It’s Tuesday. Do you know what the Obama administration’s groin-groping policy is today?
No worries. Odds are the Obama administration doesn’t, either.
Just hours after defiantly insisting that “there will not be any changes” in the highly invasive pat-downs, Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole began singing a different tune.
“We’re going to look at how we can do the most effective screening in the least invasive way,” he said yesterday, indicating that his agency was now prepared to rethink its policy.
Actually, Pistole’s change of heart was predictable, since both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had indicated their unhappiness with the new procedure.
But the question isn’t whether enhanced security measures are needed — given the rash of recent airline bombing attempts, clearly they are.
And most passengers doubtless agree.
But does the TSA’s choice of X-ray screenings or physical groping actually provide the kind of security that protects airline passengers as fully as possible?
Probably not.
Let’s be clear: There is no foolproof method of keeping passengers safe from terrorists. Airline security is more art than science, and no tool can safely be discarded out of hand.
That noted, nobody does it better than Israel: It pretty much wrote the book — and it doesn’t subject its passengers to
X-ray machines and aggressive pat-downs.
And Israel — gasp! — profiles.
Those who fit a recognized pattern of would-be terrorists get special attention.
That makes total sense.
But even a hint of profiling in America gives all the usual suspects the howling heebie-jeebies.
Yet there’s another key difference: Israel’s security agents are highly trained, experienced experts — so much so that they can be trusted to exercise common-sense-based discretion.
The only thing they do aggressively to passengers is question them — thoroughly and completely, in ways that elicit the kind of answers that can detect a would-be terrorist, before they’re even allowed to check in.
As Michael Totten wrote on these pages Friday, “Israel doesn’t use security theater to make passengers feel like they’re safe.”
With the result that even when suicide bombers were exploding themselves in Israeli cities, “not a single one managed to get through [Tel Aviv’s] airport.”
Clearly, Israel’s experience shows that Pistole is mistaken when he insists that X-rays and pat-downs are the only way to keep passengers safe. What’s needed is much less political correctness — and a lot more common sense.