A Win for Airline Passengers and the Constitution

The Department of Homeland Security and its Secretary, Kristi Noem, has exercised its judgement to order the TSA to cancel its intrusive violation of personal space for travelers to remove their shoes while going through airport security.

 

It is about time.

The change is, in fact, being rolled out at airports across the country today, according to aviation insider blog View From the Wing.

Travelers who are cleared for TSA PreCheck have long been able to enjoy not walking on filthy airport floors in stocking feet, but now the rest of us will be able to experience the sensation, for the first time since “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid smuggled explosives aboard a flight via his footwear back in 2001.

And since then, he is, to date, the ONLY reason this obtrusive law was enacted to violate Americans’ rights at a time when we were all in another place after the attacks on 9/11.

There are said to be caveats, however. Passengers must be in possession of an approved, now-required Real ID, and must not require special screening. An important note, one cannot get onto a plane in the United States without a Real ID, since May 7, with certain exceptions.

Other frequent flyers are already betting on the next onerous requirements to be scrapped; for example, the large electronic removals policy, given the widespread implementation of more detailed X-ray screening technology. Or some of the nonsense under the Patriot Act, which consistently seems to violate the fourth amendment provision of illegal search and seizure without a warrant, and certain other Constitutional rights.

It certainly is a first step where we restore freedom over a misplaced sense of false, misguided security.

And hopefully, not the last.