PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

The Washington Post is reporting a travel industry trade group is urging the TSA to come up with a better, more focused plan for dealing with security at airports, rather than treating the entire traveling public like potential terrorists. Here is a link to the story coming out in the Wednesday editions of the paper:

http://tinyurl.com/4rk47lp

One specific urged on TSA is to come up with a voluntary “trusted traveler” program where people would be prescreened and allowed to pass through the check zone with less hassle and intrusive searches. It also urges the Federal government to force the airlines to allow everyone to have one checked bag without paying extra to cut down on the growth in carry-on luggage, which has its own risks.

Here is the TerryReport comment:

Finally, a little bit of sense in what has been TSA official madness at our airports. I have said repeatedly on my website, The TerryReport, that treating everyone as if they are an escaped criminal actually makes us LESS SAFE because it focuses attention where it is not needed, on your grandmother traveling home for Thanksgiving or an eight year old kid getting a pat down. In Europe, except where they are forced to follow American guidelines, the approach is far different.

In Europe, they ask questions of travelers and they are trained to look for signs of nervousness or anxiety. When you treat everyone as a potential terrorist, you not only insult law abiding Americans, you expand the pool to such larger numbers that you are less likely to find the terrorist. What we have now is a fake system of "security" designed to reassure the occasional traveler. We need fewer security agents and more people who are calm and have the discretion to look for terrorists rather than see how many hoops they can make everyone else dance through.

The public has supported most of the intrusive searches at airports because no one believed there was a better way. If the choice is between dying and being insulted, most people will take the insult. This is a false choice, however. There is a better way, the TSA simply doesn’t want to use one for several reasons. One, it can be charged with negligence if something does happen and, two, like all government agencies, its goal is to have the most money and the most employees possible. The TSAs goals, then, conflict with many of the public’s needs and with basic freedoms in America. The new reports suggests changes that would make for better security and less intrusion.

More as this story develops.

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