The policy began as a direct response to the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt in December 2001 [1]. This was as America was still reeling from 9/11, and full body scanners weren't standard at airports yet. Now they are, and they've improved explosive detectors too [2].
It indeed seems like it was always something of an overreaction, but an understandable one that's now fully overlapped by superior modern scanning.
Every time an article about airport security is posted the comments are the same.
To prove that I'm sane and my memory has not been corrupted by time or cosmic rays I google "airline hijackings by year", I look at the graphs in google images, and I briefly wonder what happened in early 1970s and 2000s before remembering what happened in early 1970s and 2000s.
Then I murmur "that's some fantastically effective theater".
can you find any stats on yearly hijackings that are limited to only flights where hijackers made it through american security, though? all I can find are global aggregate stats and its a bit unfair to credit TSA with preventing the hijacking of a flight from Heathrow to Dubai
Most TSA, FAA, and airline operator policies and procedures are harmonized with ICAO and IATA policies and procedures. Of course, there are regional variations and differences between international and domestic flights within those regions, but for the most part things are consistent among all of the members of both signatories of Convention on International Civil Aviation (ICAO members) and IATA members.
The whole shoe thing was proposed someone who wasn't the US (I think the UK, but my memory is fuzzy-- damn cosmic rays), submitted to ICAO, voted on, and enacted by the US as a signatory.
Why not? Comment thread is about TSA. Article is about TSA. The policy is a TSA policy. Why expand the discussion to include things no one else is talking about, and why do it surreptitiously?
I don't doubt that the screenings are security theater, but it is impossible to know whether anybody was scared off from even trying. A 10% or even 5% chance of getting caught is deeply concerning. It risks not just you, but everybody else in the plot.
It could well be zero: the turrurists aren't dumb and they also know it's security theater. But I have to admit that I genuinely do not (and cannot) know.
Certainly in the UK it was linked to this attempted attack [1] but seemed very specific like banning laser toner cartridges as they were an attack attempt.
IIRC the modern "raise your arms" scanners had not been rolled out in 2006 when the shoe policy was instituted. perhaps the TSA has realized there's no point in making people take off their shoes when explosives/contraband within are easily picked up by the new scanners.
The article implies that passengers who opt out of the "raise your arms" millimeter wave scanner and go through the magnetometer instead will not have to take their shoes off unless the magnetometer alarms:
> Passengers who trigger the alarm at the scanners or magnetometers, however, will be required to take their shoes off for additional screening, according to the memo.
I have opted out of the scanner at numerous airports over the past 20 years, without fail (dozens of times), and not once have I been asked to go through a 'magnetometer'. It's been a manual pat down every time.
It's been a few years since I've flown (and opted out of the MMW), but I recall being directed through the magnetometer first, then receiving a pat down on the other side. Maybe that was nonstandard.
Genuine question not from a judgy space but from an interested one.. what motivates you to do this? I feel like I would find the pat down far more invasive than someone seeing a sort of nude picture of my body.. again, I’m asking because I would like to understand, not because I’m judging the choice. Appreciate your insight!
Heh, cannot give it a rationale answer. I mostly started as the most minor form of political protest against the security theater. Then there were the few inevitable scandals: instances where images were saved, some of the machines were miscalibrated and delivering far too much energy to people, whatever. Sorta some justification, but I really do not have much to point. I can just say that it has never been a huge inconvenience to opt out.
I am also a boring white guy so the pat downs have always been perfunctory -never feared being groped by a thug.
Let me start by saying I'm no fan of the TSA having been traveling for business for 20 years. But we do know exactly why it was originally enacted. Which is that someone tried to hide a bomb in the base of their shoe to blow up a flight.
While we don't know why they've stopped, it could be any number of things: from they have other ways of detecting explosives that don't require your shoes going through a scanner, to they just don't think it's an issue anymore.
While a lot of what TSA does appears to be security theater, saying "it never made any of us safer" is a claim you have no way of backing up.
The problem with this theory is that plenty of times (not just for PreCheck flyers), they arbitrarily decide you don't need to take your shoes off. It's not a technology thing, because they change it back and forth at the same gate at the same airport-- I fly enough to know. And whatever they've changed it to, they bark at you for not knowing, as though you could've known about whatever RNG generates TSA policy this week.
>The problem with this theory is that plenty of times (not just for PreCheck flyers), they arbitrarily decide you don't need to take your shoes off.
