25 Years After 9/11: How the TSA Went from Crisis Response to AI-Powered Security

As the TSA marks 25 years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency is scrapping Gold+ for an evolved Screening Partnership Program — as facial recognition reaches 65 airports.

The Transportation Security Administration launched a modernization strategy ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, scrapping its Gold+ privatization program and accelerating facial recognition at U.S. airports.

Administrator David P. Cummins announced the strategy, called Horizon 25, on Aug. 24, built around three goals: modernizing checkpoints, elevating the traveler experience and hardening multi-modal transportation security.

The agency commemorated the 25th anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed in the worst terror attack in U.S. history.

“For 25 years, the men and women of TSA have carried out this mission with vigilance, professionalism and an unwavering commitment to the American people. As we remember those we lost on September 11 and honor the service that followed, we also look ahead. The threats we face today are sophisticated and constantly evolving. TSA must modernize to defend against those threats. Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, we’ve launched the Horizon 25 Strategy to advance our capabilities across all modes of transportation to ensure 9/11 never happens again. Not on our watch,” Cummins said in a statement marking the anniversary.

The arc of the TSA since 9/11 runs from a hastily assembled federal workforce to an intelligence-driven agency. Before the attacks, airport screening was a fragmented system run by private security companies contracted individually by airlines. President George W. Bush signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act into law on Nov. 19, 2001, federalizing the checkpoint to restore public confidence in air travel. The agency marks its own 25th anniversary in November.

The agency now employs roughly 60,000 people and secures more than 430 commercial airports. Its mandate has widened well past aviation to rail, mass transit, highways, pipelines and maritime infrastructure.

Cummins, nominated by President Donald J. Trump in May and serving under Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, framed the plan as an overdue technological maturation.

“President Trump and Secretary Mullin have entrusted me with the task of modernizing TSA. In its first 25 years, this agency has performed its critical Homeland Security mission with dedication and excellence. As we look forward to the next 25 years, we must constantly work to stay ahead of evolving threats and deliver a Golden Age of Travel. Through the Horizon 25 Strategy, we will build a TSA that is agile, resilient and ready for tomorrow’s challenges,” Cummins said.

He also rejected the long-standing trade-off between throughput and security.

“TSA does not have to choose between a secure checkpoint, an efficient checkpoint, and an elevated passenger experience. Through Horizon 25, TSA can, and will, deliver all three at once,” Cummins said.

Gold+ Out, Screening Partnership Program In

The strategy’s most concrete institutional change is the end of Gold+ and a pivot to what the agency calls an evolved Screening Partnership Program.

Codified at 49 U.S.C. 44920 and established in 2004 under a mandate in the 2001 law, the program lets an airport apply to its local federal security director to opt out of federal screening and use a private company under TSA contract.

Gold+ went further. Adopted preliminarily by airports in Tampa, Des Moines and Charleston, it would have let private operators buy and deploy screening equipment as well as staff the lanes. Under the Screening Partnership Program, vendors must use TSA-provided equipment, returning technology control to the federal government. TSA has not said whether contractors’ role will be limited to staffing; a 2025 request for information floated a $5.5 billion vehicle for turnkey packages combining staffing and technology. Tampa International Airport has since elected to keep its federal officers. Charleston International and Des Moines International, which had been scheduled to transition in February and January 2027, had not said publicly as of Sept. 12 whether they would proceed, and neither responded to requests for comment. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents federal screeners, had opposed the privatization push.

TSA puts participation at 22 airports, though recent accounts have described the figure as about 20. Participants include San Francisco International Airport (SFO), Kansas City International Airport (MCI) and Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport (ROC). Vendors must follow TSA standard operating procedures, including enhanced pat-down protocols, and use TSA-provided equipment.

The agency buys private screening through an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract vehicle. VMD Corp., a primary contractor, won a place on a new screening partnership IDIQ with a $5 billion ceiling on Aug. 26, replacing a vehicle capped at $3.3 billion. Its San Francisco task order was priced at $803.2 million.

Faster Hiring, Contested Savings

Two decades of congressional oversight and Government Accountability Office audits have not settled whether private screening saves money.

Supporters point to workforce stability. A 2019 Homeland Security inspector general audit put the TSA’s average hiring timeline for federal transportation security officers at about 252 days, against four to six weeks for contractors, who also keep working through federal funding lapses.

The cost picture is murkier. A 2014 independent study commissioned by the agency, later reviewed by the GAO, was found to have limitations affecting its accuracy and credibility. Some earlier work found contractors operating 2% to 19% below federal estimates, while TSA’s own 2007 estimate put private operations about 17% higher because of contract management overhead, a figure the agency revised down to about 3% in 2011. On detection, GAO reviews have generally found private screeners performing comparably to federal officers, though a 2012 GAO report found some privatized airports did not screen passengers as well as federalized ones.

