Transportation Security Authority
The Transportation Security Authority (TSA) is a partition of the Department of Homeland Security (Helmick and Jon, 2008, p.15). It was founded immediately after the shocking terrorist attack which occurred in the twin towers of New York City that year. The unit is liable for conducting traveler screening for all the passengers. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act are responsible for creating the Agency and the TSA. The role of the TSA is to inform the travelers about the policy. They also help in making airport security among the travelers better. There are actually more than fifty thousand people employed by the TSA in bus stations, airports, railways and freeway across every state, but they are rarely noticed whenever they are around.
The TSA enhances the security of the passengers when travelling through major transportation fields such as the airport. Several major airports maintain a TSA existence. Private agencies operating as contractors for the agencies may also serve some of the major airports. Significant changes in the transport pattern had to be undertaken by the Americans. This was as a result of the 2001 terrorist attack.
The organization comes up with policies that protect the passengers (Johnstone and William, 2015). The policies also implements security measures intended to reduce terrorist threats. The TSA also controls security policies for the other fields like buses, ports, railways, mass transit system, pipelines and highways. Screening of baggage and travelers in major airports in the United States is conducted in the transportation hubs by the TSA. It manages contracts that are entitled to private screening firms that operate in the same measure.
A more streamlined security protocol for travelers was lately applied by the agency. The agency registers participants. Those who manage to qualify are able to escape the more involved process. The TSA Preprogram is designed to better enable the requirements of the public. It enhances profiles that are based on the intelligence and data-driven metrics to measure the level of threat for travelers. The program will enable travellers to be able to move faster through security checkpoints in major airports without having to go through the tiresome screening procedure.
I vividly recall the Christmas day in the year 2009 when a Nigerian man tried to set off with explosives stitched in his inner pants aboard a Detroit-bound plane. This incidence made the TSA to speed up setting out full body x-ray scanners which were officially referred to as Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machines. I was once told that the AIT machines operate by incorporating the use of backscatter machines. A device known as collimator is used by the backscatter machines releasing a parallel stream of low-energy X-ray that strikes the passenger after passing through a slit in the machine. In my research, I came to realize that a single scanner involves two radiation sources in that both the back and the front sides of a person can be imaged. The radiation penetrates clothing but bounces off the skin returning to the detectors attached on the machine forming an image. The radiation is also able to deflect explosives and weapons that can pose threats revealing them in clothing (Accardo, et al. 2014, 198).
I tend to disagree with the aspect of screening by the x-ray machines since the exposure to the radiation can cause adverse health effects to passengers (Wells and Bradley, 2012, 1729). One of the adverse health effects to passengers is cancer. You can agree with me that cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. “There is probably some small cancer risk associated with the x-ray machines,” says David Brenner, a professor of radiation biophysics at Columbia University Medical Center. I actually feel like there are mechanisms in which x-ray exposure can cause cancer. It seems like those backscatter scanners carry some small risk. Some other health effects of theoretical concern associated with screening of the passenger are reproductive and teratogen effect and cardiac effects in passengers with pacemakers.
In my opinion the presence of technologies that eventually scan through a person’s clothes, totally revealing their body to be checked by the TSA security is somehow dangerous. I totally understand each and every concern that the TSA considers while coming up with new ways to promote safety and prevent terror attack, with the upcoming ideas people develop to operate in the law enforcement; but it comes to the point where one is supposed to bear all to provide evidence that they are not in any way carrying a bomb is actually crossing the thin metaphoric line between intruding and caring.
I actually feel like the Transportation Security Authority (TSA) is rather violating the fourth amendment. The essence of this amendment is that we be able to protect our homes from intrusion that is illegal by the law. The Fourth Amendment is rather clear in its words: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no warranty shall be issued upon probable causes supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized”.
Works Cited
Accardo, Julie and M. Ahmad Chaudhry. “Radiation exposure and privacy concerns surrounding full-body scanners in airports.” Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 7.2 (2014): 198-200
Helmick, Jon S. “Port and maritime security: A research perspective.” Journal of Transport Security 1.1 (2008): 15-28
Johnstone, R. William. Protecting Transportation: Implementing Security Policies and Programs. Butterworth Heinemann, 2015
Wells, K., and D. A. Bradley. “A review of X-ray explosives detection techniques for checked baggage.” Applied Radiation and Isotopes 70.8 (2012): 1729-1746