One Thing to Remember About Airport Security

Is that it's not simply a matter of tightening up internal American processes and regulations. It's also a matter of working with international partners in flight security screening to make sure standards for who can fly, carrying what, and going through what security, are uniform and acceptable to everyone involved. When I was coming back from Cambodia, I had a stopover in Seoul, involving going through a security checkpoint. And when we were boarding the plane, Korean Air explained, somewhat apologetically, that the U.S. had asked them to perform additional screenings as we boarded, essentially involving a visual inspection of our bags, a metal detector screening, and in some cases, a pat search.

In the past, the U.S. has flagged certain countries for not meeting even basic security standards. But it seems to me that we're reaching a point where what our country wants is not minimum international standards, but the adoption internationally of what the U.S. considers best practices. I think we've got to keep in mind that that may be difficult to achieve, and that it's not something TSA can accomplish on its own.