The benefits of privatization as far as the TSA is concerned seem dubious at best. One issue is that the TSA is incompetent from the top down so having incompetent bureaucrats determining contract requirements, selecting vendors, enforcing and effectively auditing vendors doesn’t create an opportunity to improve upon…

No.

There’s a lot more to it than that.

Since when has a different *source* of payment ever changed the behavior of a person doing an identical job?

How would privatization result in less cost to us? Cost to us is determined by the market and the private company would be incentivized to charge as much as they can get. There is really no downward pressure on costs. Also, on failing audits, there is pressure on reducing operating costs in which the corporation will…

You do realize prior to 9-11, screening was privatized? Although it’s not the gargantuan shit show this is now, it was a lowest bidder-style affair.

Yeah, cuz' Argenbright Security (full disclosure: I used to work for, but not at any airports) was so much better, what with preventing 9/11 and all.

We haven’t had mandatory seatbelts or airbags for the majority of the history of driving, either.

I'll agree that the TSA is hamstrung at almost every point, but to argue that it's not really necessary is ridiculous.