Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, Flying With Fish (via BoingBoing) reports that the TSA is going to start threatening to eject people from airports for refusing patdowns.
The new clarified policy for those who refuse pat downs by a TSA Transportation Security Officer (TSO), any pat down, is that the person who is refusing the pat down will be advised that they will be denied entry into the airport, and be escorted from the security screening area by TSA TSOs or police officers. If the person refuses the pat down again, they will be approached by a Supervisor TSO (STSO), who will again explain that a refusal of the pat down will result in the immediate removal from the security area by police officers. Following an escort out of the security area to the pre-security area the person will be informed that that they are being denied entry and that they may not attempt to reenter security.
TSA procedures are awesome for creating an illusion of safety, but I think Americans are starting to realize that the price of this illusion is becoming far too high.
In an interview with NPR last week, TSA Head John Pistole defended the new invasive pat downs, but was unable to answer Melissa Block’s question about what we’re doing to get ahead of NEW threats. It seems that everytime some terrorist does something crazy (shoe bombs, underwear bombs, etc.), we update our procedures to catch those people. But what will those crazy terrorists think of next? John Gruber points out one problem with this approach to airport security:
Here’s the question for Pistole, and anyone else who argues that these new TSA procedures are an appropriate response to that [underwear bomb] incident: What happens if the next guy hides his bomb up his ass?