With the DHS shutdown dragging on, is it time to privatize airport security?

As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding shutdown continues, one of its more public-facing agencies impacted is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Airport screeners continue to work without being paid, even with the September 11th tax supporting the Transportation Security Administration still being collected from every passenger flying on a commercial flight. 

The TSA offers airports the option to engage private contractors to operate their security checkpoints through the TSA Screening Partnership Program (SPP). These contractors do not set security screening policies and standards; rather, they work in partnership with the TSA to ensure the same protocols are followed at all airports where TSA operates.     

Indeed, several airports have taken advantage of the SPP to have private contractors, not federal employees, manning their airport security checkpoints. Though this is mostly invisible to travelers at these airports, including San Francisco International and Kansas City International, their security checkpoints are operating business as usual, impervious to the political bickering that now defines our federal legislative process. 

The TSA was created out of necessity in response to the events of 9/11. Some lawmakers believe the agency has become superfluous, as evidenced by the Abolish TSA Act of 2025, supporting private entities taking over airport security checkpoints. Before abandoning the TSA entirely, however, one ought to look more closely at how the TSA brings value to........

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