The Business Travel Coalition (BTC) has criticized both the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and groups that are advocating an airport security screening opt-out day over the American Thanksgiving holiday period.
According to the BTC, best security practices at airports around the world focus on moving passengers from the non-secure to the secure sides of airports as expeditiously as possible. “To promote actions that impede holiday travellers at non-secure airport checkpoints is irresponsible; to advertise it in advance to terrorists is reckless,” the group says.
While acknowledging that the groups calling for passenger protest “have no doubt done a highly effective job in raising national awareness of intrusive and sometimes wasteful TSA security processes,” the BTC is urging them to cancel planned opt-out protests and redirect their lobbying efforts to Washington.
The BTC says the TSA is a big part of the problem, because of its penchant for secrecy and disregard of citizens’ privacy and due process concerns.
“The deployment of full-body scanners without a formal public comment process and sufficient medical and scientific vetting is one of the worst TSA abuses of authority since its creation,” stated BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell. “The overly aggressive pat downs represent citizen-mistreatment in the extreme, especially if used as “punishment” when passengers opt out of full-body scans. There are millions of Americans and foreign tourists, children and adults, who have been traumatized by sexual abuse during their lives. That they now have to relive their suffering in our airports is shameful.”
The BTC says passengers have been patient and cooperative with new and changing airport security measures and protocols since 2001, but says the forceful push back on body scanners and enhanced pat-downs should lead to an overall review of U.S. aviation system security.
“The current security screening process, and the inherent opportunity for abuse, is so over-the-top as to even invite mockery from former President George W. Bush on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” the group said in a statement.
The BTC says the TSA needs to amend its approach, because “treating all passengers transiting the aviation system as if they are equal threats to national security represents worst practice because it is ineffective, costly and distractive of better practices.”
