Welcome to the second article in “The Libertarian Alternative.” This series will be used to look at current policy in America and give you a plausible solution for those policies using a libertarian alternative. If there is a topic you would like to see in this blog series, please email me at chair@lpar.org and I will consider using your idea in the next blog!
"Anyone is welcome to grab my crotch, I don't require dinner and a movie, just ask me. Is that asking too much? You wanna grab my crotch, please ask. Does that seem like a crazy person to you?" – Penn Jillette to a TSA Supervisor in 2002.
“If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.” – John Tyner to a TSA Agent in 2010
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few weeks, you have heard about the controversy surrounding the TSA and their new scanning machines and opt-out pat-down policy changes. This has caused a growing number of people to challenge the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on this issue and has prompted the “National Opt-Out Day” for November 24th, the busiest air travel day of the year, to hopefully bring more attention to this issue.
With growing reports of 3-years olds having their genital area groped while screaming in fear, “Stop touching me!” and nuns being deep searched (see picture above), people all over are livid over the situation, prompting calls of “The terrorists have won” from all sorts of sources, including The Drudge Report and the Libertarian Party of America. Pilots’ unions and Flight Attendants’ unions are also up in arms over this, and are calling for talks with the TSA to find ways to keep their union members out of the radiation-emitting naked scanners and the molestation pat downs.
Today, the estimated chances of being on a plane with a terrorist are 1 in 20,000,000, yes, that’s one in twenty million, according to John Mueller, the Ohio State Professor of National Security.
Is this worth the invasion of privacy we are seeing? Is this worth the U.S. Government stripping us of our 4th Amendment rights?”The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The federal government was designed to protect our rights, not arbitrarily take them away under the guise of security. According to Benjamin Franklin in An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government in Pennsylvania (1759), “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
So, we agree the situation is bad, but how can we fix it? Who would be responsible for airport security if not the government? Who could we possibly trust with such a large responsibility? Is there another way?
Of course there is another way, and I firmly believe it is a much better way. Allow the invisible hand of the free-market to reign supreme in this area and you will see those alternatives. I can think of a couple of different ways off of the top of my head, but there is nothing more innovative than the free-market, so who knows what a free-market airport security option would truly look like?
As I see it, in the free market, airlines would have the choice between handling their own security or contracting with a private security firm. Each of these choices would present benefits and disadvantages. Let’s take these two options separately.
Airline Supplied Security
Airlines could take it upon themselves to secure their passengers, employees and equipment by insourcing their security so they have full control of this process.
At the very least, this would give you the choice of types of security you want to go through based on which carrier you chose, and could also mean some innovative carriers would have different flights with varying levels of security.
For example, if I felt very uncomfortable with the current TSA options of the naked scanner and the invasive pat-down, I could choose to fly with Airline Alpha that allows it’s pilots to carry loaded weapons and allows it’s flight attendants to carry stun guns. Of course, the airline would be completely responsible for the training of these people with their weapons and would be responsible for the use of those as well.
If I were uncomfortable trusting trained people with guns or tasers, I could choose to fly with Airline Bravo that does more deep background checks and targeted screening (such as Israel does with it’s airport security) on it’s passengers before allowing them to fly. Or, I could choose Airline Charlie that allows all passengers with a valid concealed carry license to carry their loaded weapons on every flight.
The possibilities and varieties of these options are nearly limitless. This would allow me to make a choice based on my preference instead of a cookie cutter approach to security that invades everyone’s privacy.
Airline Outsourced Security
Airlines that don’t want the headache, cost and liability involved with dealing with security as a part of their company could easily outsource that service to other companies, whether it be Airline Delta liking the way Airline Bravo does security and contracting with them to handle security for Airline Delta, or bringing in specialized security companies to do the job.
There are already companies out there that specialize in high-end security options such as Backwater and their competitors. These companies would logically want to get more business and would begin tailoring some parts of their business to airline industries. Also, I would not be surprised to see former air marshals and military special forces types opening new companies that do this sort of security almost immediately. These companies could also offering training options to the airlines who prefer to keep security internal.
I am a firm believer in private industry and competition versus a government monopoly. With private companies responsible for this themselves things will invariable be much more efficient, cheaper and have a higher quality. This is always the case with competition in the free market, and could be no different with airline security.
You may ask, if the government is not involved in airline security, what incentive would the airlines have of making sure their flights are safe? Why wouldn’t they just skip out on paying money for any security to increase profits? An airline who went this route would not be in business for long.
First of all, it is in the airlines interest to protect their assets. A Boeing 767-400ER is about $170 million dollars. A Boeing 777-300ER is about $280 million dollars. Risking equipment of this value by not securing their flights would be a risk too big to take for most companies. Assets also include employees. Companies spend a lot of money of hiring, training and retention of employees, not to mention the costs a company would lose if an employee was killed on the job due to airline negligence.
Secondly, if they were able to get passengers to fly with them (which would be unlikely, especially in today’s world, to get passengers to fly on an airline with no security), the airline would be responsible for the lives of those passengers. If a terrorist were to take down a plane because this company had no security, the families of those passengers would have every right to sue the airline into oblivion, and with the airline providing no security, the families would likely win huge settlements. This would also be the same option for anyone who was hurt or killed on the ground due to the airline’s negligence.
I’m sure we would also see companies pop up like Consumer Reports and Underwriters Laboratories who would rate different companies on security, efficiency etc. that would allow consumers to make better informed decisions based on these new factors. This would be a perfect new niche for UL, a private company who has helped ensure public safety and confidence in products for decades.
There would also be new forms of insurance to cover issues that may come from security related incidents. I could see companies offering liability insurance to both airlines who want to insource their security and for security companies that are outsourced as part of an airline’s strategy for security.
As I said, these were ideas that came to me pretty quickly. A free-market would, of course, come up with many more ideas and options. The purpose of this series of articles is not to show you exactly what a Libertarian Alternative would be, but to get people’s minds thinking of alternatives themselves.
