What you need to know about the bill calling to abolish TSA

A new Republican bill is calling for the dissolution of the agency overseeing airport safety.

Mar 28, 2025 - 14:47

What you need to know about the bill calling to abolish TSA

Established in November 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York City, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is a branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in charge of security not just at the country's airports but also other transportation systems like highways, railways and ports.

The agency is, however, most commonly associated with the shoes-off, liquids-poured-out screenings one has to go through before taking a flight. At the start of 2025, TSA released numbers saying that it screened over 904 million passengers and 494 million checked bags in the previous year.

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'Travel without feeling the hands of an army of federal employees': Republican Senator

Given that it was spearheaded by former president George W. Bush, the TSA seems like a strange target for Republicans in the Trump era. And yet Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) have drafted a bill calling for its dissolution in favor of private security.

What the two senators known for their far-right views are calling the Abolish TSA Act proposes a three-year transition period under which airport security would be transferred to contractors with contracts for the TSA and other government agencies.

"The TSA has not only intruded into the privacy and personal space of most Americans, it has also repeatedly failed tests to find weapons and explosives," Lee told Fox News. "Our bill privatizes security functions at American airports under the eye of an Office of Aviation Security Oversight, bringing this bureaucratic behemoth to a welcome end. American families can travel safely without feeling the hands of an army of federal employees."

Formally introduced on March 27, the bill faces an uphill battle toward becoming law as it would need to be approved by a relevant committee and then pass through two chambers of Congress before being signed into law. It currently lacks specifics on how replacing such a far-reaching agency would work or be completely remade during the almost comically short transition period of three years (efforts to require Real ID for people flying have been getting pushed back again and again since 2008.)

A TSA officer stands by an entrance for expedited screening at an airport security line.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

What would airport security without the TSA look like? There are more questions than answers

The push to eliminate the agency comes amid the Trump Administration's push to shrink the federal government by gutting agencies as diverse as USAID and National Park Service to the CDC and the Department of Education.

The justification has been to "cut waste" but critics argued that the cuts have been politically motivated as attempts to gut anything not sufficiently loyal to Trump's far-right agenda.

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"It's a bloated agency — riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars — that has led to unnecessary delays, invasive pat downs and bag checks, and frustration for travelers," Tuberville says in his separate statement on the bill. "We need to focus on more efficient and effective methods to protect our country without sacrificing the liberties and freedoms of American citizens."

As part of the criticism focusing on "invasion of privacy", the bill also proposes that any new system cannot conduct warrantless searches of travelers passing through airports.