Police State: After New York Attack, Congress Wants TSA to Secure Amtrak, Buses
A bill pushing the agency to focus more on surface transport follows a critical report and an attempted bombing near a train station.
The U.S. Transportation Security
Administration is one of those federal agencies that tends to inspire
intense reactions among the traveling public. It’s a bureaucracy that
interacts with millions of passengers each day, requiring their shoes,
jackets, laptops—and time.
Virtually
all this occurs at airports, with about 80 percent of the agency’s $7.4
billion budget spent on aviation security. Only 2 percent of the TSA’s
funding goes to surface transportation, according to a report by the
Office of Inspector General earlier this month. Congress is looking to
change that.
Several U.S.
senators want the TSA to focus more attention and resources on rail,
highway, and marine transportation, which would mean greater security
oversight at such places as Amtrak stations and Megabus coach stops. A
bipartisan bill introduced Thursday by Senator John Thune (R-S.D.)
would require the TSA to use a risk-based security model for these
transport modes and to budget money based on those risks. It would
require a wider use of the agency’s terrorist watch list by train
operators and more detailed passenger manifests along with tighter
screening of marine employees. The legislation also would increase the
TSA’s canine use by as many as 70 dog-handler teams for surface
transportation.
Lest
you begin hyperventilating, it’s virtually impossible to envision
airport-style screening detectors or security queues snaked around
America’s train and bus passenger depots. “This is very much not
creating for bus or rail transportation the [security] model that
exists for aviation,” said Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which Thune chairs.
Moreover,
it’s unlikely Congress has the will or the wherewithal to fund any
massive increase in TSA personnel, already stretched thin this year to
handle airport staffing amid budget cuts. In the spring, airline
passengers experienced extreme delays
at many of the largest airports, leading to a national outcry and quick
injection of funds from Congress. The TSA also shifted security agents
among airports to ease the crisis. Now, with a budget impasse brewing on Capitol Hill, sufficient funding may again pose a problem for the agency.
TSA spokesman Michael England declined to comment on pending legislation.
Amtrak
wouldn’t be required to use TSA watch lists or other resources, but the
bill would force the TSA to give the rail operator access to its Secure Flight
program within six months, if Amtrak directors requested it. Spokesman
Craig Schulz said Amtrak looks forward to working with Thune’s committee
to develop a “comprehensive policy that helps keep the passenger rail
system secure.”
Lanesha Gipson, a
spokeswoman for Dallas-based Greyhound Lines Inc., said the bus operator
hasn’t yet reviewed the bill. To date, the TSA has conducted security
inspections at 33 terminals in Greyhound’s network, Gipson said in an
e-mail. “Additional assistance making sure our
passengers, employees and buses are safe” would be welcome, said Sean
Hughes, a spokesman for Megabus.com, owned by U.K.-based Stagecoach
Group Plc.