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“The Transportation Security Administration will no longer require travelers to remove their shoes during security checks at U.S. airports, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Tuesday, ending an unpopular policy…
“TSA began making passengers remove their shoes to screen for explosives in August 2006. The policy was implemented nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks and when Richard Reid, who is known as the ‘shoe bomber,’ used matches in an attempt to ignite explosive devices hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami.” Reuters
All sides criticize the rule’s effectiveness and applaud the change in policy:
“Adopted after a self-proclaimed al-Qaida member tried and failed to set off explosives inside his boots on a 2001 flight from Paris to Miami, the requirement forced U.S. flyers to show feet approximately 10 billion times over its 19-year existence. If each of those people spent a minute on the process, the total comes to more than 250,000 years of shoes off, shoes on…
“If the rule deterred any subsequent attacks, the Department of Homeland Security has not said. Unlike other airport checkpoint procedures, such as limits on liquids, the shoe rule was never adopted by the rest of the world—without any adverse effect. Some critics have argued that it and other security protocols may have taken more lives than they saved, by pushing travelers toward driving, a much more dangerous option than flying.”
Henry Grabar, Slate
“For everyone who has struggled to grab their carry-on bags off the X-ray conveyor belt, while shoving an arm into the sleeve of a coat while also snatching their shoes out of the gray plastic security bin while trying to steer it toward the tower of similar bins at the end of the security checkpoint, the change is welcome news…
“TSA is lifting the shoe-removal policy because, a news release said, newer technology is able to spot contraband in shoes while they’re still on our feet… Rescinding the policy is a modest example of appropriate government: When a rule is no longer needed or effective, it should go away. Good-bye and good riddance.”Editorial Board, Dallas Morning News
“The TSA has, to date, never caught anyone with bombs hidden in their shoes. (And many people accept it as a foregone conclusion that the Reid shoe bombs would have downed the plane, when that's not necessarily true.) I wonder if one unintended consequence of this policy change will be fewer people signing up and paying for PreCheck, which allows preapproved people to keep their shoes on…
“The shoe-removal policy is far from universal, as international travelers routinely notice. ‘You don't take your shoes off anywhere but in the U.S.—not in Israel, in Amsterdam, in London,’ aviation security expert Yossi Sheffi told The Washington Post back in 2011… It's a good thing for the TSA to begin to roll back some of its pointless, ineffective security theater, especially if the policies haven't been proven useful at actually catching would-be bombers over the years.”
Liz Wolfe, Reason
Other opinions below.
“The policy change is an implicit marker of underappreciated progress. The threat of devastating terror attacks in the US… has greatly receded. According to the Global Terrorism Index, the US suffered only three terror attacks in 2024, resulting in just one death — the lowest number since 2010 — while the European Union only experienced 34 attacks, leading to just five deaths. Few would have predicted that decline in the dark days of late 2001…
“It might be hard to believe… but the TSA has actually gotten better at screening for threats. Beginning in the late 2010s, the TSA began rolling out automated screening lines (ASLs) that were equipped with multi-view computed topography (CT) scanners. These machines generate 3D images of carry-on bags, enabling reliable detection of the same kind of explosives Reid tried to use in 2001…
“Beyond airport screening, the massive holes in US security that existed before 9/11 have largely been closed. Every traveler who crosses US land and air borders undergoes biographic vetting against the Terrorist Screening Database. Compare that to the pre-9/11 period, when passenger identities were only spot-checked against watchlists if they were specifically flagged pre-boarding, meaning there was no real systematic advance collection of traveler data.”
Bryan Walsh, Vox
“Though Reid was unsuccessful in his attempted mass murder, he did change American life… Very few countries adopted their own version of [the ‘no shoes’] policy. That’s likely because it was always security theater — the performative illusion, through mass inconvenience and generalized suspicion, that we’ll all be safer if we’d just do the security hokey-pokey and turn ourselves around before we get on a plane… Good riddance.”
Anthony L. Fisher, MSNBC
“The Transportation Security Administration geniuses only imposed the rule years after the ‘shoe bomber’ failed, maybe simply to distract us all from the also-maddening restrictions on liquids. Enforcement has long been inconsistent, with some lines at some airports mysteriously exempted. (No one dares ask why the rules are looser that day, and so risk TSA agent revenge, whether a pat-down or enough delay that you miss your flight.)…
“Travelers under age 12 and over 75 apparently can’t hide explosives in their shoes, as they’ve long been completely exempt. And of course forking over $78 to join TSA Pre-check also lets you stay shod. Even if TSA higher-ups pretend that tech advances allow the end of this idiocy, we have to suspect it actually reflects the nation’s new political leadership. Maybe someday soon someone will pay some attention to the matter of the ban on toothpaste over 3.5 ounces.”
Editorial Board, New York Post
“Maybe now the TSA can focus more on finding all the guns passing through airports… During 2024, the agency intercepted 6,678 firearms at airport security checkpoints, and about 94% of them were loaded. That was actually a reduction over 2023, when agents found 6,737. For you statistics nerds, the TSA says it screened more than 904 million people in 2024. That means it found 7.4 guns per million people, as opposed to 7.8 per million in ‘23…
“Which raises the question: If the TSA found 7.4 per million last year, how many did it miss? The last time we knew the answer to that question was in 2017, and it wasn’t good news. Undercover investigators that year were able to pass 70% of the fake weapons they secretly carried with them through security checks… Maybe, with their minds off our shoes, TSA agents can focus more on what’s really afoot.”
Jay Evensen, Deseret News
