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Air Transportation

Research conducted by: RAND Justice, Infrastructure, and Environment

Commentary (11)

More Secure or Less Free? — Dec 17, 2012

It is thus not surprising that people report a willingness to trade convenience, money, and liberty for security. Legal precedent reinforces that decreased civil liberties may be accepted when confronting existential threats with demonstrably effective security—to a point, writes Henry H. Willis.

Commentary

Fake Boarding Pass Fears Inflated — Dec 11, 2012

Instead of ratcheting back the PreCheck program because of manufactured fears about security lapses, TSA should be encouraged to expand this program to more airlines, more airports and more infrequent travelers, write Jack Riley and Lily Ablon.

Commentary

TSA Procedures Need to Be Remade from Scratch — Sep 28, 2012

It is time for a new approach to meeting America's next-generation aviation security needs, one that dodges the influence of politics and bureaucracies and relies instead on the resources and objectivity of independent researchers operating from a clean slate, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.

Commentary

Three Ways to Improve Airport Screening — Mar 7, 2012

The TSA's pilot "Pre-check" program that pre-screens travelers who volunteer for it is an overdue advance in security, but it does not address some larger issues surrounding America's airports, writes K. Jack Riley.

Commentary

The Unmentionable Costs of Airline Security — Sep 13, 2011

For most of the past decade, the U.S. has pursued policies with very little regard to the costs they impose on travelers or the net reduction in risk that they generate, writes K. Jack Riley.

Is it Time to Consider a New Approach to Airline Security? — Sep 1, 2011

It may be possible that the development and deployment of improved security technologies and reconfigurations of security checkpoints will keep security one step ahead of terrorist adversaries, but it also may be an appropriate time to explore fundamentally new approaches, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.