Fact Check: Does Project 2025 call for privatizing TSA?
WASHINGTON, DC: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is facing a severe operational crisis due to an ongoing partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that started last month.
Recently, a rumor circulated online claiming that Project 2025, a conservative nonprofit, The Heritage Foundation's blueprint for reshaping the federal government, called for the privatization of the TSA. But is there any truth to this? Let us find out below.
Claim: Project 2025 calls for privatizing TSA
On Instagram, a progressive nonprofit organization seemed to suggest that squeezing the TSA was part of achieving Project 2025's alleged agenda. They posted a graphic featuring text from a Threads user's post that read, "Hear me out. Project 2025 explicitly calls for TSA to be privatized, but it cannot happen until unionized TSA agents are eliminated."
"So here's the play - defund DHS, agents without pay will quit, airport security breaks down / massive delays, send ICE to 'help', push the narrative that this crisis requires privatization framed as no cost to taxpayers, private contractors come in, TSA unions are eliminated and ICE becomes a permanent presence in American airports", the Threads post added.
The rumor also spread on X, Facebook, Threads, and Bluesky. An X user wrote, "Republicans won’t vote for the clan TSA funding bill. Project 2025 wants to privatize TSA. One of Trump’s biggest donors, who helped fund Project 2025, is a private prison operator. Their company recently added 'security screening' services."
Fact Check: True, Project 2025 calls for privatizing TSA
The claims made in the online posts are true, as the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 text mentions the TSA on two occasions, one of which recommends that "The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) be privatized".
Interestingly, Project 2025 generally calls for dismantling the DHS. Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump administration DHS official, wrote, "Breaking up the department along its mission lines would facilitate mission focus and provide opportunities to reduce overhead and achieve more limited government."
Furthermore, the Heritage Foundation's text suggests what a dismantled TSA could look like. The chapter primarily argues that the TSA should not regulate security screenings and also conduct them.
Meanwhile, Project 2025 recommends privatizing and/or outsourcing screening operations either by outsourcing the task to private companies or by creating a new 'government corporation' that would contract screening services to private contractors.
However, even if the TSA were privatized, Project 2025 mentions, "the intelligence function for domestic travel patterns" should remain with the government.
As per the Aviation and Transportation Security Act that established the TSA, the agency has a mandate to "receive, assess, and distribute intelligence information" related to its work to protect the United States' transport systems.
