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The Obama administration has taken appropriate short-term steps to enhance security screening, but more needs to be done to create the best system. More security does not have to be cumbersome for travelers. Our leaders continue to be intent on revising our existing security system, rather than focusing on a comprehensive, holistic approach to create the world’s best air travel security system.
We need a wholesale review of the security process that balances effective means to identify the small number of individuals who mean us harm, while enabling the hundreds of millions of legitimate travelers to and within the United States to have confidence and be able to move through the system in a timely manner. Travel is essential to the health of our economy. Nearly 60 million annual international visitors -- more than 30 million of whom travel by air -- spent $110 billion in 2008 and were responsible for nearly 1 million American jobs.
U.S. Travel’s vision for the future of air travel includes a process that has the best intelligence analysis, the best screening technology and appropriate resources to move people through airports effectively and efficiently. Israel is widely regarded as the model. Why can’t we do even better?
We are calling on the Administration, DHS and Congress to conduct a wholesale review of the current screening process with an audit of existing technology as well as developing technologies that make travel screening safer, considerate of individual privacy and less cumbersome for the traveler. Unallocated stimulus funding could expedite this process.
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