MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
More than 450 TSA officers have quit since the beginning of the partial government shutdown. As you've heard, they're expected to work, even when they're not getting paid, and their absentee rates continue to grow. Now, we've heard a lot about passengers' frustrations, but let's get perspective from a former TSA administrator. John Pistole led the agency from 2010 to 2014, during the Obama administration. He's also a former deputy director of the FBI, where he led the Bureau's counterterrorism program after 9/11. Mr. Pistole, thanks so much for joining us.
JOHN PISTOLE: Good morning, Michel. Good to be with you.
MARTIN: Good to be with you. So what's this like for TSA officers? I mean, they see these long lines. They know that passengers are frustrated, but they still have to do their work with fewer colleagues at their side. What's it like for them?
PISTOLE: Well, yes, it's deeply frustrating. I've talked to a number of them over the last few weeks, and as your report mentioned, this will be their second full paycheck, plus a half a paycheck when it started back on February 14, the government shutdown, so five weeks without pay. You know, if you have a big savings account and all this backup, that's OK, but many are newer employees who aren't top-paid employees in the government or, of course, private sector. And so they've got car payments. They got rent payments. They got to buy groceries. They have child care - all these things, like commuting costs with gas prices up now. And so it's deeply frustrating. And the contrast is, of course, the ICE agents are walking around, and they're getting paid, but they can't help at the security checkpoint to relieve the lines because they don't have the training or skills or the background and everything. So deeply frustrating.
MARTIN: So you mentioned that there are ICE officers there. We've had a lot of reporters around the country kind of checking in at these airports where they know that they've been deployed. So far, they mainly see them kind of walking around, maybe doing some crowd control. But is there anything they actually could do to relieve the burden on the TSA agents?
PISTOLE: There's a couple things that they could do - one proactive, and the other as a visible deterrent to a punitive terrorist who may want to come in and make a name for themselves or their cause. And, oh, by the way, we're at war with Iran, which - not a good time to be having security issues at the 435 or so airports that TSA provides staffing at. So they could be a visible deterrent to that potential terrorist who wants to simply go into any terminal around the country with hundreds or even thousands of people in line and, unfortunately, wreak havoc.
The one tangible thing they could do is to staff exit lanes in many of the airports where it's not an automated exit lane process, and then they could staff the - replace the TSA officers, the TSOs, who are sitting there to make sure nobody comes in through an exit lane and relieve those people so they can go to the checkpoints to help out their colleagues who are way understaffed because of these high call-out rates due to the frustration.
MARTIN: Here's a sensitive question. I mean, you have a deep background in counterterrorism efforts. I mean, TSA's main job is to check identification and screen bags to make sure that dangerous things don't make it on a plane. Should travelers be worried that this isn't being done as thoroughly as it could be?
PISTOLE: Well, I don't think they should be worried, but I think that's obviously one of the factors in terms of the long wait times because it's - there's fewer officers who are there doing that thorough screening, both of the accessible bags, the carry-on bags and the checked bags. Of course, the person to make sure there's not a Richard Reid, the shoe bomber from December of '01. And, unfortunately, all shoes are still allowed to be on all passengers. But then the underwear bomber walked through on Christmas Day, 2009 out of Schiphol Airport to Detroit with a nonmetallic IED, and he could walk through walk-through metal detectors. So my concern is that the TSA officers might be distracted thinking about how are they going to pay for things, or because they are sort of short-staffed, they have disgruntled customers who've waited in line, like the person you interviewed...
MARTIN: Yeah.
PISTOLE: ...Four hours in line. So there is a concern not because of lack of professionalism.
MARTIN: Before we let you go - we only have a couple of seconds left here - but are you worried that this shutdown will have a lasting impact on TSA?
PISTOLE: I am because of the difficulty in recruiting new TSA employees, do this where there's no guarantee that they will be paid even though they have to work. So, yeah. I would encourage lawmakers to get back to the job and get the job done.
MARTIN: That's John Pistole. He served as TSA administrator in the Obama administration. Mr. Pistole, thanks so much for joining us.
PISTOLE: Thank you, Michel.
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