September 02, 2004 | Shoe Boxes

Transportation Security Administration officials have removed the check-your-shoes ahead of time metal detectors boxes from airports such as O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson International, saying the boxes were not "certified," according to this article by Kirstin Tagami in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The TSA is not against the idea, per se, they just want their own certified version.

The boxes have a funny backstory – they were made by an Eagle Scout, but what's interesting about the boxes is that they were allowed in the first place.

The whole premise behind the boxes is that they will let passengers learn ahead of time whether or not their shoes will set off a metal detector. If the indicator light on the box blinks when you put your shoe on it, you would be wise to take them off and send them through the x-ray machine, instead of wearing them through the metal detector.

Sounds like a good idea, especially for newbie travellers. (I'm always wearing heavy leather shoes with metal eyelets so I just always take them off.)

But if this is a good idea, why not install pre-sreening metal detector walk-through portals, so people can figure out if say their belt or the lighter in their pockets?

Or for that matter, why not let people know ahead of time by calling in or pre-checking in whether they will be selected for extra-screening (the SSSS on their tickets, which means, of course, secondary screening).

None of that sounds like a particularly good idea, since it would allow a person who plans to hijack or bomb a plane to test whether they are likely to be caught boarding a plane.

But the principle is the same as that of the shoe-checking boxes.

Nothing stops anyone from testing their shoes and then just walking out of the airport.

If we are worried about people like Richard Reid -- the notorious suicide shoe-bomber -- getting explosives or weapons on a plane, do we really want to give them a way to check how well they hid their contraband before having to go through screening?

That said, I confess to being not so worried about another attempt by Islamic terrorists to hijack an airliner – which I think is a trick you can only pull off once, al a Ender's Game.

What I do worry about when I get on an airline is another attempt to bomb the plane from within. That can be done many ways, either through a checked-in bomb, a bomb secreted in commercial cargo packed in the belly of a passenger plane, Richard Reid shoe-bomber-style, or Ramzi Yousef wrist-watch/explosive fluid-in-a-bottle style.

Which is to say, the TSA needs to augments its magnetic detectors with some trace-explosive detection equipment, do a better job screening commercial cargo and require airlines to extend positive passenger bag matching (the process of making sure every checked bag on a plane has a corresponding passenger) to all transfer flights.

Posted by Ryan Singel at September 2, 2004 01:08 PM

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