Former Transportation Security Administration officials who worked under President George W. Bush say the new body scanners and pat-downs that have prompted privacy concerns at airports are necessary to keep the flying public safe. Airplane passengers have complained that they feel uncomfortable having their body parts being analyzed through a scanner, and that aggressive screenings by TSA workers are too physical. The Obama administration has argued that the methods are the least invasive way to ensure explosive materials aren’t being snuck in the way a terrorist did last Christmas in a failed attempt to blow up a plane.
“If lawmaker X says, ‘Hey, this is too invasive, the American people won’t put up with this,’ then I would say, ‘Well, what’s the alternative?’ ” Chad Wolf, who ran the TSA’s security policy office in 2005, told POLITICO. “If they say profiling, then that’s the debate that needs to be had.”
Wolf argued that Americans have “very short” memory spans in remembering attempted attacks on planes, particularly when they happen overseas — like when two Russian planes were blown up in 2004.
“TSA’s probably doing the right thing from a security perspective,” Wolf said. “What the agency doesn’t get a good read on from time to time is, where is that line on security and what the American people will put up with.”
The TSA’s biggest problem, he said, is trying to persuade the public — without revealing secret information — that increased security measures are working. “They need to articulate what the threat is, other than, ‘It’s a threat,’ ” he said.
“I give this administration credit for moving ahead pretty aggressively,” Tom Blank, a former acting deputy administrator of the agency, told POLITICO.
Blank called the use of body scanners a “good move” that gives security workers a better chance of detecting weapons. “I think it’s a necessary thing, and I frankly think deploying that has been overdue,” he said.
Full-body scanners blur passengers’ faces and private areas to make it difficult to tell who is being examined, and the person looking at the images is in another room, Blank said, arguing that “misinformation” has allowed the technology to be described as a “virtual strip search.”
“I think there’s no question that TSA is the most visible part of the Department of Homeland Security,” he said. “That reality means that TSA’s always going to be questioned. It’s always going to have to justify what it’s doing. ... Opinion leaders, elected officials and others are always going to be in the mode of asking for its policies and processes to be reviewed.”
Mo McGowan, a former assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Security Operations, said the body scanners and pat-downs strike the appropriate balance between safety and privacy given the technology available. What the TSA needs, he said, is a “much larger campaign with the public” to communicate why the measures are needed.
“The more you can tell the public why and give them enough notice, the more they will be receptive,” he told POLITICO. “Get the American public involved. ... Then they will become your best advocates.”
Lindsey McFarren, who was the TSA’s assistant general manager of general aviation programs in 2008, gave the administration a “thumbs-up” on using the body scanners.
“If someone is sitting in a room, they don’t see a face, they don’t know who you are,” she told POLITICO. “I think in that regard, the TSA’s done the best they can.”
