Looking Forward to Fewer Airport Screenings? TSA Chief Says Not So Fast

A TSA pre check sign at a security checkpoint is on display for travelers to easily see at the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport on Friday, June 29, 2018, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The TSA projected that Friday would be its busiest day ever, with agents screening more than 2.7 million people. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

To the contrary of last week’s optimistic CNN report, the head of the TSA, David Pekoske, said Tuesday they will not be eliminating security screenings at airports that only see planes with less than 60 seats.

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“TSA will not be eliminating passenger screening at any federalized U.S. airport as suggested in recent media reports,” Pekoske said Tuesday in a statement to The Hill.

“Reporting on pre-decisional budget exercises is misleading as it doesn’t reflect the entire process, and certainly doesn’t take into account the dedicated TSA professionals who work tirelessly to assess impact, risk, and feasibility of different scenarios,” Pekoske added.

To be fair, CNN’s title and article only said it was a possibility and the documents they’d seen showed the TSA was only considering it.

Of course, there’s also a lesson of not reporting such things as budget exercises because of their very nature of being hypothetical. A budget exercise for TSA could also include replacing TSA agents with chimpanzees. Okay, it’s not likely, but the point is made.

For now, we’re all stuck taking off our shoes and sorting our carry-on contents into separate bins.

On the positive side, Pekoske said last month that new technology he hopes to implement will make the security screening process faster and less onerous on passengers.

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