Airport Security | featured news

U.S. homeland security officials have no plans to back away from air passenger security patdowns despite a traveler uproar that they violate privacy rights and growing concerns in Congress over the policy.

The Transportation Security Administration will let uniformed airline pilots skip the body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints.

In a climate of Internet campaigns to shun airport pat-downs and veteran pilots suing over their treatment by government screeners, some airports are considering another way to show dissatisfaction: Ditching TSA agents altogether.

The head of the Transportation Security Administration is acknowledging that the new pat-downs are more invasive than what travelers were used to in the past.

In response to a video of a California man's dispute with airport security officials, the Transportation Security Administration said Monday it tries to be sensitive to individuals, but everyone getting on a flight must be screened.

Pilots' unions for US Airways and American Airlines are urging their members to avoid full-body scanning at airport security checkpoints, citing health risks and concerns about intrusiveness and security officer behavior.

The US authorities ban toner and ink cartridges from passenger aircraft and all cargo flights from Yemen and Somalia, in the wake of a bomb plot.

A suspicious package discovered at the United Kingdom's East Midlands airport contained "viable explosives," and could have brought down an aircraft upon detonation, British Home Secretary Theresa May said Saturday.

Authorities are responding to reports of suspicious items on three planes that landed today in Newark, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Pennyslvania. Suspicious packages found in at least two locations abroad that were bound for Jewish organizations in the United States "apparently contain explosive material," President Barack Obama said Friday, calling the discovery "a credible threat against our country."

A pilot who refused to submit to a full-body scan or the alternative pat down going through airport security said the procedures violate his rights.