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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The TSA is a waste of money that doesn't save lives and might actually cost them. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Look at these dangerous people being intercepted. The better way to board a plane. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email. Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy.
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Facebook is quietly buying up the metaverse By Peter Kafka. Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for The Weeds Get our essential policy newsletter delivered Fridays. Give Give. While they have stopped allowing non-PreCheck travelers in PreCheck lanes at smaller airports the practice remains in effect at larger US airports where the vast majority of aviation traffic passes through. Peter Goelz, the former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board and an aviation analyst for CNN, said taking down an aircraft or causing a loss of life on an aircraft is the top priority of terrorists.
And particularly the flight crews in the cabin. This, he said, means the successful prevention of a bad actor carrying an explosive or dangerous item through a PreCheck lane rests solely with the TSA officer operating the machine, without help provided by automation. The TSA has been dinged for security lapses in recent years. Brainard said these security vulnerabilities began before Carraway took over as head of the agency. Two years later, Department of Homeland Security auditors found the TSA was still performing poorly in detecting dangerous items at checkpoints.
Brainard said he has emailed his concerns to Pekoske, who, Brainard says, has acknowledged the issues but has yet to fix them. In a hearing on Capitol Hill, Pekoske said it is the job of TSA management — not officers — to worry about wait times. A year veteran with the agency, Brainard — who has retained a whistleblower attorney — said he is prepared for blowback.
In recent years, the TSA has faced allegations of retaliating against whistleblowers — to such an extent that Congress passed additional whistleblower protections for employees at the agency in But since then, more employees have come forward with retaliation accusations.
Brainard also alleges that the TSA puts undue pressure on directors to clamp down on wait times. Last year it passed a bill that sought to prohibit the TSA from putting standard passengers in expedited, so-called PreCheck lines. Brainard said the TSA has similarly rolled out a new optional policy allowing airport security to merge the standard and PreCheck lines into one.
There were no long checkpoint lines. Passengers and their families could walk right to the gate together, postponing goodbye hugs until the last possible moment. Overall, an airport experience meant far less stress.
That all ended when four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. The worst terror attack on American soil led to increased and sometimes tension-filled security measures in airports across the world, aimed at preventing a repeat of that awful day. The cataclysm has also contributed to other changes large and small that have reshaped the airline industry — and, for consumers, made air travel more stressful than ever.
Two months after the attacks, President George W. Bush signed legislation creating the Transportation Security Administration, a force of federal airport screeners that replaced the private companies that airlines were hiring to handle security. The law required that all checked bags be screened, cockpit doors be reinforced, and more federal air marshals be put on flights.
Nothing even close. But after that day, flying changed forever. Security measures evolved with new threats, and so travelers were asked to take off belts and remove some items from bags for scanning.
Each new requirement seemed to make checkpoint lines longer, forcing passengers to arrive at the airport earlier if they wanted to make their flights. To many travelers, other rules were more mystifying, such as limits on liquids because the wrong ones could possibly be used to concoct a bomb.
The north Texas retirees, who traveled frequently before the pandemic, said they are more worried about COVID than terrorism. On its application and in brief interviews, PreCheck asks people about basic information like work history and where they have lived, and they give a fingerprint and agree to a criminal-records check.
More than 10 million people have enrolled in PreCheck. TSA wants to raise that to 25 million. The goal is to let TSA officers spend more time on passengers considered to be a bigger risk.
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