Upside-down for effect
It looks like the recent popular outrage against some of the TSA’s new (and ridiculous) airport security measures has finally gotten the government’s attention. Good. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is set to meet various transportation industry executives today to discuss how the government can balance security needs (or perceived security needs) with both common sense and the needs and requirements of the transportation industry. Will there by any policy changes? Hmm.
Some of the new policies are pretty silly, such as screening (via full-body scanner or terribly invasive and embarrassing pat-down) pilots and children. Why we need to be screening children who are travelling to Disney with their family, I’ll never know.
People, most prominently seen in a recent New York Times article, have started to take umbrage with the new security measures, many of which were taken after the recent ink toner terror plot.
The TSA is said to be reviewing some of the new measures, including the subjecting of children to pat-downs.
Again, the TSA, and the government in general, is in a tough spot here. If, following that ink toner plot, the TSA didn’t make any changes you’d have people saying the agency doesn’t take security seriously. On the other hand, some of these more heavy handed methods are surely just being done for show. A sort of, you’re safe because we have 100 officers at the gate shouting loudly and looking Very Official in the process.
It doesn’t help that the economy is still pretty weak right now. If people see that going to the airport is a giant pain in the neck, perhaps they won’t take that trip to Six Flags, or maybe they won’t visit the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York?
Airports filled TSA officials with nary a passenger to be seen. Makes sense.