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Intrusive US airport searches defended
Source: Agencies |
November 19, 2010, Friday
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DESPITE a deluge of complaints over intrusive pat-downs and revealing airport scans, the government is betting Americans would rather fly safe than untouched. "I'm not going to change those policies," the nation's transportation security chief declared on Wednesday.
Responded a lawmaker: "I wouldn't want my wife to be touched in the way that these folks are being touched."
The debate over where to strike the balance between privacy and security, in motion since new safety measures took effect after the 2001 terrorist attacks, has intensified with the debut of pat-downs that are more thorough, and invasive, than before, and the spread of full-body image scans.
A week before some of the busiest flying days of the year, some passengers are refusing the regimen, many more are complaining and the aviation industry is caught in the middle.
In Florida, the Orlando Sanford Airport, which handles 2 million passengers a year, now plans to replace "testy" Transportation Security Administration screeners with private contractors, and two veteran commercial pilots are refusing to fly out of airports using the procedures.
"The outcry is huge," Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison told the TSA administrator, John Pistole, at a Capitol Hill hearing. "I know that you're aware of it. But we've got to see some action."
Pistole conceded "reasonable people can disagree" on how to properly balance safety at the nation's airports but he asserted the new security measures are necessary because of intelligence on the latest attack methods that might be used by terrorists.
The new hands-on searches are used for passengers who don't want the full-body scans, or when something suspicious shows in screening, or on rare occasions, randomly.
A traveler in San Diego who resisted both a full-body scan and a pat-down helped fuel a campaign urging others to refuse these searches on November 24, the heavy travel day before Thanksgiving. John Tyner said he told a TSA screener: "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested."
Pistole has strongly criticized the call to boycott screenings.
"On the eve of a major national holiday and less than one year after al-Qaida's failed attack last Christmas Day, it is irresponsible for a group to suggest travelers opt out of the very screening that may prevent an attack using nonmetallic explosives," he said this week.
Responded a lawmaker: "I wouldn't want my wife to be touched in the way that these folks are being touched."
The debate over where to strike the balance between privacy and security, in motion since new safety measures took effect after the 2001 terrorist attacks, has intensified with the debut of pat-downs that are more thorough, and invasive, than before, and the spread of full-body image scans.
A week before some of the busiest flying days of the year, some passengers are refusing the regimen, many more are complaining and the aviation industry is caught in the middle.
In Florida, the Orlando Sanford Airport, which handles 2 million passengers a year, now plans to replace "testy" Transportation Security Administration screeners with private contractors, and two veteran commercial pilots are refusing to fly out of airports using the procedures.
"The outcry is huge," Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison told the TSA administrator, John Pistole, at a Capitol Hill hearing. "I know that you're aware of it. But we've got to see some action."
Pistole conceded "reasonable people can disagree" on how to properly balance safety at the nation's airports but he asserted the new security measures are necessary because of intelligence on the latest attack methods that might be used by terrorists.
The new hands-on searches are used for passengers who don't want the full-body scans, or when something suspicious shows in screening, or on rare occasions, randomly.
A traveler in San Diego who resisted both a full-body scan and a pat-down helped fuel a campaign urging others to refuse these searches on November 24, the heavy travel day before Thanksgiving. John Tyner said he told a TSA screener: "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested."
Pistole has strongly criticized the call to boycott screenings.
"On the eve of a major national holiday and less than one year after al-Qaida's failed attack last Christmas Day, it is irresponsible for a group to suggest travelers opt out of the very screening that may prevent an attack using nonmetallic explosives," he said this week.
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