Behind an unmarked door, in a cluttered break room of half-eaten lunches and morale-boosting posters, a dozen Transportation Security Administration officers listened to their airport supervisor deliver another much-needed pep talk that contained the reminder: ?I get paid to be paranoid, and so do you.?
The supervisor, Philip Burdette, the federal security director at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, quickly addressed the recent criticism that the agency?s stepped-up security measures had gone too far; that passing through a checkpoint for a routine flight to Newark was now like entering a maximum-security prison for a protracted stay.
?Pat-downs have changed because of what?? he asked, searching for answers that might then be shared with inquisitive, even annoyed, passengers.
?Threat?? someone softly volunteered.
?Threat,? Mr. Burdette agreed. ?Especially after Abdulmutallab.? That is, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian whose alleged attempt last Christmas to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane with plastic explosives hidden in his underwear has transformed air travel in the United States.
The supervisor moved on to discuss reports of an organized opt-out day on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, one of the year?s busiest for travelers. Some protesters ? who seem to be grossly overestimating the patience of their fellow passengers ? plan to disrupt the flow at checkpoints by choosing the slower, more deliberate pat-downs instead of passing through the full-body scanners, which critics consider to be too invasive.
?That?s their right,? Mr. Burdette said. ?I don?t know if it?s 10 people or 10,000 people. Just be professional. Assume you?re being videotaped.?
With that, Mr. Burdette reminded everyone to remain vigilant, wished them a ?good shift? and opened the unmarked door to a pre-holiday flow of travelers oblivious to the many worries for their safety.
It can be argued that the T.S.A. has failed in customer relations, that in its zeal to anticipate every conceivable threat, it has forgotten to take a deep breath and calmly explain why it does what it does to us ? for us.
For example, the agency recently intensified its pat-down procedures, but, for what it says are security reasons, has declined to answer basic questions that might allay concerns that the new pat-downs are glorified grope sessions. How are these different from the old pat-down procedure? No comment. How are the officers trained to conduct these pat-downs? No comment.
The void created by the unanswered questions is filled, then, by libertarian complaints about privacy and ?Saturday Night Live? skits that mock front-line transportation security officers for following government orders, while administrators far removed from checkpoints in Baltimore and Seattle, Miami and Green Bay, Wis., struggle to make the right moves in a high-stakes game of Risk.
Patrick Smith, who writes the ?Ask the Pilot? column for Salon.com, is among many who argue against treating people as potential terrorists ? ?bullying people,? he says ? simply because they want to fly. He said the T.S.A. should streamline its checkpoint operations and reallocate officers to conduct more thorough scanning of luggage for bombs and explosives.
?We can?t protect ourselves from every conceivable threat, and we need to acknowledge that,? Mr. Smith said. ?There?s always going to be a way for a resourceful enough perpetrator to skirt whatever measures we put in place.?
But Mr. Burdette said this type of thinking reflected post-Sept. 11 amnesia. He said each security measure, from the new pat-down procedures to the increased use of body scanners, was driven by intelligence, not by a desire to create busywork.
Mr. Burdette, 41, is a former Marine and counterterrorism investigator who keeps his hair short and his dark-blue suits crisp. As the supervisor of the 700 or so officers at B.W.I. who screen as many as 40,000 travelers a day ? of whom fewer than 3 percent request pat-downs ? he takes the morale of his troops seriously, and resents any smirking dismissal of them as burger-flippers in toy-cop uniforms.
This perception was once so pervasive, and the officers were feeling so beleaguered, that two years ago the T.S.A. changed their uniform shirts to blue from white, and issued gold badges to replace their badge-shaped patches. The agency also began an internal campaign called I.G.Y.B. ? for ?I?ve Got Your Back.?
For government benefits and a salary that starts at $12.85 an hour, these unarmed officers swallow the irritation of others, apply security methods that intensify by the day, stifle the awkwardness they might have about touching other people ? oh, and be on alert for bombs, liquid containers holding more than 3.4 ounces, sharp objects, explosive ingredients and the next Abdulmutallab.
?I want them to think Abdulmutallab with every pat-down,? Mr. Burdette said.