New TSA Plans To Put Travelers in the Mood for Homeland Security

Getting through airport security in the last few years has been a lot like going to a doctor's appointment in the middle of a workday. You throw your bags down and then try to get your shoes off with one hand and unbuckle your belt and watch, at the same time, with the other. Then you wait for a long time in your socks. When the scanning and searching and checking that all liquids are in 3 oz. containers is over, you rush back out, buckling and tying with one hand while standing on one foot, and holding on to your bags with one hand. It's humiliating in a mild way, and reminds that we aren't in fact in control of our own bags, let alone our own bodies.

All that is about to change. If what the Transportation Security Authority says is true, preflight homeland security is about to get a lot less like going to the doctor and a lot more like going to a posh spa.

Travelers will be able to stand comfortably in wider aisles and watch flat screen TVs while they wait their turn (although the only viewing option will be passenger checkpoint instructions). Lines will move more smoothly, having been tailored for each particular traveler type: experienced, casual or family (Read: first class/ business; everyone else; children). Officers will be outfitted in new uniforms, which presumably will be more chic than current regulation wear, and wireless radios. There also will be a new "cool blue" color scheme, and mood music from beginning to end. At checkpoint's end, comfortable benches await where the relaxed traveler can put her shoes on at her own pace.

I almost forgot the best part, whole body scanning by x-ray. The scans use low levels of radiation to produce images of scanned bodies and, if the reports are true, they see everything. Some fear that these machines could violate passengers' privacy rights; the Electronic Privacy Research Center calls them "virtual strip searches." But I say, after a full dose of mood music and muted colors, why would you want to hide anything from the TSA?

If you've already been seduced by the new Homeland Security, you'll be able to try it at out at Baltimore Washington International Airport starting in May.