This holiday season has been ripe with critiques of the Transportation Security Administration, which recently put into place security measures that require all passengers to either step through a full-body imaging scanner or undergo a pat down more thorough than pat downs in the past.
An angry passenger, John Tyner, refused both of these procedures; his threat to have the security guard arrested if the guard “touched his junk” has gone viral on YouTube.
Saturday Night Live ran a parody commercial that presented TSA employees as sex hotline workers. Protests were staged at airports.
Websites like WeWontFly.com were launched seemingly overnight, urging travelers to find some other way than flying to get to their final destinations. WeWontFly.com includes tips on “how to raise hell” if you must fly.
I understand these complaints. I don’t really want a stranger looking at me naked or patting me down; I studiously avoid all situations where the phrase “groin check” might come up.
However, I can’t explain how much I don’t want to die in a mid-air plane explosion.
I encountered a body scanner as I flew to Dallas from Boston’s Logan Airport. The two planes that hit the World Trade Center flew out of Boston Logan; security has been more thorough there than in any other airport I’ve flown out of since 9/11.
The body scanner was not a big deal. It was much faster than the traditional metal detector, and I’m pretty sure the male operator was not leering at me or any other passengers before, during or after the procedure.
The body scanner process was awkward, as I imagine pat downs also must be. However, other, less invasive security procedures are worse. In addition to being awkward, they are racist.
Israel has one of the most intense airport-security systems in the world. They have no pat downs or scanners. Instead, they use racial profiling. If you happen to be of Arab descent or a foreign citizen, you can count on a humiliating trip through security.
According to an article by The Washington Post’s Janine Zacharia, Israeli security officials interrogate some Arabs and foreign citizens more thoroughly than any other passengers. President Bill Clinton’s secretary of health and human services, Donna Shalala, was interrogated for two and a half hours; the Israeli press speculated that this was due to her Arab last name.
Some less well-known passengers are strip-searched. Some have their bras, laptops and other belongings taken from them. All are subjected to this because they fit a profile.
Racial profiling is easy to support when you’re not the one being profiled. After all, it makes the line go faster, and is a grandma really likely to double as a terrorist? However, it is not the solution. Racial profiling is degrading at best and debilitating at worst.
However, on a positive note, racial profiling makes 15 seconds in a body scanner seem pretty easy.
It is imperative that our airport security forces keep our planes and passengers safe. No sane American wants to see another terrorist attack, particularly another one on our land.
We must keep our security vigilant, but Israel’s brand of constant vigilance is racist and wrong.
For now, the techniques most able to keep us safe are pat downs and full-bodyimaging scanners. We must respect them until an alternative is found.
— Kate McPherson, University College freshman
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noonespecial 1 year, 5 months ago
You lost me at "ripe".
Chirpit 1 year, 5 months ago
I'm ultimately curious as to how much safer we really are. IF, as I have read in a few different locations, the likelihood of dying from cancer which developed from damage caused by backscatter x-ray scanner radiation is just as likely as dying in a plane-related terrorist attack, how do we justify the scanners?
How many plots has the TSA foiled overall? I'm sorry, but they missed Adam Savage's 12-inch razor blades in the scanner and then various metallic objects in a reporter's pockets during pat-downs 8 times in the same day. (http://wewontfly.com/tsa-misses-metal-items) If we are being more thorough with non-celebrities and people who are not reporters, is that not on the same level as racial profiling? You mention grandmothers... but isn't being less thorough with the elderly a form of age discrimination?
cacremin 1 year, 5 months ago
Whether or not what the TSA is doing will prevent terrorism (pro-tip: it isn't) is completely irrelevant. The Fourth Amendment doesn't grant the federal government the authority to search anybody without probable cause. What the TSA does to passengers on domestic flights is unconstitutional, and that should be both the beginning and end of the debate.
Chirpit 1 year, 5 months ago
Indeed, you have the ultimate point, Cacremin. All other issues with the TSA and its procedures are dwarfed when one realizes that our very own Bill of Rights prohibits the very actions that the TSA has decided are necessary.
dargus 1 year, 5 months ago
While I hate how weak the Fourth Amendment has become, your crowing about the Constitution is a poor argument. The Fourth Amendment only protects against "unreasonable searches" and one could easily argue these searches are perfectly reasonable. Should we remove metal detectors from the Capital building because of the Forth Amendment? It could be argued that TSA searches are unreasonable, but it is far from the clear intent you seem to derive from the Constitution.
juneabrown 1 year, 5 months ago
The entire premise of your article is based on a fallacy (Non-Sequitur: just because it could be worse, that doesn't mean that it is a good idea). 'It could be worse' is not an argument against 'it could be better.' Sorry, you're wrong, try again.
No, I don't want to die in a terrorist attack, but the fact is that there is NO evidence that ANY of these things will keep us safer. They can not detect the types of bombs that the so-called underwear bomber tried to use.
Do you know what keeps us safer? Do you know WHY there have been no successful attacks since the towers went down? Passenger mentality! Who stopped the shoe bomber? The underwear bomber? Passengers. NOT the TSA.
The only reason that the hijackers were able to fly those planes into the towers is because the passengers let them. I'm not blaming them, don't get me wrong. It was the status quo. If someone tried to hijack a plane, you just sat back and let them do it, because everyone who didn't fight back got home safely (late, yes, but alive). The status quo HAS CHANGED. Now, if someone tries to hijack or blow up a plane, every single passenger will fight that person.
Oh, and weakening our constitution, weakening freedom... that's what the terrorists want. So, right now, they are winning. You THINK you are safer (even though you aren't), and you have given up your freedom to convince yourself of that. Congratulations on that.
juneabrown 1 year, 5 months ago
The entire premise of your article is based on a fallacy (the recurring fallacy - look it up). 'It could be worse' is not an argument against 'it could be better.' Sorry, you're wrong, try again.
No, I don't want to die in a terrorist attack, but the fact is that there is NO evidence that ANY of these things will keep us safer. They can not detect the types of bombs that the so-called underwear bomber tried to use.
Do you know what keeps us safer? Do you know WHY there have been no successful attacks since the towers went down? Passenger mentality! Who stopped the shoe bomber? The underwear bomber? Passengers. NOT the TSA.
The only reason that the hijackers were able to fly those planes into the towers is because the passengers let them. I'm not blaming them, don't get me wrong. It was the status quo. If someone tried to hijack a plane, you just sat back and let them do it, because everyone who didn't fight back got home safely (late, yes, but alive). The status quo HAS CHANGED. Now, if someone tries to hijack or blow up a plane, every single passenger will fight that person.
Oh, and weakening our constitution, weakening freedom... that's what the terrorists want. So, right now, they are winning. You THINK you are safer (even though you aren't), and you have given up your freedom to convince yourself of that. Congratulations on that.