A Georgia congressman is calling on the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to resign, saying the federal agency “has become nothing more than a bloated, broken bureaucracy.”
U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., wrote to TSA Administrator John Pistole in response to what the congressman said were news reports of lax security standards and overly-aggressive screening procedures by TSA agents at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and other airports nationwide.
In the letter, Broun said TSA agents “lack either proper training or simple professionalism when dealing with airline passengers.” The TSA uses its power, Broun said, to violate travelers’ civil rights, but doesn’t adequately protect ensure the general public’s safety.
“Americans can no longer tolerate the flagrant violations of their civil rights which are occurring at airports nationwide in the name of ‘security,’” Broun wrote. “More importantly, the corruption and continued lack of security among TSA’s own personnel puts our country at extreme risk of another terrorist attack.
“The time has come for serious action to be taken. As such, I request your immediate resignation from the position of TSA Administrator, Broun added. “The safety of our country’s travelers requires drastic change, and the time for that change is now.”
Broun has been a long-time critic of the agency. Last year, the congressman and his Republican colleagues on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee issued a scathing report of the federal agency titled “A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform.”
In December, he accepted an offer from Pistole to “sit down and go through TSA’s books” after the administrator told Bloomberg News: “Those who say that we’re inefficient or bloated — I’d be glad to sit down and go through the books and say, ‘OK, how would you staff this differently?”