing with the needle-in-a-haystack problem of finding would-be terrorists among millions of airline passengers: Either screen every passenger and piece of luggage rigorously, without regard to individualized suspicion, or use information to sort out passengers on the basis of risk. The latter approach is basic to every kind of police and security work, and it is the only policy that makes sense, from both an economic and civil liberties point of view.

But how would it work? As I mentioned in my first contribution, those who volunteer for pre-clearance constitute one low-risk group, needing little if any screening. Those showing up on serious, comprehensive watch lists constitute a high-risk group, needing rigorous screening. Individualized information is needed to sort people into both of these groups. What about somebody who shows up at the airport with no ID, or whose ID cannot be verified in any way? Common sense says he's a possible high-risk group member, certainly compared to someone with, say, a substantial credit history. This is a complex issue, but Harper's dismissal of efforts such as Secure Flight that would verify a traveler's identity is inconsistent with his position that travelers should receive more than cursory airport screening only when there are grounds for "individualized suspicion."

Much of what today's TSA does, including the airport screening that accounts for the bulk of its work force, should be done by private firms, working for the airport owner. And "registered traveler" programs can and should be run by airlines and their contract service firms as a benefit for their frequent fliers. But the core of aviation security involves making use of intelligence to identify terror threats, make aviation security policy, and provide the individualized information necessary for a risk-based security system to function. Those tasks are inherently governmental, a vital part of national defense in the war against terrorism.

Security Is Better Private

Jim Harper

In a Fall 2004 article for Regulation magazine, "A False Sense of Insecurity?," Ohio State political scientist John Mueller, a national security expert, pointed out that terrorism is minimally destructive compared to other dangers. Terrorism does most of its damage through hasty, ill-considered, and overwrought reactions.