In this week before Thanksgiving, just about everyone is daydreaming about gathering around the dinner table, watching football or just having four days away from campus. But even if you’re looking forward to seeing your family in other cities, there’s little reason to get excited about the traveling process itself.
Thanksgiving travel is traditionally the busiest of the year, and the security lines that pack airport terminals are enough to cause recurring nightmares.
Nobody gets excited to go through the security screening process, and we can all come up with ways to improve the system while we’re waiting, but the recent scrutiny over body scanners and pat-downs is asking the wrong questions.
Software engineer John Tyner recorded his experience at the San Diego airport in which he refuses to subject himself to the Transportation Security Administration’s full-body scanner. Refusing the scans is fine under TSA regulations, but anyone doing so must instead go through a full-body pat-down. That’s where Tyner’s video comes in.
When a TSA agent describes the pat-down process, Tyner responds, “If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested,” and later says he won’t submit himself to the search. An agent tells him everyone who enters airport security is subjected to the search or the scan, though only some are selected to do so. The argument that followed is just one example in the ongoing debate over national security and personal privacy.
The fact that Tyner didn’t want to go through the scanner is understandable, as the full-body scanners have been the result of their own controversy. U.S. Marshals in Florida were recently found to have improperly saved images of people who passed through the scanners, and the images that were never meant to be archived were leaked to the public.
While the problems that allowed this to happen need to be addressed, they can’t be a condemnation of the whole security system. We certainly can’t allow our government to become a surveillance state. At the same time, nobody can accept the lax security standards that allowed one attack and didn’t stop some attempted attacks in the last few years.
Tyner refused both a body scan and a pat-down. He was escorted out of the screening area and then unjustly faced a $10,000 fine because of that, but when this raised a national discussion about the screening process, people asked if it’s worth subjecting travelers to these security standards.
TSA Director John Pistole admitted Wednesday that the pat-downs were more invasive than he was used to. “The bottom line,” he added, “is we need to provide the best possible security.”
Airport security checkpoints weren’t designed to be enjoyable. As travelers, we all benefit from a thorough screening and can all fly a little safer knowing the system isn’t underdeveloped. At the same time, we welcome any reviews of the system, and hope it can be made as efficient as possible. The debate over airport security needs to focus on the rights of individuals, but we can’t let one individual’s bad experience serve as an indictment against the whole system.
