A trial program may be showing the way toward better airport security and less hassle for passengers. For anyone even passably familiar with the current system it can only be welcome news.
The new system, called PreCheck, changes the approach from one where everyone is pretty much treated the same to one in which people willing to share more information with the government could be allowed to move more quickly through security checks. It is being implemented in pilot programs at airports in Atlanta, Miami, Detroit and Dallas-Fort Worth.
That makes sense. The current system is not only invasive and inconvenient, it is obviously absurd. Not everyone is or even could be a security risk.
Nonetheless, everyone still has to take off their shoes and is subject to what amounts to groping. Moreover, by all but strip searching grandmothers, security agents may be diverting their time and resources away from characters more worthy of attention.
The PreCheck system aims to reverse that. The voluntary program allows airlines and other government agencies to share personal information with the Transportation Security Administration to effectively pre-screen passengers. In exchange, passengers may - there is no guarantee - be allowed to pass through security checks faster and without having to take off their shoes and belts, and while keeping laptops and liquids in their bags.
The plan makes perfect sense, in part because it is difficult to imagine what information the government could gather that would be more private than what it gets now. The TSAs agents are already looking at photo identification - typically a drivers licence or passport - and tickets. With that they have access to passengers addresses, age, full names, destinations and itineraries. And, if they are so inclined, they can get a good feel for their nether regions as well.
Combining information from airlines frequent flier programs would show a pattern of travel, which in most cases is information the government already had if it cared to track it. In any case, that is rarely thought of as confidential or sensitive data. Airports, after all, are public places and most travel is fundamentally mundane.
What is more, the government knows that. Take any crowd at any airport and almost all the people there are tourists, going somewhere on legitimate business, or visiting family or friends. They are not trouble makers, criminals or terrorists. This program simply recognizes that with the concomitant acknowledgment that the more open they are the less likely they are to bad guys.
The administrator of the TSA said as much, but also added another aspect.
At the same time, he said, it frees up resources for us to apply to individuals that know less about and potentially pose a greater risk to aviation.
One fear about airport security, especially in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, was that officials would indulge in racial profiling and focus on particular minorities. That would be unfair and unwise. The Sept. 11 perpetrators were Arabs, but Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was not.
Nor was the Unabomber or the blue-eyed blonde who conducted the mass killings in Norway.
What is in effect profiling in reverse, however, could be both efficient and fair. Giving some leeway to people who are known to be no threat is not prejudicial or distracting, just the opposite. It could even give new meaning to a necessary effort at risk of becoming parody.
