Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, called for the privatization of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) during the foreign policy debate on CNN, and he proposed the potential strengthening of the Patriot Act for counterterrorism measures.
“I would privatize [TSA] as soon as I could and get rid of the unions,” Perry said. He suggested that privatization is “working in Denver,” saying that the measure makes “abundant good sense.”
“There is an existing model for effective public-private oversight of airport and transportation security that has been deployed for years in more than a dozen U.S. airports,” Perry’s campaign said in a follow-up email, “including San Francisco and Kansas City, Missouri, but the TSA administrator in January of 2011 explicitly prohibited additional airports from utilizing the optional public-private model.”
Perry also suggested “strengthen[ing] the Patriot Act” by updating it to reflect new technology for counterterrorism purposes.
