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Matthew Dickerson

ENG 1201

Mr. Johnson

20 Mar 2022

How can Airport Security be More Effective?

Airport security has existed for many decades in almost every country that provides

commercial air travel. The United States has the largest amount of airport security out of all the

other countries in comparison. Despite this, many incidents have occured, which were supposed

to be stopped by the large amounts of airport security the U.S. possess. This could beg the

question, is the U.S. providing enough airport security and is it safe enough for air travelers?

Since the early 1900’s, there have been many different forms of commercial and private

air travel available to the United States public. This means that there has been over a century of

commercial flying up to this point. With a hundred years to be able to create a formal

organization of airport security nationwide, the U.S. really only used the last portion of that time

to do so. “The Aviation and Transportation Security Act, passed by the 107th Congress and

signed on November 19, 2001, established TSA” (Transportation Security

Administration)(“Security Screening”). The reason for this is due to the 2001 terrorist attack that

occurred on September 11th, where four commercial aircraft owned by American Airlines and

United Airlines were hijacked and then intentionally wrecked into 3 star American landmarks as

well as a field in Pennsylvania, resulting in the deaths of thousands of American lives. Before

this well known attack, the U.S. never formally provided an organization that played a role in
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airport security, even after all the many hijackings and fatal aircraft incidents that occurred in the

mid to late 1900’s (Hay)(“Airlines Security”).

Today, the United States is seen to provide exceptional airport security, but with the cost

that many people will have to remove their shoes and stand in long lines which could lead to

them easily missing their flights. Due to this disturbance, slowing down the travel of a person,

many airport’s TSA officers have become complacent in their work and try to get people through

security as quickly as possible. Thus, it allows for many errors to be made during the screening

process which allows for some illegal things to get through the security (Komasová)(“Airport

Security”). “Nationwide, 5,972 firearms were taken by TSA officers” (“North Carolina

Airports”). Consequently, this means that in some way these firearms managed to get onto

airport property and some of them even got through some assortment of airport security

checkpoints. With this many firearms, it is exceedingly easy to make an estimation that many

other illegal objects are most likely getting through security in some assortment of ways.

Despite the United States having the largest acting airport security organization in the

world, there are many faults within the system of how it works. It allows for many safety risks to

many human lives, especially noting that the largest airport security organization in the world

still cannot contain every situation for what it was originally created to be.
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Bibliography

Ashford, Norman J. “Airport Security.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica,

Inc., 2022, https://www.britannica.com. Accessed 3 March 2022.

Department of Homeland Security. “Aviation Security.” Department of Homeland Security,

2022, https://www.dhs.gov. Accessed 3 March 2022.

Hay, Andrew. “A Brief History of Airline Security, Hijackings and Metal Detectors.” Servers &

Storage, 2 Apr. 2021,

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/systems/a-brief-history-of-airline-security-hijackings-and-me

tal-detectors/.

Komasová, Sarah. "Airport Security as Translation Through Division and Movement." Social

Studies of Science, vol. 52, no. 1, 2022, pp. 35-52, https://eds.p.ebscohost.com. Accessed

3 March 2022.

Transportation Security Administration. “Security Screening.” TSA, 2022, https://www.tsa.gov.

Accessed 3 March 2022.

“TSA Seizes 254 Firearms at North Carolina Airports in 2021.” AP News, 18 Jan. 2022,

https://apnews.com. Accessed 3 March 2022.