Argumentative Essay On Airport Security

There are about forty thousand airports in the world, and more than thirteen thousand of those airports are located in the United States alone (Central Intelligence Agency, 2013)! All of these airports have added on airport security in the past few years due to varied reasons. A few decades ago, before airport security increased, a person would be able to walk up to the plane gate without needing a ticket or having to go through the security station. That person would even be able to sit and watch the planes take off without being questioned by anyone! However, things have changed and PBS now says “Only ticketed passengers could go through security,” (Villemez, 2011) and are sticking to these procedures for countless reasons. Airport security

“On December 22, 2001, Richard Reid boarded a flight from Paris to Miami wearing shoes packed with explosives. The explosive failed to detonate and Reid, a member of Al Qaeda, was apprehended. Because of the incident with Reid, who became known as the Shoe Bomber, travelers must remove their shoes when going through security at airports” (Wood, n.d.). If the explosives in Richard Reid’s shoes had gone off, they could have injured a lot of people and maybe even killed some too. Before 9/11, there was not very much airport security until a few months after the tragic incident occurred. Security Degree Hub says, “Airport security was the responsibility of individual private agencies that operated independently at airports across the nation” (Does Airport Security Make Us Safer? - Security Degree Hub, 2014). Infoplease also says, “For almost nine years after September 11, a color-coded threat system informed travelers when the country was at risk of another terrorist attack,” that was later replaced by a system that focuses on certain threats in geographical areas (Wood, n.d.). The examples listed are just a few of the reasons that show how airport security has prevented terrorist attacks from taking place in American