The TSA has a reputation for being inefficient and excessive.  People complain and share their stories about that one time or another that TSA inconvenienced them, including me, but those negative experiences are magnified greatly and can turn dangerous for people of color, Muslims, transgender people, and those who are gender nonconforming.  In the article, How Airport Security Makes Travel Traumatic for Butches and Trans Folks, Whether or Not They Pass, the author explains the design flaw in body scanners which correlates directly to the concept of ethics in design elaborated upon in What Are “Ethics in Design”?.

 Reading both articles, the connection is clear in finding body scanners unethical by design. Product designers do not always take into account the totality of the product that they are creating and the end results reflect the tunnel vision with which they designed that product.  Body scanners utilized by TSA in airports do not consider the millions of transgender and gender nonconforming people in America alone. The very idea of putting responsibility on a TSA agent to decide in a split second what gender a person is just from how they present themselves reinforces harmful gender norms.  Then, that stereotyping turns into an unnecessary pat down and luggage search that can be very embarrassing. Setting aside the pointless humiliation that is a result of these body scanners, the amount of time spent conducting searches that do not need to be done is a tremendous waste of time and effort.

The article explains well that inclusion can benefit an industry, proving to be more profitable.  I believe that a better form of security can be developed without shaming and causing unnecessary an waste of manpower.  If airports want to continue losing passengers and creating a fear of security, sticking with their current system is doing the job.  But that is never the goal of any big industry, and so they must adapt. Designers who are socially conscious and critical thinkers will become the standard once the market demands them, and so we as a society must create that demand.  

Security is a big American concern, consistently polling as the most pressing issue among Americans.  This is understandable after 9/11, but it should not make an excuse for poorly developed technology that has been put into effect to prevent terrorism.  According to a study by the Government Accountability Office done in 2013, only 0.6 percent of TSA flaggings led to an arrest and none of those arrests were designated as terrorism-related.  The TSA is far from perfect and futile searches only further the misuse of resources.  If Americans are truly concerned about national security, they must voice their need for better comprehensive technology instead of expecting minorities to “make sacrifices” in the name of security.