Washington – Pilots are getting a break from enduring the stepped-up and intrusive screening of airline passengers that’s causing a public outcry.
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Days before the Thanksgiving holiday travel period, Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole offered little hope of a similar reprieve for regular passengers.
The agency agreed on Friday to let uniformed airline pilots skip the body scans and aggressive pat-downs. Pilots must pass through a metal detector at airport checkpoints and present photo IDs that prove their identity.
The change followed a 2-year lobbying campaign by union leaders, their efforts boosted by hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger, who said pilots should be treated as “trusted partners” in the fight against terrorism.
Complaints from Sullenberger, who landed a passenger jet in the Hudson River in January 2009, and others gave weight to the movement to roll back the new measures.
Some activists are urging travelers to refuse to go through full-body scanners, which produce a virtually naked image.
If a loosely organized Internet campaign succeeds, security lines at airports could be snarled. Those who refuse a body scan can be forced to undergo time-consuming fingertip examinations, which include clothed genital areas and breasts, by inspectors of the same sex as the traveler.
American Airlines pilot Sam Mayer said such screening for pilots makes little sense.
A pilot intent on terrorism could simply crash the plane. No amount of imaging at the security checkpoint could stop that. Besides, under another government program to make them the last line of defense against terrorists, pilots are allowed to have guns in the cockpit.
The changes promised by TSA are “basically what we’ve been after,” Mayer said. “Pilots are not the threat here; we’re the target.”
Mayer’s union, the Allied Pilots Association, helped foment the backlash against the security measures two weeks ago. Its president, Dave Bates, urged pilots to skip the imaging machines because of concern about frequent radiation exposure. The government and an independent group of experts say radiation is safe, as long as radiation doses are kept within the low limits set for the scanners.
Bates recommended that pilots instead accept a pat-down — preferably where passengers couldn’t see them.
John Prater, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents pilots at several major airlines, said the unions have been negotiating the changes with TSA for two years. He said changes were in the works, but were speeded up by the backlash against the new imaging machines and searching techniques.
The TSA offered few details — and no specific timeline — for changes in screening of pilots, which expand a program tested at airports in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Charlotte, N.C.
The TSA said that beginning Friday, pilots traveling in uniform or on airline business could pass security by presenting two photo IDs, one from their company and one from the government, to be checked against a secure flight crew database. Their unions said pilots could skip the pat-downs immediately.
Pistole said pilots ensure the safety of millions of passengers every day, and that putting them through a faster screening process would be a more efficient use of the agency’s resources. But he has defended the more invasive inspections of passengers, saying they were a response to intelligence about potential terrorist attacks and plots to evade airport security.
Homeland security officials were alarmed last Christmas when a terrorist with a bomb in his underwear got on a flight to Detroit. He failed to detonate the explosives. Last month, terrorists tried mailing bombs hidden in ink cartridges and shipping them on planes as cargo.
Some lawmakers who are feeling heat from voters have called for a review of the TSA procedures.
The government could ease concerns through different technology. The TSA is testing a new body scanner that produces stick-figure images instead of pictures of the traveler’s naked body.
While pilots celebrated Friday, other airline employees feel left out.
The president of the flight attendants’ union at Southwest Airlines said if pilots can bypass the screening process, so should his members.
Thom McDaniel said attendants go through FBI checks just like pilots do, and making them go through the regular screening is “a double standard.”
Prater, the pilots’ union president, said he believes the government will eventually approve a system of allowing regular passengers to pass background checks and qualify as “trusted travelers” who can skip through security just by showing identification that can be verified in a computer database.
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Online:
TSA: http://www.tsa.gov
Allied Pilots Association: http://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/default.aspx
Air Line Pilots Association: http://www.alpa.org/
What do all Charedishe Rabbonim say? Is it permissible for Charedishe women to be photographed at every airport in a way which would show them to be completely without any cloths?
For a medical doctor to examine women there are Heterim but it certainly does not seem right at the airport.
There are at least 3 fundamental differences between an MD’s examination and airport photography which should have a major impact on the halacha here.
1) A Medical doctor is completely consumed by his technical and medical aspect of his work and as such, being focused on the technical medical issues does not relate to it in the same way as an ordinary person.
This is not at all the case at the airport where the entire scan is not at all medical and is entirely only a VISUAL look.
2) During a medical examination, the person being examined can see the doctor, this serves almost as a COUNTER EXAMINATION, i.e. the doctor sees the patient and the patient sees the doctor. In such situation the doctor is under high stress to behave extremely professionally, lest the patient notice if this is not the case.
3) Similarly it’s standard practice by Medical exams to have a 2nd person (a chaperon) which eliminates any possibility of any Chshad, since the 2nd person is looking over his shoulder to make sure he remains strictly professional.
The Goyim at the airport all Bechezkas Prutzim and the abuse is not a possibility but an absolute certainty. It’s only a matter of time & opportunity
It’s not only that the scanners show a person’s body, it is the exposure to more radiation. We are constantly being bombarded from radiation from our computers, microwaves, cell phones, electric wires etc. we don’t need more. It is simply not healthy, especially for frequent flyers. Being patted down isn’t nice either especially when one is touched in private places. These security checks are not the answer to our being safer. A person who wants to harm others will be very devious and will out wit any scanners or other screeners. all we can do is rely on Hashem and daven.
Strict laws need to be enacted so that there are 2 separate scanners at each location, 1 line for men and another line for women.
Each room where the images are viewed should be run by men only for the men’s line and viewed by women only for the womens line.
This means you need to spend twice as much $ for twice the number of machines for separate men women lines at each screening.
But the most important part would be the LAW’s penalty for violation.
For the system to work, the penalty must include a lifetime sentence without parole for any cross gender viewing – it’s the only way to be sure the law will not be violated.
Such alternatives as the above have not even been considered yet. never-mind “all possibilities existed”.
If a frum women in scanned photographed and viewed only by women and there is a 100% guarantee that this law and trust can’t be violated because it would equal a lifetime sentence behind bars, then there would be no halachic problem for a frum women to be viewed by women only, as long as this can be 100% guaranteed.
Sadly such harsh punishments for violations is not likely and therfore it is vertualy cerain that men will viewing the women.
Let’s get real here!!! You really think the scanner guy cares at what he sees???? He sees hundreds of “NUDE” peaople evrey day!! And its definitly not in the most “providng” manner. And yes he has a job too and he needs to concentrate!! Its only a problem for a woman to be untziustik in a way that it will cause other people to sin, but this is definitly not like that!!
And the real proof is that all these goyim whine about it and guess what?? They have no problem with mixed swimming!!! So it definitly not realted to tznius at all. Its just an oppertunity to complain.
But in this case, IT DOESN’T WORK. It would not have prevented the “underwear bomber.” It can’t detect explosives, just is a visual picture.
Not a single commentator on this thread has paid any attention to the main point of this story, not one.
Before you all jump on the band wagon and start berating me, let me quote this story’s lead sentence:
“Pilots are getting a break from enduring the stepped-up and intrusive screening of airline passengers that’s causing a public outcry.”
It’s the pilots that are under discussion here, not the passengers – for a change.
Now please carry on.