Privatize the Bad Old TSA?

The ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. John Mica of Florida, is a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration

An AP story Airports Consider Congressman's Call To Ditch TSA, carried by NPR, notes "Federal law allows airports to opt for screeners from the private sector instead" and says the Florida congressman is behind a push to have airports ditch TSA screeners altogether. Sounds great, eh?

Watch out, though, Congressman Mica counts among his campaign contributors some of the companies who might take the TSA's place. Could be just another GOP 'privatization' move. Like prisons and Iraqi contractors, the outcome could be bad for everyone except the executives and stockholders in those companies.

The backlash against the TSA's backscatter "porno scanners" and groping patdowns is real, and the very authoritarian-sounding responses by TSA head John Pistole reveal a genuine gap between the measures being imposed on the flying public and implementing real air travel safety measures, along with contempt for what the public expects from their elected government and the institutions created to serve them.

Really, after the things we hear about Blackwater and how Arizona prisons supported the law to criminalize being brown, do you think the private screeners will be any less abusive and oppressive than TSA employees?