Chapter 1: What is the impact of the government shutdown on TSA operations?
By this point, you've surely heard that we're living through the longest government shutdown in United States history. It's the reason for all the chaos at our airports. Democrats don't want to give ICE any more money. The president has shown little to no interest in negotiating. But then ahead of the Easter recess, the president said he'd find a way to pay TSA agents.
So all of a sudden, maybe the shutdown was sort of bunk. Early Friday morning, the Senate was also busy. They unanimously pass a funding deal, then they take off for their two-week recess, but then far-right Republicans in the House hated it because it still didn't fund ICE, so they reject it, pass a version that funds ICE, and then they take off for their two-week recess. Fixes nothing.
Around this time, TMZ enters the chat, posts a call-out for photos of lawmakers vacationing at our expense while we have to suffer through airport chaos. Pretty quickly, they get a shot of Lindsey Graham at Disney World. You might remember Lindsey from helping kick off the war in Iran.
The latest news is that TSA agents got their back pay at some point today, but we're still not sure if they're going to get regular paychecks moving forward. So we're going to check in with a TSA agent on Today Explained from Vox.
Megan Rapinoe here. This week on A Touch More, we've got two insiders to help us unpack the WNBA's new CBA, three-time champion and WNBPA Vice President Alicia Clark, a.k.a. AC, and ESPN basketball analyst Andrea Carter. We're also going to take a look at our NCAA brackets and check out what's next in March Madness.
Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
My name is Tatiana Finley. I am the American Federation of Government Employees Local 556 Fair Practice Coordinator that represents transportation security officers from Central Florida all the way to the Panhandle. Wow. I am also a TSA officer.
Perfect. So it seems like you're a good person to talk to in this moment where there's a lot of people frustrated with what's going on with the TSA. And of course, TSA agents must be wildly frustrated. How long have you been a TSA officer?
I'm almost at 22 years.
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Chapter 2: How do TSA agents feel about being unpaid during the shutdown?
I have to be because, you know, I signed up, when I signed up for the union, I signed up to be an advocate. And you cannot be a pessimist if you're going to try to be an advocate. You cannot be like, the world's coming to an end.
It sounds like at your level, this is just about... doing a good job, like serving your country, serving your community, and honest work. And yet, here in Washington, D.C., the way they've treated TSA agents, the whole thing is extremely political. And I wonder, you know, when these shutdowns happen, it's all about... the perception of who's being blamed.
You know, that's what politicians are paying attention to. And I wonder, who do you and your colleagues blame? Do you blame Democrats for holding out in this shutdown? Do you blame Republicans for wanting to give ICE a blank check? Do you blame the president for being the president?
I think that elected officials have been put in place to represent us as a whole. And it is their job to make sure that they do what they signed up for. Just like I swore an oath almost 22 years ago to go and do what I got to do, which is exactly what we've been doing, right? We've been showing up to work with no pay. It is their job to go and do what they got to do. I don't think at this point,
It falls on any one party. It's everyone there. They are using our workforce as a bargaining chip. And it is 100% time for them to stop their little tantrum. Because it is affecting the federal officers. It is affecting any agency that has gone unpaid. And you think, who's throwing the little tantrum exactly? It's all of them at this point. All of them. All of them.
You're equal opportunity when it comes to blame.
Absolutely.
The mess at our airports has some people going full libertarian on the TSA privatized airport security when we're back on Today Explained.
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Chapter 3: What is the history of government shutdowns affecting TSA?
This is the recommendation of the Heritage Foundation in Chapter 5, page 134 of their Mandate for Leadership, better known as Project 2025. So it's like one bullet points on the overall section about the DHS and then about a page and a half of stuff. And it really just amounts to libertarian bona fides about privatization is great. It saves money. It creates a better solution.
And kind of the devil is in the details with that sort of thing. You could get a good security company, but you might not. And so it's not this magic bullet that's going to solve everyone's problems with the TSA.
Yeah. Much like air travel itself, TSA hasn't always been with us. It's a gift we got after 9-11. So we asked Daryl what airport security looked like in a time before TSA.
So in 1998, let's say, which is I think the first memory that I have of flying... I went to the airport and you could actually go up to the gate and meet people without a boarding pass, but you still had to pass through a medical detector. You still had to put your purse or your backpack or whatever through a scanner, but it was pretty non-invasive, pretty low touch.
Really the goal was to prevent the kind of armed hijackings that were common prior to 9-11, which is where people would take a plane and fly it to Cuba or that sort of thing. So everybody wasn't really doing it to the same standard.
So infamously, the private security company in Boston's Logan Airport let some of the 9-11 hijackers on board with knives and with things that they really weren't supposed to have or they didn't think to look at that might have been caught in other areas of the country. So the TSA came in, they federalized everything, and more importantly, they federalized the standards.
No knives, including plastic knives, onboard airlines. Only ticketed passengers will be allowed past the metal detectors. Higher standards for security personnel as well. And there will be more federal air marshals at large airports.
And a new team of federal security managers, supervisors, law enforcement officers and screeners will ensure all passengers and carry-on bags are inspected thoroughly and effectively.
Okay, so TSA, clearly bureaucratic. But, I mean, we haven't had a 9-11 in this country at least, you know, since 9-11. How good a job has TSA done? I mean, I guess they're there to prevent us from bringing explosives and weapons onto planes. Do we have data that suggests how good they are at making sure that doesn't happen?
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