Growing Pains at the Transportation Security Administration

Abstract

Since September 11, 2001, the United States has significantly revamped the ways and means used to provide and insure national security against terrorist attacks. Key legislation included the PATRIOT Act (signed October 2001) and its revision, the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 (passed March 2006), which created new rules on domestic surveillance and detention; the Homeland Security Act (signed November 2002), which established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (passed November 2001), which created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

In order to contextualize the growth and development of the controversial security-related TSA policies and practices over the past six years, this chapter follows a relatively simple chronology, tracing the events that passengers might experience from getting to an airport to deplaning. It then briefly reviews the different kinds of theories of bureaucratic decision making that are applied to policy making, and concludes that to all intents and purposes, the TSA has been operating on an incremental decision-making basis.

Keywords: Transportation Security Administration, TSA, Patriot Act, USA Patriot Act, Homeland Security Act, Department of Homeland Security, passengers, airports, deplaning

JEL Classification: H56, K19, K23, K39, K49, L91, L93, L98