TSA agents aid and abet drug smugglers!

PALM BEACH, Florida - September 17, 2011 - The two Transportation Security Administration officers who were charged this week with helping drug traffickers move oxycodone through Palm Beach International Airport are just the latest problem for the agency. Ever since its creation, the TSA has been slammed by its own employees, an inspector general and even the Florida congressman who helped create what he now calls a "mindless Soviet-style operation".

"It's just one more instance in which you have an agency that cries out for reform," said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "The employees rebel. They see a dysfunctional agency."

TSA officers Christopher Allen, 45, of Palm Beach Gardens, and John Best, 30, of Port St. Lucie, were among 20 people federally charged in an alleged conspiracy to distribute the prescription narcotic oxycodone. Allen and Best are accused of accepting bribes to help drug dealers move oxycodone through airport security without detection.

Two weeks earlier, a TSA officer from New York, Minnetta Walker, admitted to helping a man who was accused of running a drug ring and smuggling money through Buffalo Niagara International Airport's security. Two months ago, TSA officer Toussain Puddie was arrested on grand theft charges after authorities said he stole a $450 pen while working at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. In February, a TSA officer working out of Newark Liberty Airport admitted that he and his supervisor stole money from travelers' bags while they walked through screening.

Mica, a longtime TSA critic, said the all-too-common news of employees being involved in criminal activity leaves him "more determined to seek dramatic reform".

After closing an eight-month investigation, Mica said he would be proposing legislation to the House in the next week to overhaul the TSA.

The TSA needs to be independent of the Department of Homeland Security, Mica contends. Turnover needs to be reduced and pay rates need to be adjusted; in some cases, lower-level employees are earning more than administrators. Airport screening should be privatized, and the agency needs to be dramatically reduced, retaining no more than 3,000 of the nearly 51,000 now employed there, he said.

"The screeners are only the tip of the iceberg," said Mica. "The problem is it's a bureaucracy that's emerged."