Saturday, March 27, 2010

Another Day, Another Failed TSA Nominee

Based on what we personally observed this week at a large airport in the south, there is a lot of room for improvement in the way Transportation Security Administration agents carry out their screening function. But it looks like one of their other problems, finding a new boss, won't be solved anytime soon.
President Obama’s choice to lead the agency that guards United States airports abruptly withdrew his nomination on Friday night amid questions about his work as a defense contractor, the second time the White House has lost a nominee for the critical security post.
Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding, a retired Army intelligence officer, was selected to take over the Transportation Security Administration, or T.S.A., just two and a half weeks ago, following the withdrawal of Mr. Obama’s first pick under fire.
No third choice was announced, and the back-to-back failed nominations mean that the job is likely to remain unfilled for months to come.
General Harding’s bid came unraveled after reports that his firm collected more federal money than it was entitled to for providing interrogators in Iraq. ..
The president’s first nominee, Erroll G. Southers, a former F.B.I. agent and counterterrorism supervisor for the Los Angeles airport police, withdrew his nomination in January after giving conflicting answers about conducting police background checks on a man his estranged wife was seeing.

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