At what airport? How do you know it's "arbitrary" - do you have some additional information the rest of us don't?
>It's not a technology thing, because they change it back and forth at the same gate at the same airpor
What airport? Because I fly enough to know they don't do that at LAX, SFO, SJC, or ORD.
>It's a power play, nothing more.
By WHO? The guy who implemented the policy hasn't worked in government since GWBs term. The random TSA worker has literally 0 say in the policy of taking your shoes off.
Doing something at random half the time is definitely better than doing it 0% of the time, or predictably half the time. From a security standpoint it's certainly worse than doing it 100% of the time. If you're randomizing day-to-day its pointless though. If you had something in your shoe, you could just walk away once you saw other people taking off their shoes. You're not obligated to continue. If anybody asks then you forgot your phone in your car.
Sure, randomly pulling people over or demanding access to their bank records might reveal patterns, but we supposedly have rights in western countries.
The claim is the old machines had issues with detecting and on the ground.
First time I went through Heathrow after the incident. You had to take your shoes off and went to a separate machine. The shoes were scanned then you walked back... Plenty of time to put something back on the shoe.
It’s always risk/reward. The risk isn’t only physical; it can also be intangible. For now at least, it looks like they’ve reassessed and decided it’s not worth the inconvenience.
That seems like a childish and unreasonable assumption. In addition to the technology changes everyone mentioned, it could also have to do with other factors, like the actual threats the country faces, or the relative weight the powers-that-be place on the different sides of each tradeoff. It's not like this is a controlled experiment where every other factor is held constant.
The EU already allowed keeping your shoes on in 2016. It's up to each individual airport / authority to decide if they want to invest in a more convenient screening process.
Metal belt buckles probably trigger false alarms in every screening device in existence. Even metal buttons and zippers may do that if the device is sensitive enough (such as those at SFO).
I think we'll live to regret this rollback. Think of all the horrific shoe-bombings that were prevented by merely forcing everyone who boarded an airplane for 24 years to take off their footwear and have it X-rayed. Thousands of lives saved.
I will believe it when I see it. Most TSA agents don’t follow the official rules, and seem to just do whatever they feel like on any given day. I’ve had to take my shoes off for even TSA Pre which shouldn’t even happen already.
What gets me is the inconsistency of everything. Do I need just my ID? Boarding pass? Both? Then you get annoyance from the agent because you do not know today’s policy.
I typically found that it's consistent at individual airports, but that each airport could be different.
But the fact that TSA agents refused to acknowledge that it can work differently at each airport was certainly obnoxious.
For years, every time I went to Las Vegas from my home in Portland, the PDX TSA would have to tell everyone to take off their shoes, while the LAS TSA would tell everyone to keep their shoes on. Occasionally, someone would be like "Huh, that's different from $OTHER_AIRPORT" and the TSA agent would be like "Sir, it's the same everywhere".
Of course, PDX recently got a remodel and with it, new scanners, so now shoes can stay on.
> However, he also said that he told agents about legally consuming cannabis in Germany and New Mexico, in places where it was legal to do so, after they extensively questioned him about drug smuggling, terrorism and extremism. He was also taken to a guarded room and asked to surrender his shoes, phone and backpack.
It was only then that they unlocked his phone and saw the meme. I won't speculate about whether they might have overlooked his drug use if he hadn't had that meme, but by his own account, he got in trouble for admitting to drug use.
The article says marijuana is legal in New Mexico, but it's still illegal under federal law.
>Why did you conveniently forget to mention that context?
He smoked marijuana where it was legal and he didn't get interviewed about drug use until after they spotted the meme, which they called "very clearly a piece of dangerous extremist propaganda". So, because it obviously didn't matter.
It's not legal anywhere in the US. Most people don't need to care because they don't have to normally interact with the federal government, if you know you're going to have to do that then you don't smoke it.
The Border is controlled on the federal level by federal immigration officers (CBP) where Marijuana is still illegal. And immigration officers have the right to search anyone entering the country for any reason and deny them access for crimes involving moral turpitude.
Ergo, CBP was operating within their authority.
8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(3) Authorizes federal immigration officers (e.g., CBP) to search vehicles, vessels, and persons within 100 miles of a border for immigration enforcement purposes without a warrant.
