Airport pat-downs to continue while some foreigners allowed to bypass security

On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the intrusive pat-downs and virtual strip searches via whole body scanners would continue at the nation's airports.

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union", Napolitano said the pat-down technique would not change in "the forseeable future."

Claiming that security is "better than it was one year ago, particularly in the aviation environment", she said:

We're always looking to improve systems and so forth. But the new technology, the pat downs, is just objectively safer for our traveling public."

She told CNN the pat-downs are only part of a system that includes intelligence and information gathered about passengers prior to travel. 

"There's a whole kind of intel-based system that's going on and then we get to the actual gate," Napolitano said, claiming overall improvement of airport security one year after the attempted "Christmas bombing" of 2009.

Politico reports that Napolitano claimed the efforts may have deterred some would-be terrorists.  "What we know is that you can't measure the devices that we are deterring from going on a plane," she said.

Meanwhile, as American citizens are having their "junk" inspected at airports, some Mexican citizens may be able to bypass the procedure.  Fox News reported on Dec 20 that:

Mexican citizens will soon be eligible to apply for a "trusted traveler" status that will allow them to bypass some elements of airport security when they fly into the United States — a U.S. government-approved program that critics say could be exploited by violent drug cartels.

Under the program, Mexicans who have undergone background checks and are deemed low security risks will be able to fly into major U.S. cities and breeze through customs without being questioned by U.S. Customs agents.

The so-called "Trusted Traveler" program is an expansion of a 2008 program called the "Global Entry Program" that speeds up the entry process for some passengers who have been pre-screened.  Under ideal circumstances, the program would let authorities zero in on passengers who would actually pose a threat.

To participate in the program, Mexican citizens need to pay a $100 application fee and pass a security check by U.S and Mexican authorities.  Once approved, their information - including biometric data - is entered into a database that is checked daily.  Membership in the program is good for five years.

But some law enforment officials, like Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, AZ, say the program could easily be bypassed by drug cartels to smuggle contraband into the U.S.

“We know even on this side of the border that drug cartels recruit people to apply for jobs with Customs and Border Protection, Immigration — they keep them clean so they pass background checks,” he said.

Dever also said the program should be extended to American citizens first before being offered to foriegners.

 “We should probably do this domestically before we extend the olive branch to a foreign country,” he said, adding, “maybe there’s some way I can get into this program so I don’t have to get manhandled by T.S.A.”