Alternatives to body scanner/pat downs:
| 1) Mass spectrometry devices: They’re already in use at some secure federal facilities and are known for the blast of air they release in the detection process. Unlike the full-body scanners, these can detect bomb materials in body cavities and leave little room for human error. |
| 2) Intelligence-based assessments: The method the Israeli airline El-Al employs to keep terrorists off its planes. This requires personnel trained assessing a traveler’s threat level through a series of questions designed to evoke emotion. |
| 3) Profiling: The method most recently endorsed by columnist Charles Krauthammer in a Washington Post op-ed. “…95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary,” he wrote. “The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling — when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.” |
Outrage from passengers subjected to airport scans that render them nude before federal officers or to genital-touching pat downs has led to a growing protest movement and calls from Congress for airports to dump the agency handling the searches. Even President Obama has been drawn into the controversy, saying on Saturday he understood travelers’ “frustration” but that he had been told by security officials the searches were necessary.
Washington-area residents have no option if they plan to fly. All three of the region’s main airports use the scanners that create a nude image of those picked for searches. And the alternative to that is a hand search by Transportation Security Administration officers that many find offensive.
“I do worry when women are being touched around the breast area because even though these people may have a clean record, we don’t know if they’re perverts,” said Bonnie Mullins, an Atlanta resident who was flying through Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Christina Bretz, who was also flying through National, said, “I felt uncomfortable and almost violated with the pat down. It’s an invasion of privacy.”
Virginia resident Steve Smith said the pat down made him feel “uncomfortable.” He said, “It seemed very personal.”
Obama was asked about the growing uproar while in Portugal on Saturday. “I understand people are frustrated” the president said, adding that he’d urged security officials to find a better way, if possible. “One of the most frustrating aspects of this fight against terrorism is that it has created a whole security apparatus around us that causes huge inconvenience for all of us,” he said.
Critics say the scanners don’t do a good enough job in keeping the skies safe to justify the intrusion on privacy.
In a letter to the TSA, the incoming Republican leaders of House transportation committee called the procedures “overly intrusive” and demanded security officials restrict them.
“The entire focus of TSA’s efforts to improve aviation security needs to be revisited,” Florida Rep. John Mica and Wisconsin Rep. Thomas Petri wrote.
Tension over the scanners, which reveal to a TSA screener what’s underneath your clothes, has been building for nearly a year. A scanner pilot program rapidly expanded after a would-be bomber hid explosives in his underwear on a Christmas Day flight last year.
TSA officials say the images are not stored. But some have leaked onto internet sites, fueling suspicion that the scans are being abused.
When the TSA implemented new regulations on Nov. 1, requiring fliers who refuse the scan to submit to a body search that includes genital touching, that the simmering outrage over the scanners turned into an uproar.
Passenger John Tyner told a TSA searcher in San Diego, “Don’t touch my junk.” Video of that encounter became an Internet sensation, and the anti-TSA movement gained a pungent rallying cry.
A spontaneous protest has grown online in which people traveling Wednesday have vowed to avoid the scanners — creating potentially crushing backups for hand searches on one of the nation’s busiest travel days.
Although many travelers steam, public sentiment still appears to back rigorous airport security.
A CBS poll conducted this month that found 81 percent of all Americans support the use of full-body scanners at airports. Just 15 percent said they oppose them. The poll, however, surveyed a random sample of 1,137 adults, without determining how many of those questioned actually fly.
Since the pat-down requirement was introduced, the TSA says it has received 700 complaints from among the 34 million people who have flown through U.S. airports.
Travelers groups say that number doesn’t come close to reflecting the anger.
“I suspect a lot of people are uncomfortable at the time of the pat down, but then don’t report it later,” said Joel Smiler, the hot line director for FlyersRights.org,
The scanners don’t address current security threats, said Clark Ervin, who heads the Aspen Institute’s homeland security program. “The scanners would have detected the underwear bomb,” Ervin said, but “they can’t detect a bomb hidden in a body cavity.”
Information from Examiner intern Kristen Byrne and the Associated Press was used in this report.
