WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. airline pilots will be allowed to bypass new heightened security screening at U.S. airports, the Transportation Security Administration said on Friday, relenting after a lawsuit and outcry that pilots already undergo rigorous background checks.
Pilots have complained bitterly they should not have to go through new full-body scanners or be subjected to thorough patdowns when they already go through extensive security checks and control the airplane.
"Allowing these uniformed pilots, whose identity has been verified, to go through expedited screening at the checkpoint just makes for smart security and an efficient use of our resources," TSA Administrator John Pistole said in a prepared statement.
The TSA, created after the September 11 attacks against the United States in 2001 by al Qaeda militants using hijacked passenger planes, has been under fire since introducing more rigorous screening procedures last month.
The extra security, which comes just before a busy travel season over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, followed two plots against the U.S. aviation system in the past year.
A Nigerian man tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear aboard a U.S. flight from Amsterdam to Detroit last Christmas. Last month, two packages stuffed with explosives made it aboard two U.S. cargo flights overseas.
The Yemen-based group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for both plots.
Complaints have flooded in that the new measures are too invasive and violate constitutional and privacy rights.
While Pistole has acknowledged the procedures are more invasive, he and administration officials have said they are necessary to prevent someone from smuggling a bomb or weapon aboard a plane.
'COMMON SENSE, RISK-BASED APPROACH'
Responding to the outcry, the TSA has agreed its screeners will no longer conduct patdowns of children aged 12 or younger.
Pilots will be able to skip the new screening checks if they are employed by a U.S. carrier, are on airline business and in uniform. They will have to show their airline identification and a second form of identification, which will be checked against crew databases, the TSA said.
They could still be subject to random screening, the TSA said. The new rules do not apply to flight attendants.
"Establishing a secure system to positively identify and verify the employment status of uniformed pilots is a common sense, risk-based approach that allows TSA to dedicate more resources to unknown threats," Paul Onorato, president of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, said in a statement.
Earlier this week, two veteran pilots filed a lawsuit against the TSA and Department of Homeland Security arguing the patdowns and full-body scans violated protections against unwarranted searches afford by the U.S. Constitution.
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