Three Airports Plan to Ditch T.S.A. Agents Amid Push for Private Security

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/travel/tsa-privatization-push.html

Three U.S. airports have become the first to opt in to the Transportation 
Security Administration’s new private screening model, prompting staunch 
opposition from the union that represents thousands of T.S.A. workers.

The airports — Tampa International Airport, Des Moines International 
Airport and Charleston International Airport — plan to transition to the 
new voluntary public-private screening initiative, an agency spokesperson 
confirmed on Wednesday. The initiative, called Gold+, has been billed by 
the agency as an update to an existing program through which 20 U.S. 
airports, including San Francisco International, use private security 
screeners rather than federal workers. The T.S.A. first announced the new 
program in a mass email to staff members in May.

In the wake of recent government shutdowns, which left T.S.A. agents 
unpaid for months and led to long lines, airport officials in Tampa and 
Des Moines said they hoped using the program would reduce the risk of 
disruptions while allowing airports to access new screening checkpoint 
technology that they say would otherwise take years to obtain through the 
traditional federal process.

But the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 
47,000 T.S.A. agents across the country, said in a statement on Tuesday 
that the Trump administration’s push to expand privatization of aviation 
security could jeopardize public safety and represented a “major 
departure” from the system created by Congress after the terrorist attacks 
of Sept. 11, 2001.

“Changes of this magnitude should not be made behind closed doors without 
the input of Congress, the flying public, the local airport authorities, 
and T.S.A. employees themselves,” said Everett Kelley, the union’s 
national president. Mr. Kelley added that he believed continued 
privatization could pose a significant danger: “We don’t have to theorize 
about what that may look like because we have been through this before.”


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November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.