THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 11, 1995 TAG: 9508110456
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
The FAA has ordered a tightening of security at the nation's airports due to information suggesting an increased risk of terrorism over the next several months. Americans had better get used to it. We have been altogether too relaxed about security in the past.
International travelers are already familiar with the drill. In Western Europe it is not unusual to have luggage inspected more than once, to be expected to show photo ID repeatedly, to be asked a series of probing questions and to be warned about not letting one's luggage out of one's sight and to report attempts by strangers to enlist help in carrying a bag or package.
Long accustomed to sporadic violence authored by radicals from left and right, by the PLO and the IRA, European governments have been forced to adopt tight airport security and travelers have had to learn to live with the inconvenience. In fact, the procedures are now so familiar and efficient that the annoyance is minimal.
After the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City and the Unabomber, Americans can hardly afford to imagine they're somehow immune. Many of the new procedures will be behind the scenes, but closer questioning and more elaborate screening are inescapable. And it is only a matter of time until curbside luggage check-in is curtailed, only ticket holders have access to secure areas and ID checks are required. It would be pleasant to suppose that the free and easy travel of the past could be recaptured, but we are not living in a Happy Days episode.
Some will undoubtedly denounce such precautions as creeping Big Brotherism, but in a dangerous world a little restriction of individual liberties is the price that has to be paid for collective security. Modestly increased expense and some inevitable delays will be time and money well spent if an American Lockerbie is averted. by CNB