Story highlights Rep. Darrell Issa: Latest wave of TSA dysfunction not a surprise

It's time to privatize airport security screening for more efficiency, he says

Rep. Darrell Issa is the U.S. representative for California's 49th Congressional District and a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) Travelers at America's second busiest airport became some of America's busiest tweeters when security lines at Chicago's O'Hare International caused some 450 passengers to miss their flights recently, stranding them in the airport and forcing dozens to sleep on cots in line overnight. Angry passengers took to Twitter, posting photos of marathon security lines on social media with the hashtag #IHateTheWait.

These firestorms online and in the media have brought new attention to our broken airport security system, a problem that has been slowly growing for years. But if we really "hate the wait" and want to fix it, the solution couldn't be any simpler: let's get the TSA out of the airport screening business altogether.

The idea of privatizing airport security isn't a new one. Look no further than Canada and almost every single European country, which all use private airport screeners. The U.S. did, too -- before we decided to nationalize airport security in the wake of 9/11. Certainly quick action was called for then, but our government-run screening program hasn't lived up to the level of service or security we had hoped for.

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Last year, an internal investigation revealed that undercover agents were able to sneak mock explosives or banned weapons through the agency's security checkpoints a whopping 95% of the time. And in the real world, the results with actual air travelers were similar. Since 2001, the TSA has suffered more than 25,000 security breaches (an average of over 200 per month) where passengers were able either to gain access to restricted areas of an airport or get items on board without proper examination.

The worst part is that those are just the errors we know about. The real number of breaches is likely much higher.