Airport safety: Security or theater?
AIRPORTS | Travelers face embarrassment, inconvenience and lots of wasted time, and some experts say it's all for show
Michael Ann Angone is a bright 15-year-old who has traveled the world with the Chicago Children's Choir.
She is also an amputee, having lost her leg to cancer as a baby. The Chicago high school student feels the loss most keenly when she goes through airport security.
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
(John J. Kim/Sun-Times File)
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"Some of them stand her up and spread-eagle her . . . they wand [the leg], they keep wanding it," said Angone's father, Bob Angone, a retired Chicago police officer. "It's all happening in an open area, where everyone can gawk, and they do gawk. Her face is red. . . . It's like they put her on a crucifix sometimes."
Angone's ordeal illustrates how much the flying public has sacrificed for security after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Travelers pay in convenience, time lost, bottles surrendered and sometimes in humiliation at security checkpoints.
But are we safer?
Airplanes in the United States haven't been attacked since 2001, and many security experts praise the U.S. Transportation Security Administration for stepping up professionalism in the office and improving technology. TSA's Web site regularly points to security victories like finding gun parts in computer laptops and a box cutter in a book.
But some critics question whether practices such as stripping off shoes and tossing water bottles is more theater than security. Even those who agree with the shoe and liquid routine believe there are still important holes in security, like the failure to inspect all cargo or to screen all airport employees with access to planes.
"Where passengers are on board [cargo inspection] needs to be 100 percent," said Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, who sued the airlines over the 9/11 attacks. "That's a problem that's been around for years."
One harsh TSA critic is Patrick Smith, a commercial pilot and writer for the "Ask the Pilot" feature in the Salon online magazine. He thinks it's "hilarious" to see trash barrels full of confiscated liquids in the airport -- which he says show that the liquids are harmless.
"Effectively, the TSA is saying we know this is useless, we know this is pointless but we're doing it anyway," said Smith. He also wonders why pilots get the same screening as passengers, while air crews aren't consistently screened.
TSA spokeswoman Lara Uselding said not all liquids are thrown into the trash, and TSA has the technology to determine if something is a hazardous material. If it's a hazard, it can be taken away and properly stored.
TSA took over airport security in 2002, following the Sept. 11 attacks. TSA officers replaced private firms hired by airlines and scrutiny of passengers increased.
The Dec. 22, 2001, attempt by Richard Reid to ignite an explosive in his shoe led to a rule that passengers remove certain types of shoes. A liquid-explosive threat led to the 2006 rule that limited liquids to three-ounce bottles carried in quart-sized plastic bags. At the same time, the TSA required that all shoes had to be removed.
Uselding said that TSA has a "layered" system of security, and that travelers don't see everything that's protecting them. "We have behavior-detection officers, explosive-detecting canine teams, reinforced cockpit doors and armed pilots," said Uselding.
The TSA also has undercover air marshals on many flights and officers who randomly screen passengers.
Airport employees require extensive background checks and are subject to random screening, Uselding said. She said screening airport employees every time they go near an airplane would "stop" an airport.
One hundred percent of cargo on passenger planes is not screened the way checked baggage is checked. The TSA says it nevertheless has improved cargo security, with increased canine inspections tripling the number of random checks, along with other measures such as the "known shipper" program which regularly vets companies that ship cargo.
Schiavo said that while she agrees it's "terrible" that officers have to check "grandma's walker," she thinks it's fair that TSA treats everyone the same.
"I was a federal prosecutor and we had a case where, in prison, messages and contraband were smuggled in a 7-year-old's purse," said Schiavo.
Despite the added inconvenience of the post-9/11 world, passengers mostly put up with it without complaint. A recent visit to O'Hare Airport's Terminal One security checkpoint found a threefold line of passengers shuffling quietly, meekly taking off their shoes and submitting see-through quart bags for inspection. A red trash can contained mostly empty water bottles.
Frequent flier Peter Hegarty of New Lenox said the majority of problems he sees are caused by "rookie travelers."
"Some people just refuse to read the many messages telling them what is and isn't allowed past the security checkpoints, never mind listening to the repeated verbal cues from the TSA," Hegarty said.