http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2010-11-17-airportpatdown_N.htm?csp=Dail y%20Briefing
Some changes already have been made to the TSA's enhanced-screening plan, however. The TSA said Tuesday that children age 12 and under would not have to undergo the more intensive pat-downs and would instead be given a "modified" search if security personnel believed they needed additional screening. And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/People/Politicians,+Government+Off icials,+Strategists/Executive/Janet+Napolitano> said she's open to adjustments of the procedures. A CBS News poll finds that 81% of Americans approve of the body scanners, while 15% disapprove. But the scanners and more aggressive pat-downs have raised a range of health, privacy and religious concerns among a traveling public that has grown weary of an ever-escalating series of security measures that began after the 2001 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people. "First it's passengers' shoes, then liquids, then laptops, then whole-body scans and now thorough pat-downs," says Geoff Freeman, executive vice resident of the U.S. Travel Association, which represents nearly 1,700 companies in the travel industry. The group says it has received an unprecedented 1,000 e-mails and phone calls in the past week from travelers opposed to TSA screening methods. "Travelers are saying: 'What's next?' What's the vision, and when does it get better?' " In December 2001, after al-Qaeda operative Richard Reid <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/People/Notorious/Richard+Reid> tried to bring down a jet flying from Paris to Miami by lighting an explosive in his shoe, fliers began having to remove their footwear at airport screening points. A plot to set off liquid explosives, uncovered in London in August 2006, sparked a ban on passengers carrying more than 3 ounces of liquid on board a flight. And beginning this month, passengers must submit their name exactly as it's written on a government-issued ID, along with their birth date and gender or risk not boarding their flight. Few measures have sparked the type of controversy that surrounds the body-scanning machines - which will be at most of the 800 checkpoints at the nation's 450 commercial passenger airports by the end of next year - or the more intensive pat-downs that began last month. On several travel websites Wednesday there were calls for a national "Opt Out" day for Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving, urging passengers to refuse to be scanned by the machines and to undergo the enhanced pat-downs instead. And the Allied Pilots Association <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Non-profits,+Activis t+Groups/Allied+Pilots+Association> , the union representing 11,000 American Airlines <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Companies/Transporta tion,+Travel,+Hospitality/Airlines/American+Airlines> pilots, recommends pilots refuse screening by full-body machines because of concerns about exposure to radiation and privacy. The union is urging members to choose the pat-downs instead, though they also find that process troubling. "There is absolutely no denying that the enhanced pat-down is a demeaning experience," says David Bates, an American Airlines Captain and union president. Even Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, heralded for safely landing a US Airways <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Companies/Transporta tion,+Travel,+Hospitality/Airlines/US+Airways+Airlines> jet on the Hudson River in 2009, has jumped into the fray, telling CNN's American Morning on Tuesday that flight crews already are "among the most scrutinized professional groups in the country. ... It's really not an efficient use of our resources to put us through this." Some have taken their concerns to the courts. The Rutherford Institute, a Christian civil liberties organization,filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of two pilots, Michael Roberts and Ann Poe, who refused both the scanning and enhanced pat-down. The suit asks that the measures be banned as primary screening procedures because they violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure. Another lawsuit, filed in July by the Electronic Privacy Information Center that asks the District of Columbia's Court of Appeals to suspend use of the body scanners, is pending. Government officials cannot strip search or pat down "people unless the government agents have a reasonable suspicion the person they're searching or strip searching ... (is) involved in some kind of criminal activity," John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, says. "Why would airports be any different?" Is all this necessary? The backlash to the latest procedures may be partly a result of the public not seeing an immediate need for them, says homeland security analyst Stephen Flynn, a former Coast Guard commander and president of the Center for National Policy <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Center+for+National+Policy> , a Washington think tank. Unlike previous instances in which security was ratcheted up in response to an incident, making passengers more inclined to accept them, the enhanced pat-downs have not been linked to a specific threat, he says. And while the deployment of body scanners was linked to a Christmas Day bombing plot last year in which a Nigerian man tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit using explosives hidden in his underwear, the actual roll-out started several months later. "They had some distance from the