There was a scare at Miami International Airport on Saturday after a suspicious item was found in a bathroom.

Some areas of the airport had to be evacuated . . .

Passengers were asked to stay across the street as the bomb squad tried to figure out what the item was.

Ultimately officials realized it was a toy grenade they had found.

“It looked real enough for us to implement our safety procedures,” said Detective Lee Coward with Miami-Dade Police. “It was determined by the bomb squad and the K-9 units to be inert. It would be speculation at this point to determine whether it was a novelty item that perhaps a child left behind in the bathroom or whether someone meant something more malicious by that.” (Read more from “‘Grenade’ Causes Evacuation at Airport” HERE)

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The federal government will soon begin searching through travelers’ books at the airport as airlines test out fingerprint scans.

Next time you choose to take a flight in the United States, you will not only be given the option of a free walk through the full body scanner or a complimentary rub down courtesy of the Transportation Security Administration. Your next flight might include a search of your laptop, books, and possibly a fingerprint scan. Since the launch of the Trump administration travelers have been subject to increasingly invasive measures in the form of laptop searches and discrimination against those traveling from majority Muslim countries.

Now the TSA is testing out new measures that require passengers to remove books and paper goods from their carry-on luggage. According to new reports from The Wall Street Journal and Sacramento Bee, the TSA had already begun to roll out these new invasive policies.

“While I expect going through airline security to be time-consuming and mildly annoying, my attitude changed recently as I prepared to board a flight out of Sacramento International Airport in the days after Memorial Day weekend,” the Sacramento Bee wrote. “As I stood in line, Transportation Security Administration officials announced at SMF that everyone was to take books, magazines and food out of their bags and put them into a separate bin for inspection. That was it. A line was crossed for me.”

As the Bee notes, reading material is extremely personal and revealing about a person. If individuals know that their reading habits – whether they relate to philosophy, politics, sexuality, or religion – will be scrutinized they may began a process of self-censorship. It also presents the question, what type of reading material could be questionable or even, banned? At this point the TSA is claiming that bombs could be hidden within books and are not focusing their efforts on content specifically. However, this is likely the beginning of an incremental strategy to remove as much freedom as possible for travelers. As the Sac Bee wrote, “We need to resist the creep of authoritarianism. During the Cold War, spying on neighbors was common in the Soviet Bloc. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, people reported others for listening to Western Classical Music.”

The American Civil Liberties Union noted that there have already been multiple cases of passengers singled out for their First Amendment-protected expressions. “For example, in 2010 the ACLU sued on behalf of a man who was abusively interrogated, handcuffed, and detained for nearly five hours because he was carrying a set of Arabic-language flash cards and a book critical of U.S. foreign policy,” the ACLU writes. We also know that the DHS database known as the “Automated Targeting System,” which tracks information on international travelers, has included notations in travelers’ permanent files about controversial books in their possession.”

In a recent interview with Fox News, John Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security, seemed to confirm the goal of implementing the strategy on a nationwide scale. Kelly was asked whether or not the new policy of unpacking carry on luggage and separating food and electronics into separate bins will indeed go nationwide.

“Yes, I mean, the reason we’ve done, TSA, of course, works for me,” Kelly stated. He then blamed the need for these programs on travelers who are “trying to avoid the $25 or $50 or whatever it is to check a bag” by stuffing their bags too full and TSA monitors can not see what’s inside. When pushed further about the program going nationwide, Kelly states, “We might, and likely will.”

These plans were confirmed once again on Wednesday, as Secretary Kelly announced plans for new strategies to be implemented by the TSA. “We cannot play international whack-a-mole with each new threat,” Kelly said. “Instead, we must put in place new measures across the board to keep the traveling public safe and make it harder for terrorists to succeed.”

Although DHS officials declined to comment on specifics, ABC News reports that passengers may notice more swabbing of passengers’ hands and luggage to test for explosives. It is highly likely that the agencies book policy will be a part of these new strategies.

“Instead of handing your boarding pass and ID to a Transportation Security Administration agent, you could soon simply place two fingerprints on a scanner to be recognized and ushered through security — and then you could repeat the process to board the plane,” Yahoo writes.

