A top American official has dashed the hopes of travellers who want new screening procedures at U.S. airports to be less invasive -- a day after President Barack Obama asked that his national security team look at modifying the controversial new measures.
"It really comes down to what is that balance between privacy and security," said John Pistole, head of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, on CNN's "State of the Union."
"We're not changing the policies," he said, because the existing threat level is too high to rely less heavily on full body scans and thorough pat-downs at some airports.
Obama said at the NATO summit in Portugal on Saturday that he requested a TSA official to look into whether there are less-intrusive ways to keep air passengers safe from terrorist attacks.
"You have to constantly refine and measure whether what we're doing is the only way to assure the American people's safety," Obama said that told the TSA.
"I understand people's frustrations," he said.
A day later, Pistole said the threat posed by terrorists meant the new screening policies must remain in place, even though many passengers have complained they represent a violation of privacy.
"Clearly it's invasive, it's not comfortable," Pistole said, before defending the measures.
"If we are to detect terrorists, who have again proven innovative and creative in their design and implementation of bombs that are going to blow up airplanes and kill people, then we have to do something that prevents that."
The new pat-downs and body scans have provoked anger among air travellers just as the holiday travel season gets underway.
At some U.S. airports, travellers must now pass through scanners that produce a nearly naked image. However, the screener isn't able to see the person or learn their identity, and the face on the image produced is blurry.
The new safety measures have drawn fire from some experts as well.
Ivan Eland, a senior fellow at the Center on Peace and Liberty, called them "a governmental shakedown" because the new measures were instituted following an incident where explosive devices originating in Yemen were hidden on cargo planes, not passenger airliners.
"I think what the government does is take advantage of crises to put in measures that they would like to put in anyway," he told CTV News Channel.
"Even though the incident had to do with cargo they're putting in these aggressive pat-downs," he said. "As a traveller pointed out, if somebody did this to me that didn't work for the government, it would be sexual assault."
Time will tell whether the measures are able to weather the public outcry.
Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican who will become chairman of the Transportation Committee in January, has said that he disagrees with the new policies.
"I don't think the rollout was good and the application is even worse," Mica told CNN. "This does need to be refined."
With files from The Associated Press
