Here's a bit of encouraging news from the Transportation Security Administration: body cavity searches are not yet in the cards.As the nation gripes about aggressive airport pat-downs and embarrassing full body scans, TSA Administrator John Pistole told reporters last week at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting there are no plans for body cavity searches. A sigh of relief rose from the audience.
The media though are delighting over reports of kids and nuns being groped by screeners. Slow news week, indeed?
The TSA did a lousy PR job in informing airline passengers about impending aggressive security measures, which are a response to last year's attempted Christmas Day bombing of a plane over Detroit. The Administration should have kicked off a national educational campaign to warn travelers of the prospect of pat-downs well before the full body scanners went into use.
Bankrolled by federal stimulus money, the scanners are now in place at 68 airports up from 19 last January. Many more are coming.
Pistole is all over the media map these days, explaining the need for security. While he admitted that pat-downs and scans are very uncomfortable and invasive, he calls them necessary security measures.
On CNN's "State of the Union," Pistole said: "If we are to detect terrorists, who have again proven innovative and creative in their design and implementation of bombs that are going to blow up airplanes and kill people, then we have to do something that prevents that."
The administrator also says a tiny handful of the traveling public get the pat-down treatment. That's not what we see on TV.
As for the scanners that produce a naked image, Pistole should have made the PR pitch that screeners reviewing the image sit at another location. They see neither the face of the person being screened nor are told of his/her identity.
Pistole's media tour is welcome, but it should have happened months ago to avoid the perfect storm of holiday travel and widespread screening.
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