Now the Transporation Safety Administration suggests it might stop checking for razor blades, “small” knives, and explosive shoes.
The Transportation Security Administration will meet later this month to discuss the plan, which is designed to reduce checkpoint hassles for the nation’s 2 million passengers. It comes after TSA’s new head, Edmund S. “Kip” Hawley, called for a broad review in hopes of making airline screening more passenger-friendly.
An initial set of staff recommendations drafted Aug. 5 also proposes that passengers no longer have to routinely remove their shoes during security checks. Instead, only passengers who set off metal detectors, are flagged by a computer screening system or look “reasonably suspicious” would be asked to do so, a TSA official said Saturday.
Any of the changes proposed by the staff, which also would allow scissors, ice picks and bows and arrows on flights, would require Hawley’s approval, this official said, requesting anonymity because there has been no final decision.
No, the point is not to be passenger-friendly. The point is to be hijacker-hostile.
I thought bureacracies grew stupid over time. This one started stupid.