New airport security plans: less frisking, more 'pre-screening'

The Obama administration is clearly taking complaints about overly-enthusiastic frisking among airport security screeners to heart.

One of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) key priorities in the months to come will include expediting frequent fliers and other “low-risk” travelers through security lines. 

These fortunates, through the growing use of “pre-clearance” programs, will increasingly get to leave their shoes, jackets, and belts on – and their laptops in cases. 

“Not every traveler or piece of cargo poses the same level of risk to our security,” Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, said Friday at her second annual “State of America’s Homeland Security” address at the National Press Club.

“Think of it this way: If we have to look for a needle in a haystack, it makes sense to use all of the information we have about the pieces of hay to make the haystack smaller,” Ms. Napolitano said. 

This in turn frees up agents to pursue other DHS priorities, “as we move away from the one-size-fits-all model of passenger screening to one that is risk-based,” Napolitano noted.

These other priorities include the growing threat of cyber attacks on US financial institutions, the dangers posed by homegrown extremists, and the threat of improvised explosive materials – like the ones used in Afghanistan and Iraq to create roadside bombs – being misused within the United States.

US officials are getting better at focusing their efforts, Napolitano argued Monday. “Our experience over the past several years has made us smarter about the terrorist threats we face and how we best deal with them,” Napolitano said. “We have learned that we can apply different protocols in different cases.”

Doing just that among airport travelers, for example, makes good business sense. “Simply put, our homeland security and our economic security go hand-in-hand,” she added. “We must recognize that security and efficiency are not mutually exclusive.”

Napolitano argued Monday that pre-check screenings do not involve “profiling” passengers, nor do security measures in which some passengers may receive more robust screening. “For example, we may have information that certain travel routes are problematic,” Napolitano said. 

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