Soon, You Won't Have to Take Your Shoes Off To Fly
9/11 was a terrible tragedy, and our government has taken steps to ensure that it will never happen again. Among those steps? Taking off your shoes. Why? Because one guy once hid a bomb in his shoes and tried to light it on fire, and failed miserably.
Thankfully, this airport annoyance might finally be sent the way of complementary meals and courteous staff as something you'll never experience on an airline again.
Why? Improving technology. Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano has been working on implementing newer and better technology to keep you from having to take your shoes off, so that they can be scanned on your feet. Kind of like those backscatter scanners, only you don't have to worry about some creepy guy stealing the scans.
Hard as it is to believe, most people don't enjoy being barefoot in an airport. And, since they are trying to improve compliance, that's item number one on DHS's "let's stop annoying people with this" list. One thing not going anywhere, though, is the rules about toiletries and liquids. Apparently scanning technology isn't quite up to speed to sort explosive liquids from non-explosive ones. So, we'll still have to cram everything we want to use into a plastic bag for them to look at, but at least we won't have to be wondering if the floor is clean while doing it.
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