COMMENTARY | The Transportation Security Administration has come under fire since the new pat down and scanner techniques went into effect in 2010. To expedite security checks, the TSA is testing a faster, but more personal pre-screening method at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The TSA's new security checks will beta-test at Miami, Atlanta and Dallas, too.
The pre-screening program is part of the TSA's new risk-based, intelligence-driven assessment programs. Program participation is voluntary. Only frequent flier program members who fly through Delta and American airlines will be accepted in the program. Travelers must also be United States citizens and use one of the four test airports regularly.
The TSA is partnering with Customs and Border Protection (CPB) and some trusted traveler programs like Global Entry, SENTRI and NEXUS. These programs have already gathered information from members. This initiative is being called an identity-based security measure.
The downside is that program participants will be required to give more in-depth, personal information about themselves. After being body scanned at Baton Rouge Airport, I can't imagine what extra information that the TSA may need. My entire body, including my insides were put on display. What had set off the "additional scan needed" button? The metal in a ponytail holder in my hair. I had removed everything else, but forgotten that.
I'm only glad that it was me and not my 13-year-old daughter that was traveling with me that got picked for the intimate photo shoot. Her carry-on had already been rifled because a tube of hand lotion had more than 3.5 ounces of liquid. That was my fault for missing it, but the TSA agent treated us both like criminals.
TSA director John Pistole promoted the program, saying it will move travelers through security faster. We got stuck in security at one point and it made us miss our flight. A risk-based, pre-screening would like help to keep things moving. If the program works out, hopefully it will prevent the TSA from having to make random pat down searches that are invasive and demeaning.
A little boy was strip-searched in November, by TSA in Salt Lake City, Utah. In April, a 6-year-old girl was patted down at New Orleans Louis Armstrong Airport. Incidences like these forced the administration to modify searches of children.
That doesn't prevent adults from being subjected to embarrassing searches however. In March, Tom Sawyer, a 63-year-old urostomy patient was patted down at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. TSA officials ruptured Mr. Sawyer's ostomy bag and left him covered in urine.
In June, Jean Weber of Destin, Fla. was traveling with her 95-year-old mother, to Michigan. At the airport, Weber's 105 pound, wheelchair-bound mother, in the final stages of leukemia, was told to remove her adult diaper so she could be searched.
If these measures prevent situations like those, the TSA may be onto a good thing with identity-based pre-screenings.
A life-long resident, Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben writes about people, places, events and issues in the Great Lakes State.
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