"U.S. to Allow Private Firms To Screen At Airports"

Thursday, June 24, 2004

U.S. to Allow Private Firms To Screen At Airports 
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
The Washington (DC) Post


Private companies will be allowed to replace federal airport security
screeners at U.S. airports by the end of 2005 under a plan announced
yesterday by the Department of Homeland Security. 

As many as 100 airports might be interested in the private workforce,
airport groups and private screening firms said. Nearly all of the
nation's 429 commercial airports are staffed by employees of the
Transportation Security Administration, which was created after the
terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The law that created the TSA allows
airports to apply this November to return to a private security
workforce. 

The TSA said that it will select the airports and qualified screening
firms to perform the work and that it will maintain responsibility for
oversight and regulation. Before the terrorist attacks, private firms
conducted security screening through contracts with airlines. 

Security companies said they could provide better screening services at
a cost lower than the government's without lowering standards. A study
conducted this year by consulting firm BearingPoint found that private
security companies performing screening functions at five airports in a
test program performed as well as federal screeners in detecting
weapons. However, a Department of Transportation Inspector General
report said both sets of screeners performed "equally poorly." 

"Those of us in the service industry -- that's all we do, and it's not
what the government does," said John DeMell, president of FirstLine
Transportation Security, a firm that employs security screeners at
Kansas City International Airport. "We hold all the experience."


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