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Serena Vincent
Mr. Bradley
Government
26 October 2016
Secure Air Act
Random airport searches, also known as Secondary Security Screening Selection has
been a part of the United States airports ever since we were attacked on September 11, 2001,
throwing us into a frenzy to find a solution swiftly. The government needed an answer and their
answer became the start of the Transportation Security Administration. The TSA is known for
being efficient and secure, but over the years it has been proven that many of these random
airport searches are inaccurate and untrustworthy, but because of our fear of being struck again
we have turned this extra check into a full on racially profiled hunt. Secondary Security
Screening Selection needs to be abolished because it is inaccurate, based on the racial profiling
of Americans, and highly ineffective.
When the attacks happened on September 11, 2001, America was very surprised and
shocked by terrorists abilities to be able to take over a plane that easily, so they put many
security checks in airports to make sure that this never happens again (Mann). Although this was
a very quick ways of solving the problem, America went overboard and started to racially profile
the innocent people of the United States. Many would think that the people of America don't

mean to racially profile people by just what someones wearing, but that is not the case. A poll
from 2010 by USA Today showed that Americans were in favor of a more intensive security
check for people who fit the profile of a terrorist based on ethnicity, gender and age (Page). This

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shows how many of Americans are profiling people who are regular citizens, but wear different
clothes than what we would call "regular ". Even people in extremely high places of power
started to show their biased views on the subject. The former special assistant for Homeland
Security, Frank Cilluffo, under President George W. Bush, said airports need to be profiling
based on behavior even though it's a dirty word (Heymann). People are okay with profiling as
long as they are safe and unharmed because fear is the biggest factor in security, but many
different cultures in America have had unsatisfactory experiences in airports.
When going through airport security many persons of Muslim descent or individuals who
do not dress as a regular American citizen would, are usually checked just because of what they
look like (Tyson). Many Muslims have talked about how they have been racially profiled and
searched in the airport just for looking a certain way. There is even a report that thirty-two
million Americans have been victims of racial profiling (Syed). These American citizens should
not have to feel this way whenever they walk into an airport because they have the same amount
of rights to be here like anyone else. Doing these searches can also cause them to miss their
flights giving them more hardships and wasting their time. They have also reported feeling
embarrassed or put on the spot during searches because it makes them feel different and lesser
than others. Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano has received over 50 complaints in one
week from passengers about pat-down searches that have been questionable by security
attendants (ABC News). No American citizen should have to go through this embarrassment
when they want to go to an airport. Americans should be able to go wherever we want in
America without thinking about the next time we will get searched by a less than accurate
security search.

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Although advocates for using Secondary Security Screening Selection would say we need
them to stay secure with reliable and accurate screening, the screenings have been revealed to be
highly inaccurate. Many people have done tests to test the accuracy of the security and they have
proven it to be just a game of profiling. If the additional searches were random, every flight
would have an average of 80 people being stopped and searched as they boarded a plane
(Delvin). This shows how the screenings are unreliable which should make us think of why we
even want these screenings. The people of the United States should not have to go through these
unreliable screenings that are doing nothing for our country. Other statistics have shown up
showing the screenings being inaccurate as well. 1 in 80 million are the chances that any profiled
flier will be a Muslim terrorist (Schneier). The screenings are doing nothing for the American
people besides hurting and embarrassing them. This form of security does not inform America
on their safety, it only gives a false sense of protection.
Supporters of the random security searches would also say that even though the random
security checks are not very accurate, that they still would be able to catch guns and knives, but
that is not true. There have also been statistics on the accuracy of how many people they could
catch with random airport security. Many of the policies that support that profiling have been
proven largely ineffective at catching terrorists (Jenkins). This system cannot find anything
without luck, this has nothing to do with skill or accuracy. Even the reason why we started doing
these checks cannot be found within these screenings. Guns, knives, and explosives that were
held by federal inspectors were not found by LA International airport screeners at checkpoints
41% of the time in an airport security test (BBC NEWS). This shows how these checks cannot
do anything for the American country but make lives harder and waste time. The American

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government should want an accurate system for airports, not something that has an error rate
almost half the time.
Although random airport searches used to be a secure way of going about keeping the
airport safe, it is turned into a game of who looks the most suspicious or who doesn't look
normal. This has to stop, America is the land of the free and the people who live here should be
able to live freely and travel freely. Random security services is a unreliable and unsecure way of
checking citizens throughout the nation. With these unreliable and embarrassing rituals that we
do out of fear, we should try to make an actual system that could work in the airports that
wouldn't make a certain part of our population feel afraid to travel anywhere. Random airport
security searches should not be a part of our everyday lives anymore.

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Works Cited
ABC News. "Airport Pat-Downs Bother Some Passengers." ABC News. ABC News Network, 08
Feb. 2016. Web. 17 Sept. 2016.
BBC NEWS | Americas | Attack Shows Limits to Airport Security." BBC News. BBC, 05 July
2002. Web. 17 Sept. 2016.
Delvin, Keith. "Devlin's Angle." Randomness at the Airport. Basic Books, May 2002. Web. 16
Sept. 2016.
Heymann, Philip B. Terrorism, Freedom, and Security: Winning without War. Cambridge,
MA: MIT, 2003. Print.
Jenkins, Jack. "Anti-Muslim Profiling At Airports Goes Beyond The TSA." ThinkProgress. N.p.,
20 Jan. 2016. Web. 17 Sept. 2016.
Mann, Charles C. "Does Airport Security Really Make Us Safer?" Vanity Fair. Cond Nast, 20
Dec. 2011. Web. 07 Sept. 2016.
Page, Susan. "Most Support Ethnic Profiling." USA Today. Gannett, 13 Jan. 2010. Web. 17 Sept.
2016.
Schneier, Bruce. "The Trouble With Airport Security." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 09 May 2012.
Web. 16 Sept. 2016.
Syed, Nafees. "Airport Screening for 'Flying While Muslim'" CNN. Cable News Network, 03
Feb. 2010. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.
Tyson, Jeff. "How Airport Security Works." HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com, 2016. Web.
06 Sept. 2016.