Each year, millions of American travel by airplane. However, only a minority of the population are forced to check their rights when they check their luggage. As fundamental that citizens should be able to reach their destination with their privacy and other civil liberties intact, it is becoming increasingly harder. Being asked to remove your shoes and walk through a metal detector is nothing compared to what women — and some men — with natural hair have been forced to endure.
Until recently, the Transportation Security Administration (“TSA”) has been singling out African-American women and giving them arbitrary hair searches due to inconsistencies within their policies. TSA agents are charged with applying subjective rules to ambiguous (and
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But when primary screening results in an anomaly—this is generally because the magnetometer beeps, the full-body scanner shows something, or there's something suspicious in an x-ray image—in some cases people who don't meet the profile would be allowed through security without that anomaly being further checked. . . .At some point, your system is going to allow a person through but further check [another]. . . .
Being constantly subject to high scrutiny at an airport while others sail through because of how they look would also, no doubt, get old very quickly for many minorities. As Schneier further points out:
There's a reason profiling is often against the law, and that's because it is contrary to our country's values. Sometimes we might have to set aside those values, but not for [racial profiling in security checks].
Although this discussion was on extensive checks placed on Muslims, Schneider concedes that these extensive checks are applicable to all
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TSA agents have noted that “when the machine cannot read through [African-American] hair, we have to search it. The machine is the 170,000 per unit x-ray devices that can penetrate clothes and certain types of body tissue in order to highlight hidden weapons and objects. These scanners are so effective that they have raised several questions in regards to passengers’ right to privacy. Still, these machines, which have cost the United States almost $150 million, reveal almost everything- except what may be hidden in African American women’s hair. The TSA scanners barely register kinky hair, which gives the TSA license to violate our bodies through invasive and intrusive hair
After the devastating terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11th, TSA (Transportation Security Administration) was created and have since then beefed up their security. Because of all the new security devices and rules taking place now, the wait time at in the security line is longer, but for a good reason. On an average day, TSA screens 1.1 million bags. Of those 1.1 million bags, around 50,000 of them have to be checked thoroughly due to suspicious items inside the bags. The wait time at airport security lines has increased because of new threats. Because of an increase in the wait time at the security line, some people find it very frustrating and think that all the precautions are unnecessary. Those people are wrong though. In the past years since TSA was created, multiple bomber attacks have been attempted but have yet to succeed due to TSA keeping up with its safety requirements. In 2010, TSA started to use full body scanners. Some people are uncomfortable with the idea that when going through the body scanners, they are almost viewed completely naked and worry that those photos will be leaked. In Emily Holbrook’s article, Airport Security: privacy vs. safety, she makes an interesting pint when it comes to body scanners by quoting Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who said, ‘” you don’t need to look at my wife and 8-year-old daughter naked in order to secure that airplane”’ (quoted in QTD. Holbrook 14). This is an issue that has been brought to many people when going
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has made attempts to dispute these claims and fix the arising issues. Measures have been taken in recent years to address passenger’s ethical concerns surrounding the full body
In America’s judicial system, the color of skin or race are often equated with criminal behavior. Dr. King once said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” As United States citizens, we are not convicted of a crime until proven guilty. However, racial profiling aids law enforcement on deciding when to pursue or detain a suspect based on race. This method undoubtedly categorizes that certain races are more prone to commit crimes. Nevertheless, racial profiling is a violation of constitutional rights thus protected by federal law; oddly it is often disregarded by states.
Shoshanna Hebshi was a 36-year-old woman from Ohio who is half-Arab and half-Jewish. On September 11, 2011 she was removed from a Frontier Airlines flight, along with two other men. She reported to have been “placed in a cell, where she was ordered to strip naked, squat, and cough while an officer looked at her” (Warikoo, 2013). Hebshi later found out that they were removed because people on the plane complained about two of them going to the bathroom. With racial profiling “law enforcement targets individuals for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin” (Warikoo, 2013). Hebshi and the two other men were targeted because they were “possibly of Arab descent”, profiling them as possible criminals based off their skin color (Warikoo, 2013).
There have been many attempts to make racial profiling illegal, but all have failed. Racial profiling is defined as suspecting an individual of a wrongdoing based solely on the individual’s race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin (Racial Profliling: Definition 2). Racism spreads throughout all dimensions of life in American society; therefore, the history of racial profiling is extensive, but it was at an all-time high after the September 11th attacks (Persistence of racial and ethnic profiling in the United States: a follow-up report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination 10). It can be used in both positive and negative aspects, but is mostly used negatively. Racial profiling negatively effects society and the very existence of racial profiling is erroneous, discriminatory, and unjustifiable.
