Thanksgiving travelers can expect bomb-sniffing dogs at TSA checkpoints

TSA security checkpoint sign. — (Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Air travelers this holiday weekend may find a new member of the cast at the TSA checkpoint's security theater: bomb-sniffing dogs.

While dogs have long been used to inspect checked baggage out of sight of most passengers, the TSA is gradually introducing them at passenger checkpoints, too. "We're another layer that's put in there by TSA to try to keep the bad guys out," says TSA dog handler Alex Broughton.

But the use of dogs in law enforcement contexts has come under significant scrutiny in recent years. A 2011 investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that drug-sniffing dogs were wrong more often than they were right, often responding to unintentional cues from suspicious handlers. The dogs' false alerts also increased with minority suspects. This problem — that even a well-trained dog is more concerned about pleasing its handler than alerting correctly — has raised serious concerns among civil liberties advocates.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.