These changes are part of an initiative started by Delta Air Lines. Delta has started the practice at Delta’s SkyClub lounge at National airport. Sandy Gordon, Delta’s vice president of airport operations, says the airline aims to have the strategy added to the check-in experience. Yahoo notes that the process saves minimal to no time since the process is still a part of the routine admittance policies for boarding a flight. Sandy Gordon said Delta is working with the TSA to get full approval for the program.

Yahoo’s writer said they also had to scan their driver’s license and enter Social Security number to participate in the fingerprint scan. The fingerprint and iris scans will be stored with the private company Clear. The company is promising not to sell the information to third parties, but Jeramie Scott, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Domestic Surveillance Project, says that Clear’s privacy policy doesn’t require it to delete your data if you cancel your membership.

This is a test. This an important moment in time where passengers and travelers will have to decide if they are willing to put up with anything for the right to travel. The DHS has already begun implementing biometric entry and exit requirements for international travelers arriving and leaving the United States. This is part of the larger strategy of dividing Americans over illegitimate fears of terrorism and foreigners so they willingly give up what little civil liberties they have left. (For more from the author of “New Invasive Measures Are Coming to Your Local Airport” please click HERE)

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The nation’s bustling airports are in the midst of accommodating the more than 6 million people who were expected to take to the skies this holiday season. That surge can be hard on weary travelers who get bogged down by delays, overcrowding, and cancellations only made worse by many airports that feel like they were last renovated during the Cold War.

Although America’s airports serve more travelers than anywhere else in the world, many are handling far more passengers than their original designs intended.

Not a single U.S. airport was ranked in the top 25 airports in the world, and worse still, our largest and most important airports in cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles scrape the very bottom in terms of customer satisfaction.

As I recently detailed in an extensive report, these miseries are exacted on travelers because airports are prohibited from running like normal businesses due to burdensome government involvement.

Nearly every major airport in the United States is owned by a local government or authority, such as a port authority. The result is that many airports are run like a government bureaucracy instead of an efficient, competitive business.

This stands in stark contrast to Europe, where airports under partial or wholly private ownership handle nearly three-quarters of passengers.

An even greater impediment airports face is the inefficient and inequitable way airports are funded in the U.S. Every time a traveler flies, a large portion of their ticket price—about 14 percent on average—is eaten up by taxes and government fees.

A big chunk of those taxes goes to fund the federal Airport Improvement Program, which provides grants for capital projects at U.S. airports to the tune of $3.4 billion every year.

The huge issue with this program is that it unfairly transfers ticket tax dollars from the airports that people use most to those that are used least.

The top 60 airports in the U.S. carry 88 percent of the nation’s passengers, but receive only 27 percent of grants from the Airport Improvement Program. Noncommercial airports, whose fliers contribute nearly nothing to the program, receive 30 percent of the grants.

The sad reality is that most fliers’ ticket taxes are funding airports that they will never use. This shortchanges the most significant airports that require the most capital investment.

On top of the lopsided funding regime, the federal government fastidiously micromanages airports’ business practices. The most harmful rule stipulates that airports cannot charge their customers a fee for using the airport, with the exception of a price-controlled and highly regulated Passenger Facility Charge.

What other business is prohibited from charging its customers for its services? This forces airports to rely on highly regulated sources of government revenue and deals they cut with airlines, which have an interest in restricting access from competitors that might provide better or cheaper services for fliers.

The mountain of regulations further stipulate that the federal government must approve of changes in the layout of the airport, what retailers the airport must allow, and even how the airport is allowed to present itself in advertisements. All these regulations smother airports’ ability to operate as effective businesses and provide fliers with the services they want.

Though these misguided policies have put a stranglehold on our nation’s most important airports, it doesn’t have to be this way. Several simple reforms would drastically improve the funding and regulatory regime for U.S. airports, with benefits and potential savings for the vast majority of fliers:

Eliminate burdensome regulations that restrict how airports can raise and spend revenues;

Reduce costly passenger taxes and eliminate inefficient federal grants; and

Allow self-sufficiency and privatization to move U.S. airports toward a modernized, free-market funding system.

These reforms would drastically improve the efficacy of the nation’s most vital hubs of commerce and travel. They should be on every flier’s wish list this holiday season. (For more from the author of “Are Crummy Airports Ruining Your Holiday Travel? Here’s How to Fix Them” please click HERE)

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