21 U.S.C. § 844 Makes possession of controlled substances (like marijuana, LSD, cocaine, etc.) federally illegal unless prescribed or legally obtained.
8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I) – Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude (CIMT) Any alien convicted of, or who admits having committed, or who admits committing acts which constitute the essential elements of a crime involving moral turpitude (other than a purely political offense)... is inadmissible.
He legally obtained the marijuana in Germany, which is a place where the current conflict between US marijuana laws on the state and federal level is less relevant to the discussion. That being said, we're not here debating whether CBP has the right to deny him entry for marijuana, we're here because the reason he was flagged for screening at all was a thoughtcrime meme and the discussion of his (again, perfectly legal) marijuana usage is subsequent to him being flagged for having the wrong political opinion.
That's not true. According to his own account, he was under investigation before anyone saw the meme.
Further, he said, "They took me to a room with several armed guards, where I had to hand over my shoes, mobile phone and backpack," before allegedly threatening him with a hefty fine if he did not unlock his cellphone for them. That is where the alleged meme of Vance came into play, along with a photo of Mikkelsen holding a homemade wooden pipe.
With no explanation on the change, I will have to assume that taking off our shoes never made us any safer.
The policy began as a direct response to the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt in December 2001 [1]. This was as America was still reeling from 9/11, and full body scanners weren't standard at airports yet. Now they are, and they've improved explosive detectors too [2].
It indeed seems like it was always something of an overreaction, but an understandable one that's now fully overlapped by superior modern scanning.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_63_(2...
2. https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2022/10/06/f...
Edit: whoa, groupthink.
>Edit: whoa, groupthink.
Every time an article about airport security is posted the comments are the same.
To prove that I'm sane and my memory has not been corrupted by time or cosmic rays I google "airline hijackings by year", I look at the graphs in google images, and I briefly wonder what happened in early 1970s and 2000s before remembering what happened in early 1970s and 2000s.
Then I murmur "that's some fantastically effective theater".
can you find any stats on yearly hijackings that are limited to only flights where hijackers made it through american security, though? all I can find are global aggregate stats and its a bit unfair to credit TSA with preventing the hijacking of a flight from Heathrow to Dubai
I didn't mention TSA.
Most TSA, FAA, and airline operator policies and procedures are harmonized with ICAO and IATA policies and procedures. Of course, there are regional variations and differences between international and domestic flights within those regions, but for the most part things are consistent among all of the members of both signatories of Convention on International Civil Aviation (ICAO members) and IATA members.
The whole shoe thing was proposed someone who wasn't the US (I think the UK, but my memory is fuzzy-- damn cosmic rays), submitted to ICAO, voted on, and enacted by the US as a signatory.
>I didn't mention TSA.
Why not? Comment thread is about TSA. Article is about TSA. The policy is a TSA policy. Why expand the discussion to include things no one else is talking about, and why do it surreptitiously?
Also, this is from memory, but 'cotton wipe' tests for the compounds used didn't exist for several more years and a few more incidents.
Until 2017, The DHS Inspector General’s office found that 90% – 95% of dangerous items get through screening checkpoints in testing.
What changed in 2017? They stopped publishing the results of the testing.
I don't doubt that the screenings are security theater, but it is impossible to know whether anybody was scared off from even trying. A 10% or even 5% chance of getting caught is deeply concerning. It risks not just you, but everybody else in the plot.
It could well be zero: the turrurists aren't dumb and they also know it's security theater. But I have to admit that I genuinely do not (and cannot) know.
Certainly in the UK it was linked to this attempted attack [1] but seemed very specific like banning laser toner cartridges as they were an attack attempt.
[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid
IIRC the modern "raise your arms" scanners had not been rolled out in 2006 when the shoe policy was instituted. perhaps the TSA has realized there's no point in making people take off their shoes when explosives/contraband within are easily picked up by the new scanners.
The article implies that passengers who opt out of the "raise your arms" millimeter wave scanner and go through the magnetometer instead will not have to take their shoes off unless the magnetometer alarms:
> Passengers who trigger the alarm at the scanners or magnetometers, however, will be required to take their shoes off for additional screening, according to the memo.
I have opted out of the scanner at numerous airports over the past 20 years, without fail (dozens of times), and not once have I been asked to go through a 'magnetometer'. It's been a manual pat down every time.
It's been a few years since I've flown (and opted out of the MMW), but I recall being directed through the magnetometer first, then receiving a pat down on the other side. Maybe that was nonstandard.
