Monday, February 7, 2011

Free Market Security versus the TSA

By Robert Murphy

The controversy over the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) "enhanced patdowns" and body scanners has focused on the standard dichotomy between individual liberty and national security. The real focus, though, should be on this fact: We can achieve the goals of consumer privacy and airline safety much more efficiently in the free market. If airlines were held liable for damages resulting from the criminal use of their property, they would work with insurance companies to provide a much more sensible approach to air travel than the Department of Homeland Security provides. Government Not Up to the Task.

For some reason, many who recognize the government's incompetence in running car companies don't object to the TSA's monopoly on air security.1 Yet if we look with a critical eye, there is plenty of evidence that the TSA should not have such an awesome responsibility. By now, we've heard countless anecdotes of fliers subjected to senseless invasions of privacy. Even worse, the TSA had been running airline security for almost eight years when the infamous Christmas 2009 "Underwear Bomber" entered U.S. airspace and threatened Americans. It's true that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, boarded his flight in Amsterdam. Yet the U.S. government insists that any flights coming into the country have boarding procedures that meet TSA standards, and so ultimately the TSA failed in its mission—in the end the "Underwear Bomber" was subdued by another passenger, not by the TSA.

For the same reasons it is not suited to run a monopoly on mail delivery or education, the federal government is not suited to run a monopoly on airport security. Because the TSA faces no competitors and receives its funding from taxpayers (regardless of their satisfaction with its performance), we should expect the TSA to behave with the same degree of incompetence and indifference as other government bureaucracies. As David R. Henderson quipped, "Why would we trust the government to monopolize airport security, when it still requires airlines to lecture us on how to operate a seatbelt?"

Read the rest here.

2 comments:

  1. As David R. Henderson quipped, "Why would we trust the government to monopolize airport security, when it still requires airlines to lecture us on how to operate a seatbelt?"

    What a lousy characterization of the issue. You want freemarket?

    Fine. And the next time some idiot passenger bumps his head in turbulence, he’ll have his lawyer in this great land-of-the-litigious, suing and claiming poor standards of airline safety practice FOR NOT lecturing passengers about buckling up.

    With all your great intelligence Wenzel, does this really need to be pointed out to you by a reader?

    Are you unaware that we’re the most litigious country in the world, and that the tenet behind much of this litigation is that no one is responsible for their own actions?

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  2. Wenzel, my head hurts after reading the first comment on this thread. I'm suing.

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