Fear of Flying?

Fear of Flying?

I can remember watching old television and movie shows depicting well-dressed folks, smiling, chatting and smoking while enjoying a first class dining experience – all on an airplane! This scene, if it ever existed, is really hard to imagine in this day and age. But the experience of the actual plane ride, unglamorous though it may be, given all the no frills airline policies, is not the story here. Rather, I am writing about the process one must go through to even get to the airplane ride itself.

Airport security is a very complicated subject and I certainly do not have access to government security threat information. But, the question that needs to be asked is whether TSA is justified in conducting full-body pat downs and full-body scans? In other words, does the Constitution’s fourth amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, preclude some of TSA’s procedures?

First, no one wants to be unsafe at the airport and no one wants trouble from other passengers on a flight. I get that. However, are the procedures implemented to keep us safe worth the intrusion? And do they actually do anything to keep us safe? The background of this topic is of course 9/11, and just before I wrote this, there was the act of terrorism committed in the Moscow International Airport. No one doubts security threats are real.

Yet, to subject all passengers to either full body imaging scanners, or enhanced full-body pat downs, seems to go too far. The scanning techniques result in Government personnel reviewing images that expose intimate details of a person’s body, while the alternative pat downs result in uncomfortable groping around private parts. These invasive approaches do not focus on behavioral and psychological analysis of passengers that could help detect potential terrorists. Instead, they just subject everyone to a loss of dignity and privacy.

TSA has recently begun testing new scanning technology they claim will both improve security while strengthening previous protections. Specifically the new software will automatically detect potential threat items and indicate their location on a generic outline of a person that will appear on an attached monitor. This would do away with Government agents in another room viewing naked pictures of passengers. This new system may be a reasonable alternative to the extremely intrusive pat downs otherwise required. Probably no one believes air travel is glamorous these days, but there should be no reason to be afraid to fly because of personal privacy concerns.

Kevin L. Collins is a San Antonio Criminal Defense Lawyer, former Prosecutor and is Board Certified in Criminal Law and Juvenile Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and also a member of the Criminal Law Section of the San Antonio Bar Association. For more information please visit www.kevincollinslaw.com or call (210) 223-9480.