Passenger Screening Increased At US Airports

September 17, 2004
All passengers at US airports will have to take off their coats during security screening and more travelers will be subject to pat-down searches as part of new procedures to check for explosives, security officials said on Thursday.

The latest actions take effect next week and were prompted partly by recommendations of the special commission that investigated the September 11, 2001, hijack attacks and warned of loopholes in airport screening.

The suspected bombings of two Russian airliners last month also has brought the potential threat into sharper focus for homeland security officials, who have been testing new bomb-detection equipment this summer and are accelerating the pace of these programs.

Members of Congress who oversee aviation matters have also urged swifter action on screening passengers and their carry-on bags for bombs. All checked luggage is already screened for explosives.

Walk-through airport scanners that rely on X-ray imaging to screen passengers cannot detect advanced explosives, although pilot programs for improved monitoring strategies have been launched at several airports.

Last week, the Transportation Security Administration, part of the Homeland Security Department, began testing a device at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport that scans boarding passes for explosive residue.

Beginning next week, all passengers will be required to remove coats for X-ray checks. Garments include outer wear, athletic warm-up jackets, blazers and suit jackets. Additionally, the new measures authorize pat-down searches of passengers selected for secondary screening.

"These procedures are consistent with TSA efforts to improve and expand the use of technology to screen passengers for explosives at airport checkpoints across the country," said David Stone, the agency's director.

Kathi,

I just returned from a thre day trip to Canada and the personal checks at O'Hare where I boarded the flight were definitely better done than at Lester Pearson International from where I returned.

As I have posted here the most idiotic one that I have seen was at Frankfurt where they wanted my wife to discard her nail clippers!

What would really help in this matter is some common sense. Unfortunately it got lost in the sea of political correctness in which we are awash. Patting down eighty year old grandmothers in wheelchairs and four year old kids makes little sense. We should be screening the living he11 out of anyone that looks like a profile that should be developed, but Oh, I forgot. Profiling is politically incorrect. Stupid of me.