actual event that animated the deployment," Flynn says. The TSA planned for more than two years to deploy body scanners, which generate graphic images of passengers that can reveal weapons hidden underneath clothes that a metal detector might not pick up. Their installation accelerated after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was accused of trying to ignite an explosive powder in his pants on a Northwest flight from Amsterdam. The number of scanners jumped from 40 at the start of this year to 373 installed at 68 airports across the USA as of last week. The TSA is scheduled to have deployed 500 scanners, which cost roughly $170,000 each, by Dec. 31, and a total of 1,000 by the end of 2011. The TSA has taken several steps to protect privacy. Passengers' faces are blurred, and the images produced by the scanning units are viewed by screeners in a closed room and cannot be stored. Fliers do not have to go through the machines, and can undergo a pat-down instead, which are administered by someone of the same gender. The pat-downs also are given to passengers who set off a metal detector or if security personnel see something suspicious. Some travelers are concerned about the radiation emitted by the body scanners, though the Food and Drug Administration says there are no health risks. Travelers say they feel exposed by the scanner images and have complained that their breasts or genitals have been touched during pat-downs, which involve screeners sliding their hands over a traveler's body. "I'm fed up with being felt up," says Judith Briles, 64, who has flown on at least 50 flights this year, and felt so violated by a TSA pat-down at Las Vegas airport on Oct. 31, that she has vowed to stop flying. "It's insanity." Briles, a publishing consultant and speaker who lives in Aurora, Colo., says a screener at the Nevada airport felt her breasts and genital area. She has doubled her speaking fee for engagements that require air travel, and has started to travel by train even though it can take days to reach some destinations. "What's being done bypasses any police pat-down I've witnessed," she says. Others express religious concerns. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights and advocacy group for American Muslims, opposes the whole-body scanners and what it deems "invasive" pat-downs. The group's spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Ibrahim+Hooper> , says modesty is very important to the Muslim faith, but "I don't think travelers of any faith would approve of being touched in the genital area." Pistole, who said Wednesday that the scanners and new pat-downs already had found "dozens and dozens of artfully concealed items" noted that Muslim women and members of other religions that dictate the kind of clothing they must wear can request to receive a pat-down in private or have a witness present, among other procedures. Every traveler must go through some type of security, and if people are selected for more in-depth screening, they must go through a body scanner or receive the pat-down, he says. Long-term concerns About 4% of the 42.2 million Americans projected to travel this Thanksgiving are expected to fly, AAA says. Body scanners have had little lasting effect on security lines, says Christopher Bidwell, head of security at the Airports Council International, an airport trade group. He says he's not too concerned that passengers protesting the scanners will create long security lines Nov. 24. "Passengers are going to want to get to their destination," he says. The controversy could have broader implications, some security experts say, with passengers turning permanently against airport security, weakening security efforts though aviation remains a prime terrorist target. "We're clearly near a tipping point right now," said Flynn, who authored a report released in September by the former leaders of the 9/11 Commission saying that commercial aviation remains the top target for terrorists who are likely to try again to sneak a bomb into an airplane. "I worry that if this alienation really gathers steam and is not a flash in the pan, that it fundamentally undermines the overall (security) effort," he says. Aviation-security expert Rich Roth fears the TSA will ease up on the aggressive pat-downs. "We were getting away with murder before," Roth said of the pat-downs that avoided passenger's sensitive body areas. Yet, many security experts including Roth and Flynn note that neither body scanners nor pat-downs can detect explosives hidden in body cavities. Some propose alternatives. The Allied Pilots Association and FlyersRights.org, say the TSA should use biometric technology instead. Biometric technology uses a fingerprint or a retinal scan to verify a person's identity. The Council on American-Islamic Relations says more bomb-sniffing dogs should be deployed, more bags should be inspected and better training should be given to TSA personnel. But some who have pressed over the years for tougher security say critics should keep the new safeguards in perspective. "No one likes aviation-security checkpoints, but let's not get angry at those who are trying to protect us," says Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, was killed on 9/11 on the jet that crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower. "Let's get angry at the people who are trying to hurt us." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [email protected]. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [email protected] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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