Biometrics Headed to 65 Airports

The most visible change for travelers is TSA PreCheck Touchless ID, which swaps manual document checks for automated facial comparison. The agency announced in January that it would grow the program from 15 locations to 65 airports by the end of spring, more than quadrupling its footprint; it reached that target during the spring.

That depends on second-generation Credential Authentication Technology. Unlike earlier units that only authenticated an ID and matched flight data, CAT-2 machines photograph the traveler and, in standard use, compare the live image against the credential in hand. In Touchless ID lanes they instead match it to a secure federal gallery such as a passport photo, cutting podium transactions to 10 seconds or less.

Enrollment runs through the airlines. PreCheck members opt in via a participating carrier’s profile — Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines are active — by linking a Known Traveler Number and a valid U.S. passport. The agency is also allowing passport-backed digital ID passes in Google Wallet, decoupling biometrics from frequent-flyer programs.

Identity enforcement tightened first. REAL ID took full effect May 7, 2025, and on Feb. 1 the agency introduced TSA ConfirmID, a $45 alternative verification service for travelers who arrive without compliant identification. The service is voluntary, and the agency says verification is not guaranteed. Travelers who decline it and have no acceptable ID may be denied access to the sterile area.

The agency says CAT-2 images are never retained for law enforcement or surveillance. The agency’s published policy is that photos are not stored or saved once a positive match is made, except in a limited testing environment where data goes to the DHS Science and Technology Directorate to evaluate how well the technology performs. Travelers may decline the photo without losing their place in line.

Privacy Fight Stalled in the Senate

Civil liberties groups and a bipartisan group of senators argue the rollout is drifting toward a mandatory national system.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., reintroduced the Traveler Privacy Protection Act on May 8, 2025, joined by Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., Ed Markey, D-Mass., Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Steve Daines, R-Mont. A narrower version of a 2023 proposal, it would keep human ID checks as the default, require explicit opt-in consent and visible signage about the right to refuse without retaliatory screening, bar any use beyond immediate verification and legally require deletion of facial images.

“Folks don’t want a national surveillance state, but that’s exactly what the TSA’s unchecked expansion of facial recognition technology is leading us to,” Merkley said.

Kennedy said the agency “subjects countless law-abiding Americans to excessive facial recognition screenings as they travel, invading passengers’ privacy without even making it clear that they can opt out of the screening.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union back the bill, citing demographic error rates and covert surveillance risk. A 2023 GAO audit found seven law enforcement components at the Homeland Security and Justice departments — not including the TSA — initially used commercial and nonprofit facial recognition services, including Clearview AI, without requiring staff training. Six of them ran about 60,000 searches with no training requirement in place, and four of the seven lacked civil rights and civil liberties policies for the technology. GAO later reported that Homeland Security finalized a department-wide policy and that Justice developed an interim one.

Airlines pushed back hard. A coalition of travel industry groups wrote the Senate Commerce Committee in July 2025 that “the vague and confusing exceptions to this blanket ban will have major consequences for the identity verification process, screening operations, and trusted traveler enrollment programs.” A scheduled markup was pulled from the committee agenda on July 30, 2025, with Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, saying some members had questions and the committee would keep working on the bill, leaving the biometric expansion without new statutory limits.

Drones, Air Marshals and the World Cup

Cummins has identified expanding counter-unmanned aircraft systems capability as a core objective. The agency’s largest recent test of that mission came at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, two months before he took office.

Co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, the tournament put 78 of 104 matches, including the final four, in 11 U.S. cities across 39 days.

“The FIFA World Cup will be one of the biggest travel events in history,” said Ha Nguyen McNeill, then the TSA senior official performing the duties of the administrator, before the June 11 kickoff.

The agency deployed national deployment officers to high-traffic airports and deployed hundreds of canine teams screening passengers, bags and cargo. Federal Air Marshal Service ground-based teams supported venue security using preventative radiological and nuclear detection gear alongside counter-drone systems that pair radar, electro-optical and radio-frequency detection with non-kinetic jamming. The agency warned that drone flights near airports and event sites were prohibited, with confiscation, fines and possible prosecution.

Workforce Strain

Horizon 25 rests on a workforce the agency has long struggled to keep. Inspector general and GAO reporting has documented chronic turnover and engagement scores among the lowest in the federal government, with pay lagging the private sector and shortages lengthening peak-season lines. The strain was sharpest during this year’s Homeland Security funding lapse, when more than 60,000 TSA employees went unpaid, nearly 500 officers quit and waits at some checkpoints ran past three hours. Tampa cited that disruption, and attrition that nearly doubled to 14%, when it first explored Gold+.

AFGE pressed for a larger federal pay adjustment for 2026; an executive order signed in December set the increase at an average 1%. Cummins has listed morale and retention among his foundational priorities.