It's December. That means it's time to head home for the holidays. After purchasing an expensive plane ticket, you pack your bags and arrive at the airport, excited to sip an overpriced latte and join your loved ones.

But before you can get to your gate, you need to pass through an airport gauntlet, where a potential cacophony of catastrophe awaits. Included in that is a long line of tired travelers who are already burdened by bags, strollers and babies − and now are waylaid by the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA.

There, any number of things could happen to you in these lines that snake down halls, distracting, discouraging − or even delaying – your trip, all in the name of safety precautions long since outdated, administered by a group of employees so burdened by bureaucratic bloat that they make an appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles look like a trip to Disney World.

Alas, it's time for us to admit, as proud, free, exasperated Americans, that we need safety at U.S. airports, but that it should be efficient and cost-effective. The TSA is neither. It should be abolished and replaced with something better.

The TSA is horrible. Let me count the ways.

It's widely discussed online that encounters with TSA can range from completely normal and uneventful to embarrassing and time-consuming. Don't get me started on the fact that travelers were forced to remove their shoes in the security line for over two decades until this year.

From invasive pat-downs and pre-dawn yelling to missing prohibited items in screenings, there have been enough problems over the past 20-plus years to question why such poor security permeates every U.S. airport.

The TSA was originally founded in response to the devastating terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. It was a harrowing time in our nation's history that I won't forget. I empathize with the need that the Bush administration had for an emergency response to the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, before or since. After what the terrorists did, hijacking multiple planes via box cutters, it made sense at the time to crack down on travelers' identification and belongings. I applaud the speed and verve of this original goal.

But like most government-led agencies or programs, it has slowly devolved into a costly, inefficient mess. The budget request for the 2025 fiscal year was almost $12 billion.

Undercover tests run by the Department of Homeland Security in 2015 and 2017 found that TSA screeners often failed to find prohibited and dangerous items like weapons or simulated explosives, not that full-size bottle of shampoo you have brought and thrown away a few times. In 2015, TSA had a 95% failure rate; in 2017, it was still nearly 80% 2017.

A 2024 Washington Post article revealed that in the previous year, at least 300 people covertly evaded airport security.

In 2024, Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, sent a letter to the TSA administrator asking him how ammunition accidentally carried by Americans was missed by U.S. screenings.

Don't get me wrong: We need security at airports. TSA has likely been a deterrent of sorts, however costly and inefficient it is.

Should airports have private security?

I'm not alone in advocating for the TSA to be tossed out and replaced with something better. This year, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, introduced the Abolish the TSA Act, "which would dissolve the bloated and ineffective Transportation Security Administration while allowing America’s airports to compete to provide the safest, most efficient, and least intrusive security measures, under a new Office of Aviation Security Oversight."

The bill suggests that the Federal Aviation Administration has an oversight program responsible for facilitating the privatization of aviation security screening. Private security companies, which make security and safety their sole focus, would handle screenings. Airports should cover these costs and hire locally, boosting jobs. Well-performing TSA agents could be considered for employment.

Corporations and high-profile earners do not leave their security up to random employees who work for a government agency proven to be inept. Why would we leave our own security and airport travel up to them?

The TSA causes delays and long lines, and while purporting to conduct security checks, forces invasive pat-downs and even misses dangerous and prohibited items while focusing on trivial matters. It's time that America's airports and travelers have a more efficient and effective system in place. That way, everyone can get home for the holidays safely, quickly and with their peace of mind intact.

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Can we just abolish the TSA and start over already? | Opinion

Reporting by Nicole Russell, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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