ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Twenty five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks led to the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, airport security continues to change as threats evolve and new technology becomes available.<\/p>\n
The TSA was formed in the months after the attacks to enhance safety at airports across the country. Since then, travelers have seen changes including the removal of jackets at checkpoints, restrictions on liquids and requirements involving electronics.<\/p>\n
Tatiana Finlay said she was 17 and heading to work at Orlando International Airport on Sept. 11, 2001, when she was sent home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey stopped us and we got sent back home,\u201d Finlay said.<\/p>\n
Finlay said the atmosphere at the airport that day was difficult and uncertain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very heavy, it was very heavy that day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Finlay later applied to become a TSA officer after high school. She has now served in Orlando for 22 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo us, the never forget, it\u2019s not a slogan,\u201d Finlay said. \u201cTo us, it is something that we live every day, we know exactly what happened and we will not forget, and we do our job because of that, because we don\u2019t forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finlay said she has grown up in her TSA uniform, met her husband at work and started a family. She said the job has given her a sense of purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been a great experience to know that I have found my purpose in this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Former federal agent Dave Benson said the TSA was created to focus specifically on aviation security after the attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were thrust with focusing specifically on the nature of a threat, which was aviation security,\u201d Benson said.<\/p>\n
Benson said that while some airline security existed before 9\/11, the use of box cutters in the attacks showed gaps in preparedness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise you there was no specificity to that threat but hindsight being 20\/20, we should have been better prepared for it,\u201d Benson said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there is any question about it, it was just a matter of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benson said today\u2019s security concerns are different from those faced in the years immediately after 9\/11.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe threat landscape has changed, cyber threats, electronic warfare, nontraditional asymmetric type of weapons that are frankly to the bad guys much easier to perpetrate than trying to get through airport security,\u201d Benson said.<\/p>\n
The TSA is also testing new procedures. A pilot program at 13 airports allows TSA PreCheck passengers to go to gates without a boarding pass.<\/p>\n
Orlando International Airport is not currently participating in that program but they have a separate program called the Experience MCO Visitor Pass, which allows people to go to the gate without a ticket.<\/p>\n
Travelers must apply and receive TSA approval for that program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Twenty five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks led to the creation of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[11687,11902,2967,2173,28,115,1335,139,141,140,277,9429,135],"class_list":["post-397309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-air-travel","tag-app-air-travel","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-florida","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-public-safety","tag-sarah-winkelmann","tag-tampa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}