Life, Liberty and Security

It certainly seems like an odd way to make a point. In what he describes as “an act of civil disobedience with the aim of improving public safety,” 20-year-old Nathaniel T. Heatwole spent seven months over the course of 2003 smuggling box cutters, matches and bleach onto various Southwest Airlines flights. Following his highly illegal but completely undetected actions, Heatwole sent an email to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in which he acknowledged the criminal nature of the acts but claimed that his pseudo-terrorist doings were motivated by the desire to make the skies safer for the “air-traveling public.” He signed the email politely: “Sincerely, Nat Heatwole.” So much for the illusion of airtight airport security.

Lucky for Nat, the TSA and the FBI—though they certainly didn’t approve of his conduct—found Nat’s personal reconnaissance to be a valuable source of information. Since his arrest last fall, Heatwole has talked to the TSA about the holes in the airport screening process, and he has even provided them with a videotape with training instructions for those employees who man the X-rays. And while normally the penalty for carrying a concealed dangerous weapon aboard an aircraft is 10 years in prison, Nat will probably get off with a $5,000 fine and a few months hard time.

Not surprisingly, the Department of Homeland Security took a lot of flak for the incident. After all, if a well-meaning college student from Maryland can sneak the requisite tools for a hi-jacking on board a jet, who’s to say that someone with far more sinister motives couldn’t do it, too? As it turns out, the TSA has known about its Swiss cheese airport security for a while. In July, 2002, it conducted an internal test of its security procedures at the 32 largest airports in America. Even with the newly instituted random checks, enormously inconvenient lines and physical patdowns, the screeners missed an average 25 percent of the fake weapons that TSA agents were carrying on their person or in their bags. At Cincinnati, one of the most traveled airports in the country, screeners missed an incredible 68 percent of the contraband items. There are other gaping holes in airline security, as well. One of the most glaring examples is the cargo carried aboard passenger flights, which for the most part goes completely without inspection. Only recently, the government began screening an undisclosed (but certainly small) percentage of this freight traffic.

So with all this said, would it surprise you if I argued that our airport security procedures are doing their job splendidly? Well, they are, but not because they’re any good at catching terrorists, either real or simulated. When it comes down to it, all of the heightened security procedures at our airports and aboard our airliners (bulletproof cockpit doors, armed air marshals, and so on) are not designed to make air travel completely secure. They are meant to make us, the traveling public, feel as though we are completely secure.

As the TSA’s spokesman, Brian Turmail, has made clear, “We have designed these improvements to provide appropriate protections for passengers and at the same time to ensure the continued economic vitality of the country.” Ah, yes: the struggling airline industry. People don’t fly on airplanes unless they feel that flying on airplanes is a safe thing to do. Thus, it is necessary to project an aura of security. As ineffectual as they are under the light of statistical scrutiny, all of the new security procedures nevertheless succeed at making travelers believe that flights are safe. I mean, what better way to make the average flyer feel like security is tight than for the TSA dude to pat down grandma and make 7 year-olds put their shoes through the metal detectors. If security is this tight for the obviously-innocent, of course they’re gonna catch the terrorists. Right?

Well, who knows? And as far as the economists are concerned, who cares? As long as travelers feel confident in their safety—that is, as long as the TSA and the airlines can simulate an environment of airtight security—then it’s business as usual. If the illusion is really good, it might even deter terrorists from trying any new plots. But we shouldn’t be fooled by the false impression of safety: extra X-ray machines don’t by themselves add up to extra security. In the meantime, I suppose we also shouldn’t be lured into a false sense of danger. After all, it’s still statistically safer to fly than to drive.

Christopher W. Snyder ’04 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.