To say that September 11 was an eye-opening experience is definitely an understatement. For some people, it was their first glimpse of a true national tragedy. For all Americans, it was a blow to our confidence in our safety. Indeed, even now, more than sixth months after the tragedy, we are still discovering new evidence of just how unsafe things were.
A federal investigation that took place during the months following September 11 has shown just how easy it was for terrorists to permanently affect the lives of almost every American citizen.
According to Reuters, undercover investigators with a variety of banned items, from knives to fake bombs, attempted to get past security at 32 different airports across the country. The success they had is quite unsettling.
For example, the investigators were able to sneak knives past security more than 70 percent of the time, and guns made it through 30 percent of the time. It makes you wonder just what those people at security checkpoints were looking for in their x-ray scans of your carry-on luggage.
Maybe they thought those fake bombs were just travel alarm clocks and those six-inch knives were part of a new, deluxe manicure set.
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, the government has stepped in and taken control of airport security since February. The training of federal screeners has begun, and many other security measures are being put into place. Things seem to be headed in a good direction, but only time will tell whether or not the government can truly make our airports safer.
What I can tell you is that no matter how many guards with c the government has standing around, the security system will never be perfect.
Short of strip-searching every passenger and dumping out his or her belongings on the airport floor, there is no security system around which can prevent every single passenger from bringing items potentially dangerous items into airports and onto airplanes.
Most frequent travelers nowadays have stories of how their pocketknives and cigarette lighters made it past security right under the screeners' noses. Such stories are inevitable, and will continue to happen even after the government has fully implemented its new security plan, because there is no such thing as perfect security.
However, before you all start canceling your travel plans however, you may want to consider the fact that even though there is no such thing as perfect security, there is such a thing as "good enough" security, and that is exactly where the United States seems to be headed.
"Good enough" security includes training security staff in the processes of performing formidable screenings of a majority of passengers, teaching staff about warning signs given off by potentially dangerous passengers, and providing a multitude of safety measures for airplane pilots. And these measures, along with many others, are exactly the steps being taken by airports across the country.
Despite the fact that these measures provide safer air travel for all people in the United States, there are some people who still see the precautions as a bother. I have been to many airports across the country in the past couple months, and I have seen many passengers who were more than just a little disgruntled about having to undergo such extreme security measures.
To these people, all I can say is, "Deal with it." I would much rather have my shoes searched for bombs than be on a plane with a passenger who got by security with a knife or a gun.
One of the reasons the events of September 11 occurred is because the United States' airport system was nowhere near "good enough" security. The system was far from good, in fact, and the tragedies this country experienced on that day were because of inadequate security.
It is extremely unfortunate that it took such a tremendous and horrible tragedy to truly open our eyes to our country's ineptitude in providing safe air travel, but that is the way it happened. Now all we can do is learn from our mistakes and do the best we can to make air travel safe.
Jonathan Winkler is a mathematics sophomore. Reach him at jon.winkler@asu.edu.
