The Obama administration tried yesterday to quell an uproar over pat-downs at US airports, with air travellers in revolt against the new security measures described by some as invasive and humiliating.
Just days before the start of the Thanksgiving holiday – the year’s busiest travel weekend which will see hundreds of thousands of passengers descend upon US airports – Americans have been balking en masse against the probing physical searches meant to find hidden explosives or weapons.
The pat-downs, which were put into place at the beginning of the month, are an alternative for passengers who opt out of full body X-rays, which some complain reveal the contours, and more, of a passenger’s body, and not just potentially dangerous weapons.
But some passengers say the manual searches, in which agents use their fingers and open palms to search for explosives or concealed weapons, are just as bad as the scanning machines, and complain that they come uncomfortably close to the genital area.
John Pistole, head of the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA), acknowledged the uproar yesterday but insisted the new security measures would not be scrapped.
“Do I understand the sensitivities of people? Yes. If you’re asking, am I going to change the policies? No,” he told CNN.
Mr Pistole reminded the public that the stringent measures were put in place to help plug perceived holes in US security at a time of continuing terrorism threats.
The more intimate pat-downs and full body scanners were introduced in the wake of a string of foiled bomb plots against US-bound airliners.
Those include the Christmas Day bomb attempt last year when Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian, allegedly tried to ignite explosives concealed in his underwear as his plane came in to land in Detroit.
The decision to tighten security hinges on “what the current threat environment is, given the current threat stream being informed by the latest intelligence,” Mr Pistole told CNN.
“We know that we face a determined enemy who has been adept at devising and concealing explosive devices, bombs, that will target not only aviation in terms of commercial aircraft but also cargo aircraft,” said Mr Pistole, who also appeared before a US Senate committee last week to testify about the controversial procedures.
Still, he acknowledged that the measures had caused widespread discontent across the United States, and said he was “sympathetic” to the public debate.
“The challenge is, how do we balance the security that everybody wants – everybody wants to make sure they get to their destination safely – with the privacy that everybody wants also? How do we find that precise blend for each person?” Mr Pistole said.