A Massachusetts law enforcement and homeland security consultant who helped draft some of the first rules requiring passengers to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints says the decision to end the policy raises concerns.
“I do think it’s an important part of the screening process,” says Peter DiDomenica, a former Mass. State Police sergeant and one-time Director of Aviation Security Policy at Logan Airport. DiDomenica was at the airport the night American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami unexpectedly detoured to Boston, just three days before Christmas 2001.
The plane landed safely with 197 passengers and crew, including Richard Reid, who had attempted to detonate a bomb hidden in his shoe. DiDomenica was feet away as federal agents arrested Reid.
“I looked him in the eye,” DiDomenica recalls. “What I saw was resignation. What I saw was a person who believed in what they were doing and was disappointed in the fact that they didn’t succeed.”
The “Shoe Bomber” attack, just months after the 9/11 terror attacks, spurred additional security changes at airports across the country.
“After the arrest, I went up to our office and I wrote a policy for the screeners at Logan Airport,” DiDomenica told Boston 25 News. “At that time, there was no such thing as the TSA.”
DiDomenica’s policy required passengers to remove their shoes and for the shoes to be x-rayed. In 2006, TSA mandated an identical policy nationwide.
On Tuesday, TSA and the Department of Homeland Security announced an abrupt end to the policy.
“Our security technology has changed dramatically,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said at a Tuesday news conference. “We have a multilayered, whole-of-government approach now to security and to the environment that people anticipate and experience when they come into an airport that has been honed and it’s been hardened.”
DiDomenica agrees it’s time to ease up on the “shoes off” policy, but worries officials are going about it the wrong way.
“I don’t agree with the total elimination of it,” he says. “I would have advised the Department of Homeland Security to… not announce anything. Continue to x-ray shoes on a very limited basis, even just 1% of the time. Randomly select people and let the bad guys… feel there’s a possibility they could get caught.”
Although security screening and technology continue to improve, DiDomenica says perception can be a powerful deterrent.
“When you’re analyzing what procedures to use, you need to understand that it’s really a matter of optics,” DiDomenica says. “It’s what the public or the bad guys are going to perceive about the security and the chances of getting caught.”
On Tuesday, Sec. Noem said some passengers may still be asked to remove their shoes on an individual basis.
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