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Millions of travelers in the U.S. will soon find that airport security is a little more footloose in the coming weeks. Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Transportation Security Administration, announced that the TSA will no longer have passengers remove their shoes as part of the screening process before boarding.
“Everything the TSA does and requires of travelers has always been necessary, but they have advanced over the years,” Noem said. “We have made advancements in how we screen individuals.”
The news, first reported by the travel newsletter Gate Access, comes as a respite to all who have spent nearly two decades following the awkward procedure since it was instituted as a blanket federal policy in 2006. Before any official statement on the issue, some airports confirmed the change to media outlets, and passengers departing from Los Angeles International Airport and New York City’s LaGuardia Airport this week reported that they did not have to take off their shoes, a privilege for years accorded only to those paying for trusted traveler plans such as TSA PreCheck. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also confirmed the end of the shoe rule in an X post on Tuesday, calling it “big news” from DHS.
“TSA and DHS are always exploring new and innovative ways to enhance the passenger experience and our strong security posture,” a TSA spokesman told reporters in response to questions about the new shoe policy, which sources originally indicated would be rolled out in phases across the country but instead took immediate effect nationwide.
Of course, unsaid in all this is the fact that taking your shoes off at the airport never made anyone safer, and that other airports around the world — even those with much tougher security overall — have not required this for a very long time, if ever. Those old enough will recall that the hassle was instituted in piecemeal fashion after a failed terrorist attack in December 2001, right on the heels on 9/11, in which a fringe Al Qaeda member named Richard Reid unsuccessfully tried to detonate explosive material in his shoes during an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. For several years, shoe removal was semi-optional at many airports, though anyone who didn’t take them off was typically pulled aside for further invasive inspection. The practice did not become standardized until 2006.
The DHS and TSA, both created in the wake of 9/11, clearly overreacted to a perceived new risk in their infancy as regulatory entities. Officials and experts have always entertained serious doubts about the potential effectiveness of Reid’s device — not to mention his ability to carry out the attack — and the concept of “shoe bombs” in general. There have been no recorded shoe bombings, in the sky or on the ground, since passengers and crew subdued and restrained Reid on that 2001 flight. (Afterward, with three hours to go until landing in Miami, Legally Blonde was screened in the plane cabin.) Neither has the TSA announced the arrest or detainment of anyone attempting to board a plane with explosives in their shoes, despite the agency’s periodic advisories that they would continue to mandate shoe X-rays “based on intelligence pointing to a continuing threat.”
It takes no exaggeration to say that we have expended far more effort as a people to guard against the violence of shoe bombs (total body count: zero) than the scourge of gun violence, which on average kills more than 125 Americans every day. What did all the inconvenience, frustration, and lost time amount to? The instant repeal of a vestige of the War on Terror that accomplished nothing in the first place, yet remained enforced for decades. Any proof that it saved lives might have justified what ultimately amounted to the perennial gripe of a hack standup comedian — alas, we have none.
Instead, we are left to contemplate the arbitrary, unreasonable demands of the U.S. surveillance state, and how readily we normalize them. This kind of security theater is now baked into the fabric of American life, while social safety nets are shredded and medical care is denied to millions whom the Trump administration pretends to protect with inflated border control budgets. It’s not as though Secretary Noem announced the installation of cutting-edge shoe-scanning devices in every TSA-staffed airport. More likely, someone in a position of influence observed that everybody hates taking their shoes off, and that from a safety standpoint, it doesn’t really matter if they do or not.
The irony of a post-George W. Bush government possibly recognizing this despite also being inclined to sleepwalk into a disastrous Middle East war is strange and potent. So is the fact that we can be granted this small, symbolic freedom while the White House does whatever it can to roll back vital civil liberties. Perhaps it’s a cheap PR win amid sliding approval ratings. Whatever brought us here, the ease with which they dismissed the necessity of padding through the metal detector in your socks tells you how much bureaucratic logic is based purely on vibes.
Still, you should enjoy the honor of being allowed to walk through a heavily trafficked public space without temporarily surrendering your sneakers, sandals, or comfy plane slippers. How rare to experience a victory over the irrational and superstitious, the indignity that is universally agreed to be a waste of human purpose. Richard Reid will be locked in a Colorado supermax prison for the rest of his life, with not a single copycat to his name. And, for the first time since the dawn of the millennium, his misguided actions will not impede your movement from one place to another.
