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TSA Changes Its Mind on Security Rules—for Pilots

The TSA's full body scanning policy remains despite pilot exemptions, amidst growing concerns about privacy and airline security fees.

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As the backlashcontinues against the TSA's full body scanning and increasingly aggressive pat-downs of those who opt out, the agency has bent a little in one area. The head of TSA today questioned the need to use the added security on pilots. The pilots organization had already told its members to opt out of the scans to avoid extra radiation exposure. Now, the TSA says that as of 2011 pilots will only need to have their airline-issued IDs checked by computer.

“This one seemed to jump out as a common-sense issue,” Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief John Pistole told Bloomberg News on Friday. “Why don’t we trust pilots who are literally in charge of the aircraft?” That’s exactly the point commercial airline pilots have been making for years. [Christian Science Monitor]

What Pistole did not do, however, was back off the policy of using the scanners on the rest of ...

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