The TSA is no longer (as) worried that folks with sewing scissors might try to hijack a plane. Major new changes in airport security includes relaxing restrictions on some carry-on items.
The elimination of the ban on metal scissors with blades of four inches or less and tools of seven inches or less, including screwdrivers and pliers, will give airport screeners more time for random searches and to look for items posing “a real threat,” Mr. Hawley said. Items like metal scissors now make up 25 percent of the prohibited items searched in passengers’ carry-on bags, he said.
Yay.
Beginning December 22, scissors with a cutting edge of four inches or less and tools such as screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers smaller than seven inches will be permitted on board. Scissors longer than four inches and tools such as crowbars, drills, hammers, and saws will continue to be prohibited from carry-on bags. Lighters will continue to be banned from the cabin of aircraft and in checked baggage.
It’s not clear if keychain-mounted Swiss Army Knives are back in business, but I suspect not.
More TSA info here.
Other changes include:
- Randomizing some of the security measures. Folks at one airport on a given day might be more liable to being personally searched, while at another airport all (or more) carry-ons might be inspected, while at another the screeners might focus on checking shoes for explosives. The next day, things would shift.
- Broader body searches. “The new policy will also change the way that pat-down searches are done. The entire arm and legs, upper and lower torso, and the back and abdomen will be checked, Mr. Hawley said. Currently, only the upper torso is checked.” This one is problematic only insofar as there have been various suits about TSA gropers (some of which probably are well-founded, others of which are probably not), but, again, it makes sense from a security standpoint.
- Expanded use of bomb-sniffing dogs and luggage scanning machines.
- Increased random searches. “All passengers will also be subject to a random, secondary search lasting about two minutes, Mr. Hawley said. Such searches are currently only employed if a passenger’s name matches a listing of suspect terrorists, or if there is an anomaly like a last minute ticket.”
Actually, randomizing — as long as the number is high enough — makes sense. There’s been an intense debate as to whether more profiled searches or more random searches are better. Profiling is intuitively logical (it makes more sense to search a 20-year-old Saudi student than an 80-year-old Swedish grandmother), but not only is profiling fraught with political and technical hazards (no-fly lists being the notorious example), but it gives potential terrorists a target to beat. “If only we can recruit an 80-year-old Swedish grandmother … or someone who can pass for one.” It basically identifies the holes in the system, whatever its problem.
And, frankly, procedures are already variable enough between different airports so as to make this a natural.
Relaxing the Forbidden Items list also makes sense to me. Onboard security is higher now, pilot doors are a lot more difficult to force, air marshals are (presumably) present in greater numbers, and passengers are (still) a lot less likely today than in 8/01 to stand still for someone using a box cutter to try to hijack a plane.
Of course, that’s lent itself to a certain amount of protest and political opportunism.
The president of the Southwest Airlines flight attendants’ union, Transport Workers Local 556, Thom McDaniel, told The A.P. that he has not spoken to a flight attendant “at any airline that isn’t outraged” by the elimination of small scissors and tools from the banned list.
Representatives Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, said Thursday that they intend to introduce a bill to preserve the current list of items barred from the cabin, The A.P. reported.
The flight attendants I’m almost willing to forgive, since they are on the “front line,” and passenger convenience is less personally important than personal safety. The pols, though, are just out to make a name — the Dems have long criticized the Bush Administration and the TSA for silly regulations, and now that some of them are being relaxed, they’re criticizing them again for that, too.
Frankly, it’s not as huge a change as is being touted, but it all makes sense to me.