I have always opted out of the full body scanner and always had to go through the metal detector followed by pat down.
Genuine question not from a judgy space but from an interested one.. what motivates you to do this? I feel like I would find the pat down far more invasive than someone seeing a sort of nude picture of my body.. again, I’m asking because I would like to understand, not because I’m judging the choice. Appreciate your insight!
Heh, cannot give it a rationale answer. I mostly started as the most minor form of political protest against the security theater. Then there were the few inevitable scandals: instances where images were saved, some of the machines were miscalibrated and delivering far too much energy to people, whatever. Sorta some justification, but I really do not have much to point. I can just say that it has never been a huge inconvenience to opt out.
I am also a boring white guy so the pat downs have always been perfunctory -never feared being groped by a thug.
Most of them arent mmwave.
Let me start by saying I'm no fan of the TSA having been traveling for business for 20 years. But we do know exactly why it was originally enacted. Which is that someone tried to hide a bomb in the base of their shoe to blow up a flight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid
While we don't know why they've stopped, it could be any number of things: from they have other ways of detecting explosives that don't require your shoes going through a scanner, to they just don't think it's an issue anymore.
While a lot of what TSA does appears to be security theater, saying "it never made any of us safer" is a claim you have no way of backing up.
The problem with this theory is that plenty of times (not just for PreCheck flyers), they arbitrarily decide you don't need to take your shoes off. It's not a technology thing, because they change it back and forth at the same gate at the same airport-- I fly enough to know. And whatever they've changed it to, they bark at you for not knowing, as though you could've known about whatever RNG generates TSA policy this week.
It's a power play, nothing more.
> they change it back and forth at the same gate at the same airport-- I fly enough to know.
Are you using the same scanner machines every time? (They can look similar externally but operate on different principles)
>The problem with this theory is that plenty of times (not just for PreCheck flyers), they arbitrarily decide you don't need to take your shoes off.
At what airport? How do you know it's "arbitrary" - do you have some additional information the rest of us don't?
>It's not a technology thing, because they change it back and forth at the same gate at the same airpor
What airport? Because I fly enough to know they don't do that at LAX, SFO, SJC, or ORD.
>It's a power play, nothing more.
By WHO? The guy who implemented the policy hasn't worked in government since GWBs term. The random TSA worker has literally 0 say in the policy of taking your shoes off.
> It's not a technology thing, because they change it back and forth at the same gate at the same airport
Are you of the opinion that unpredictability has zero security value?
Doing something at random half the time is definitely better than doing it 0% of the time, or predictably half the time. From a security standpoint it's certainly worse than doing it 100% of the time. If you're randomizing day-to-day its pointless though. If you had something in your shoe, you could just walk away once you saw other people taking off their shoes. You're not obligated to continue. If anybody asks then you forgot your phone in your car.
In general, no. In this specific case, yes
Sure, randomly pulling people over or demanding access to their bank records might reveal patterns, but we supposedly have rights in western countries.
The claim is the old machines had issues with detecting and on the ground. First time I went through Heathrow after the incident. You had to take your shoes off and went to a separate machine. The shoes were scanned then you walked back... Plenty of time to put something back on the shoe.
Case in point : fly from EU to US, no shoes off. Same planes, flying over the same cities.
It's due to new technology: https://youtu.be/nyG8XAmtYeQ
There is not a single thing in this video that addresses shoes. I want my time back.
video tldr: 3d x-rays have made bag scanners more effective at screening
and that it took 20+ years to prove that.
It’s always risk/reward. The risk isn’t only physical; it can also be intangible. For now at least, it looks like they’ve reassessed and decided it’s not worth the inconvenience.
That seems like a childish and unreasonable assumption. In addition to the technology changes everyone mentioned, it could also have to do with other factors, like the actual threats the country faces, or the relative weight the powers-that-be place on the different sides of each tradeoff. It's not like this is a controlled experiment where every other factor is held constant.
> The transportation agency has spent years looking for an innovative way to allow passengers to move faster through the security checkpoints.
I think the writer had some fun with this one
TSA Pre-check was worth it just for this alone (and not having to unpack my laptop).
I'll keep it since in Atlanta at least the lines are still way shorter, but yay regardless.
Pre check is not about security, it's about monetizing misery and giving elites pay-to-play treats.
