Pistole Whips Talking Points
U.S. Transportation
Safety Administration Administrator John Pistole travels the world over
extolling the programs TSA has installed and continues to create to insure
passenger and cargo safety in all modes and disciplines of transportation.
“Focusing on risk management is the
most efficient way to use TSA’s limited resources and enhances the
value we provide to the American people,” he told lawmakers in Washington
in testimony earlier this year.
“I recently created the position of
Chief Risk Officer to assess and standardize our approach to risk management
across our mission operations and business support operations.
“This effort allows TSA to better
assess new policies with respect to risk and value creation.
“TSA also recently extended invitations
to twenty-four industry group and association members to be part of TSA’s
Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC), which provides recommendations
for improving aviation security methods, equipment, and procedures.
“The ASAC enhances TSA’s security
posture through consultation with key partners concerning potential risks
to infrastructure, passengers, and cargo as well as gathering input from
stakeholders on the effectiveness of TSA’s current security procedures.
“Members then develop and share recommendations
for possible improvements to make TSA’s policies more effective,”
Mr. Pistole said.
In addition to his lunchtime speech on October
8th at TIACA ACF in Seoul, this is what John Pistole told a Chicago Tribune
Editorial Board about TSA activities and outlook just last month:
“The FBI's Terrorist Screening Center
has to have a certain threshold of information to put somebody on or take
somebody off the no-fly list.
 “We're
just the facilitator of that.
“Other agencies—the CIA, NSA
(National Security Agency)—they're the ones who nominate people
depending on the information they have.
“The no-fly list works for the known
universe of people, but my concern is as much on the unknowns—about
people who just haven't come up on anybody's radar.
“That's part of the challenge.”
“We have almost 900 bomb-sniffing
dogs in the TSA, both in passenger and cargo—many of these dogs
are Belgian Malinois.
“Every day, the TSA confiscates five
or six guns.
“There were 1,813 firearms confiscated
at U.S. airports around the country in 2013—1,477 of which were
loaded.
“About 25 percent of people who bring
weapons into checkpoints over the course of the year are actually arrested.
“Whether someone is arrested is up
to the local authorities.
 “In
the future the majority of screening lanes throughout the country (about
2,200) will be TSA pre-checked lanes. That will become the new norm.
“The standard lanes will be the exception.
“More and more people will either
sign up for TSA PreCheck directly, or there will be private companies
that sign people up under a contract with us.
“We just had the 13th anniversary
of 9/11. The further we get away (from that day of terror), the greater
the risk of complacency becomes.
“Regardless of the public's perspective,
we have to make sure we don't become complacent,” John Pistole said.
Geoffrey |
