No more taking your shoes off at airport? Maybe some day

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano predicted Tuesday that airline passengers in the future will no longer be instructed to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints, but she said the technology to scan shoe-wearing passengers for bombs does not yet exist and may not be available soon.

No technology meets government standards to screen shoes for explosives at airports while passengers wear them. Officials have not been able to say for certain that this technology will exist in the future, though they are working to develop it. Removing shoes during screening has been a common complaint among airline travelers since security was increased after a member of al-Qaida tried to detonate a bomb built into his shoe aboard an American Airlines flight in December 2001. AP