You’ve probably already heard–and cheered: The Transportation Security Administration is reportedly now “being slated for dismantling.” Sounds more dramatic than it is. According to the Washington Post:

Under provisions of President Bush’s 2006 budget proposal favored by Congress, the TSA will lose its signature programs in the reorganization of Homeland Security. The agency will likely become just manager of airport security screeners — a responsibility that itself could diminish as private screening companies increasingly seek a comeback at U.S. airports.

The agency’s very existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a clause permitting the elimination of TSA as “distinct entity” after November 2004.

“TSA, at the end of the day, is going to look more like the Postal Service,” said Paul C. Light, a public service professor at New York University and a Brookings Institution scholar who has tracked the agency since its birth in February 2002.

In other words: At the end of the day, we’ll still be stuck with it.

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TSA: Thousands standing around
Pouring fuel on the homeland security fire
Norm Mineta’s Transportation Security Administration: Another 9/11 disaster