After a flurry of criticism last week when TSA hinted it might save money by ending screening at small airports, it’s come up with a new scheme: Let some passengers be screened by dogs instead of agents.
The highly-trained bomb-sniffing dogs would check passengers and carry-ons for potential explosives, and the passengers would then be moved to a separate line for x-ray scanning of their carry-ons, without the “remove your belt, computer and liquids” requirement. In effect, they would be treated like passengers with Pre-Check.
TSA’s head emphatically ruled out the no-scanning idea and said it will not even be considered in future. He also talked about the canine plan, saying that when used, it would be at airports that have room for a separate lane, since both those who have paid for Pre-Check and submitted to background investigation and political leaders have objected to adding non-payers to the Pre-Check line.
