Key Senate Aviation Democrat Demands TSA Bring Back Shoe Removal — That’s Dangerous Security Theater

Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) is demanding that TSA reinstate the requirement for passengers to remove their shoes at security checkpoints that was eliminated in July, because of the 2001 ‘Shoe Bomber’ plot.

She is the ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee’s Aviation, Space and Innovation subcommittee. So she matters for this. But focusing on shoes is a distraction for screeners, who would be forced to pay less attention to real threats.

• Richard Reid was a British al-Qaeda member who boarded American Airlines flight 63 from Paris to Miami on December 22, 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes. He tried to ignite them inflight with matches. Flight attendants and passengers noticed smoke and sulfur, confronted him, and then physically overpowered him. The flight diverted to Boston. He received multiple life sentences.

• FBI bomb techs concluded the ignition method failed. The fuse was too damp to light properly. He’d walked in rain, and he perspired. So it was incompetent execution. And he gave himself away on board.

• No one every did this again, although in 2009 the “underwear bomber” tried the same idea with PETN hidden in their briefs. We never made everyone take off their underwear and run those separately through scanners.

The DHS bureaucracy (‘deep state’) came out against the change. Duckworth sees an opportunity now that Kristi Noem has been ousted to reverse the policy, piling it on as a mistake she made.

Secretary Noem’s shoes on policy remains in effect—despite President Donald Trump publicly announcing the firing of Secretary Noem on March 5, 2026 (effective at the end of March). It is unclear, at best, whether DHS and TSA took any action to address the alarming security findings uncovered during covert field testing of TSA’s effectiveness at preventing dangerous items from being smuggled onto commercial aircraft.

#NEW @SenDuckworth demands @TSA rescind “reckless” policy allowing passengers to keep shoes on at standard airport screening. Policy change was enacted former Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem last July.
Move was popular with flyers so why rescind the policy? pic.twitter.com/sR8Bnp8Hk6

— Kris Van Cleave (@krisvancleave) April 3, 2026

There’s no indication that shoe removal actually stopped any plots. Duckworth cites that there’s a risk of slipping things past TSA in shoes, but there’s a risk of slipping things past TSA when placing them through scanning devices. Indeed, the last public reporting involved TSA missing over 90% of illicit items that testers sought to bring through checkpoints – so TSA simply classified the data of future tests. When they improve, they say so, and they’ve never said so.

If Senator Duckworth is interested in improving security the best thing she could do is work to split up the agency’s screening and regulatory functions. TSA regulates itself. That’s a recipe for lack of accountability.

Senator Duckworth flew Black Hawk helicopters for the Illinois Army National Guard in Iraq in 2004. Her helicopter was hit by an RPG on November 12, 2004. She lost both legs and partial use of her right arm.

So people give her a lot of deference on things involving flying. But her actual positions on transportation are awful.

• She extracted a concession from Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to support making it more time-consuming and expensive to become a pilot, effectively blocking access to the cockpit for many minorities, by preserving the 1,500 hour rule which does nothing to enhance safety. It’s occupational licensing that protects pilot wages from competition.

  

• She’s been a defender of the status quo structure of air traffic control which has been badly mismanaged, squandering $40 billion while failing to modernize systems and scrapping basic maintenance.

  

• She pushes transportation pork spending and EV charging station pork as well as transit subsidies

  

• Favors an agenda that would impose rules on legroom that would effectively ban Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines cabins and price competition.

  

  Today consumers have a choice, and that drives pressure on airfares. This would take away that choice and raise prices (while doing nothing to increase legroom on the major airlines).

I suppose it’s not surprising that she wants to re-impose the shoe carnival at TSA checkpoints without citing any actual evidence that eliminating it has been a risk to safety. But it’s dangerous. The TSA should be focused on real threats, and this is a distraction from that mission.