These criteria vary from flight check for weapons (whatever is considered to be a threat to life) to the passport for determining identification correctly; they are procedures that were developed with the aim of keeping the situation of an imminent threat and sealed to prevent national panic. The baggage policy has seen rapid change such as restrictions limiting any chance of temporary bombs or weapons for display on a plane, derailing any products endanger into the flight. Although this infringement of privacy, the privacy of personal belongings only to the one who is not greater than the chance of a threat if someone has actually taken place. This added to the account that we should not be too dependent on technology and that the probability that the machine is designed to detect any hazardous materials can make mistakes and that carelessness and accessories depending on the technology could lead to serious consequences, all due to the lack of
The actions taken by TSA at their airport checkpoints can be categorized as both a pat down or a search depending on whom you are speaking to, but personally I feel it’s more of a search that is unnecessary to begin with; well at least to the extent they bring it to. I say this because in some instances more than often they are violating people’s constitutional rights to not be searched in a public place for everyone to see. These searches should be done in private if TSA feels there is a threat of them bringing contraband onto the plane, and I agree with the judge in the video that it is an example and act of slavery on TSA’s part to be doing what they did to the gentleman who had an artificial knee.
According to Travel Weekly (2013), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) developed what we see today as a three-tier system for passenger and baggage screening at U.S. airports. The three preselected levels are “expedited, standard or enhanced” screening at the airport security checkpoint. This system, which requires the passenger not to do anything different according to Travel Weekly, since the system relies on data in the existing Secure Flight system that matches passenger reservations with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) watch list. Secure Flight is a TSA program that requires booking systems to include the passenger’s full name, gender, date of birth redress or Known Traveler number if applicable, and is a behind-the-scenes
While racial profiling is used to solve many crimes, using race as a description of the criminal being pursued does not constitute discrimination. “Racial profiling does not refer to the act of a law enforcement agent pursuing a suspect in which the specific description of the suspect includes race or ethnicity in combination with other identifying factors.”1 Identifying and defining racial profiling simply on the basis of race can raise several issues. Using this definition solely based on race fails to mention when police act on the basis of race along with a violation. For example an officer who targets African Americans who were jaywalking would not be considered to be racial profiling because the people that were stopped were jaywalking and happened to be African Americans.
Racial profiling is an epidemic. It has negatively impacted communities for generations. THe use of race by American police in their policing activities has received much attention across the world. Social media have exploded the daily news people consume and trends are now visible to those that previously didn’t notice it. Countless studies were released on that epidemic and yet, in 2016, nothing seems to have changed. There are those who will support the idea, but quite often, it’s because it doesn’t affect them. While it’s true that African Americans have a particular past with racial profiling in America, it’s has always been much broader experience. Anyone with Arabic look or with Muslim affiliation would be constantly set aside for extra searching and questioning at airports. As a journalist so well explained “People like
Have you ever been to an airport? How about a place that has lots of space? In areas like this, security is heightened to those who seem suspicious; most having colored skin.“American Muslims have long encountered difficulties at airports, where
Cultural discrimination in an airport, speaking from personal experience, has an insurmountable, mentally damaging effect on the individual. With no discretion given, the progress begins when a last name, in my case, of Persian origin, is prompted by the computer system to flag a passenger in the check-in line, initiating US Customs Officials to investigate. With all other passengers present, the humiliating ‘show’ (debacle), becomes the focus of all eyes, who immediately
In autumn 2010, the TSA implemented enhanced screening procedures that included full-body scans and pat-downs, igniting significant media coverage and public outrage. Despite heated national dialogue over the enhanced procedures, several polls conducted by news outlets in 2010 found that the majority of those polled approved of the TSA using full-body scanners. An ABC/Washington Post poll, however, found that 50 percent of respondents felt enhanced pat-downs went too far. In 2014 researchers from UC San Diego, University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins University also demonstrated various flaws in the scanning technology that would allow disguised or cleverly placed weapons or simulated explosive devices to
regarding privacy concern, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials view the generated images of passengers in a screening room away from the scanning area where passengers are either cleared or referred to further screening, such as a pat-down. TSA employees are restricted from bringing any electronics into the screening room to prevent images from leaving the screening room. Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, confirms that once a TSA official clears a passenger, the image of that passenger is “not retained nor transmitted” to protect the traveler’s privacy.
A full – body scanner is a device that used to capture an image of a person through their clothing to examine concealed objects without making any physical contact. These devices are being adopted at Airports in many countries. AIT assumes a critical part in Transportation Security Administration and the choice about its advantages involve open intrigue. The Technology has created a substantial debate that these are unsafe, ethical, security, and violate privacy and civil liberty. However, the advantages of this full - body scanner are quicker i.e., it takes approximately fifteen seconds and people do not have to be physically touched that few might consider it as offensive. Besides, the long-haul wellbeing impacts of the dynamic, emanating advances are still obscure. AIT devices are mind - boggling digital physical frameworks that raise PC security issues. Notwithstanding such concerns neither the administration offices nor the producers that place these devices have unveiled specialized subtle elements to encourage thorough autonomous assessment and such points of interest could profit aggressors. This absence of straightforwardness has decreased the capacity of policymakers, specialists, and people in general to evaluate repudiating claims.