I hope this spreads to the EU; Warsaw security is so slow: everyone taking off belts and handing them through the metal detector, taking off shoes.
The EU already allowed keeping your shoes on in 2016. It's up to each individual airport / authority to decide if they want to invest in a more convenient screening process.
Metal belt buckles probably trigger false alarms in every screening device in existence. Even metal buttons and zippers may do that if the device is sensitive enough (such as those at SFO).
Yeah, I have TSA PreCheck and I still take off my belt, it's just easier.
[dead]
Taking off shoes is not a thing in most EU airports I have been through.
It's been years I have not taken my shoes off in a European airport (10 years, maybe more?)
Now it's time to end the laptop off the bag circus
Hmm, this seems to not have been necessary on flights within Europe, but I saw some people remove them every now and then, maybe out of habit
Depends where in Europe. I had to do it with my boots in Romania
Less theatre in the security theatre?
I think we'll live to regret this rollback. Think of all the horrific shoe-bombings that were prevented by merely forcing everyone who boarded an airplane for 24 years to take off their footwear and have it X-rayed. Thousands of lives saved.
at least thousands. probably billions.
Can you still opt-in?
I demand to have a manual pat-down!
This should be normalized. It's not my problem if they make it weird.
I will believe it when I see it. Most TSA agents don’t follow the official rules, and seem to just do whatever they feel like on any given day. I’ve had to take my shoes off for even TSA Pre which shouldn’t even happen already.
What gets me is the inconsistency of everything. Do I need just my ID? Boarding pass? Both? Then you get annoyance from the agent because you do not know today’s policy.
I typically found that it's consistent at individual airports, but that each airport could be different.
But the fact that TSA agents refused to acknowledge that it can work differently at each airport was certainly obnoxious.
For years, every time I went to Las Vegas from my home in Portland, the PDX TSA would have to tell everyone to take off their shoes, while the LAS TSA would tell everyone to keep their shoes on. Occasionally, someone would be like "Huh, that's different from $OTHER_AIRPORT" and the TSA agent would be like "Sir, it's the same everywhere".
Of course, PDX recently got a remodel and with it, new scanners, so now shoes can stay on.
shoes-off policy at airports was probably the longest running snake-oil of all time.
trickle down economics?
[dead]
[flagged]
> However, he also said that he told agents about legally consuming cannabis in Germany and New Mexico, in places where it was legal to do so, after they extensively questioned him about drug smuggling, terrorism and extremism. He was also taken to a guarded room and asked to surrender his shoes, phone and backpack.
It was only then that they unlocked his phone and saw the meme. I won't speculate about whether they might have overlooked his drug use if he hadn't had that meme, but by his own account, he got in trouble for admitting to drug use.
The article says marijuana is legal in New Mexico, but it's still illegal under federal law.
[flagged]
>Why did you conveniently forget to mention that context?
He smoked marijuana where it was legal and he didn't get interviewed about drug use until after they spotted the meme, which they called "very clearly a piece of dangerous extremist propaganda". So, because it obviously didn't matter.
It's not legal anywhere in the US. Most people don't need to care because they don't have to normally interact with the federal government, if you know you're going to have to do that then you don't smoke it.
The Border is controlled on the federal level by federal immigration officers (CBP) where Marijuana is still illegal. And immigration officers have the right to search anyone entering the country for any reason and deny them access for crimes involving moral turpitude.
Ergo, CBP was operating within their authority.
He legally obtained the marijuana in Germany, which is a place where the current conflict between US marijuana laws on the state and federal level is less relevant to the discussion. That being said, we're not here debating whether CBP has the right to deny him entry for marijuana, we're here because the reason he was flagged for screening at all was a thoughtcrime meme and the discussion of his (again, perfectly legal) marijuana usage is subsequent to him being flagged for having the wrong political opinion.
That's not true. According to his own account, he was under investigation before anyone saw the meme.
Further, he said, "They took me to a room with several armed guards, where I had to hand over my shoes, mobile phone and backpack," before allegedly threatening him with a hefty fine if he did not unlock his cellphone for them. That is where the alleged meme of Vance came into play, along with a photo of Mikkelsen holding a homemade wooden pipe.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/25/norwegian-tourist-jd-...
holy shit we're fining people for invoking their fifth amendment right not to self-incriminate?
Unless prescribed or legally obtained?