Local Travelers Praise, Criticize Changes In TSA Pat-Down Procedures

The Transportasion Security Administration, or TSA, introduced a change in the pat-down procedures agents use on travelers late last month. Now, some who fly in and out of the El Paso International Airport say the changes aren’t flying with them.

“Some people will feel a lot more secure,” said one tourist from New York. “I guess that’s the price we pay for freedom.”

Another traveler saw the pat-downs not as a price, but as a problem. “I don’t like it at all. I think it’s more invasive, it takes longer,” she said.

Every traveler must undergo a security screening before boarding a plane. If someone refuses to pass through a full-body scanner, their only alternative is to undergo a pat-down by an agent of the same-sex. Travelers can request to be patted down in a private room with another traveler present.

Pat-downs are not a new safety procedure at U.S. airports. However, the changes require TSA agents to use more extensive hand searches. ABC-7 asked TSA officials the extent to which the pat-down procedure has changed since the new technique was introduced. They could not answer, citing security concerns. However, they did tell us the new procedure is more “thorough.”

John Pistole, the head of the TSA, addressed concerns over the pat-down procedures at a Senate committee hearing Wednesday. “We were not being thorough enough in our pat-downs,” he explained. “The purpose is to detect those devises that we had not seen before, for example, last Christmas.”

Last Christmas, a Nigerian man is accused of orchestrating a terrorist scheme aboard a flight out of Detroit. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly sewed explosives into his underpants. The bomb never went off.

Still, some travelers say the new pat-down procedures are too much. John Tyner, a traveler turned Youtube star, is heard telling off a TSA employee at San Diego International airport over the weekend. After an agent explains the security measure, Tyner is heard saying, “If you touch my junk, I’m going to have you arrested.”

TSA officials told ABC-7 everyone is required to undergo these precautionary security measures, even kids. If a child under the age of 12 can not pass through a full body scanner for whatever reason, that child will undergo a modified, age-appropriate pat-down by an agent of the same sex.