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Napolitano: You Will Soon Be Able to ‘Keep Your Shoes On’ at U.S. Airports

Napolitano: You Will Soon Be Able to ‘Keep Your Shoes On’ at U.S. Airports

Sick of having to wear slip-ons to the airport?

Sick of having to wear slip-ons to the airport in order to get through security in a timely manner? Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday that travelers will eventually be able to keep their shoes on once again while passing through security airports.

“We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen,” Napolitano told POLITICO's Mike Allen during a morning forum at the Newseum. “I think one of the first things you will see over time is the ability to keep your shoes on. One of the last things you will [see] is the reduction or limitation on liquids.”

Napolitano said that research and development efforts for technology to solve the shoe ordeal at airports are progressing, but the technology to perform quick scans that distinguish harmless and explosive liquids is at a stand still.

Travelers were first told to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints following the unsuccessful terrorist attack by Richard Reid, the man who attempted to set off explosives hidden in his shoes during a flight in December 2001.

POLITICO also reports that Napolitano indicated that the implementation of any hard-and-fast rules to address public disapproval of certain TSA practices could open a major gap in security.

“'We can’t adopt blanket exclusions because the exclusion is exploited by those who seek to do evil,' she said at the POLITICO event."

As we reported earlier, the Homeland Security secretary is also in little bit of a spat with conservative aggregator Matt Drudge, which she spoke off briefly when asked at the Tuesday event (read The Blaze's coverage of this here).

CBS News reports that Napolitano also said the government has deployed extra security measures as the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks approaches.

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