By
Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:21pm
November 25 marked the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Homeland Security Act, which created the sprawling Department of Homeland Security. Included in this new behemoth agency was another agency that had been created a year earlier, the Transportation Security Administration. It’s worth taking a look back at the short history of this agency.
The first and biggest conclusion we can reach is that the vast bulk of the increased security that we’ve obtained since 9/11 has been due to two factors: the securing of airplane cockpit doors, and the fact that no planeload of passengers in a hijacked aircraft will ever again sit back placidly and wait to land in Cuba or whatever. We’ve been saying this for years and it remains true. It’s hard to believe in light of all that has followed, but a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the ACLU issued a press release with the headline, “ACLU Applauds Sensible Scope of Bush Airport Security Plan.” What we were reacting to was a set of commonsense steps the administration had taken such as increased baggage screening and securing those cockpit doors.
Ayman Latif is a U.S. citizen and disabled Marine veteran living in Egypt with no way to travel to the United States, where he was born and raised, to introduce his new baby daughter to the rest of his family who still reside in the states. He also can't take the required Veterans Administration exams to ensure he continues to receive the disability benefits he is due, after serving the U.S. for three years.