At Checkpoint, Terror And Testy Travelers

Dan Barry: Behind an unmarked door, in a cluttered break room of half-eaten lunches and morale-boosting posters, a dozen Transportation Security Administration officers listened to their airport supervisor deliver another much-needed pep talk that contained the reminder: "I get paid to be paranoid, and so do you."

The supervisor, Philip Burdette, the federal security director at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, quickly addressed the recent criticism that the agency's stepped-up security measures had gone too far; that passing through a checkpoint for a routine flight to Newark was now like entering a maximum-security prison for a protracted stay.