As students prepare to head home for Thanksgiving, the one-year anniversary of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airplane looms. But awaiting them in airports across the country are a few new airport security measures that are raising some eyebrows and leaving many passengers feeling less than comfortable.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, airport security has seen a steady flow of funding and expansion. New protocols were born, beginning with shoe removal and quickly developing into a ban on liquids in our luggage. Now, in 70 of 450 airports in the United States, the Transportation Security Administration has pushed the limits of travelers’ patience by asking them to submit to either a full-body scan or an overtly intrusive frisking. As we look back on the last 10 years of expanding airport security, we need to ask ourselves if we are developing the strategic security measures necessary to promoting long-term safety or narrowly responding to individual events.

The TSA’s new procedures, implemented earlier this month, require passengers to either submit themselves to full body scans — which use either X-ray or millimeter wave scanner imaging to see through passengers’ clothing — or be submitted to meticulous physical pat downs. These new procedures put travelers in a sticky situation, however, as they are forced to make an uncomfortable choice between having an image of their exposed body displayed to a complete stranger or be subject to a full-body pat down that has been characterized as “groping” by some.

While many passengers are willing to submit to these new search standards without question for in-flight peace of mind, some, including those with small children, the elderly and often those with private medical conditions, are frequently marginalized and humiliated by these new procedures. Horror stories have emerged; in one disturbing instance, a cancer survivor was asked to remove her prosthetic breasts in the middle of a crowded security checkpoint for inspection. Now those traveling with small children or while pregnant will have to choose whether to submit their small children and themselves to low amounts of radiation or to opt for an intrusive full-body pat down. Moreover, elderly passengers are often forced to be patted down because they cannot walk through body scanners or metal detectors due to medical equipment like prosthesis, implants, defibrillators and pacemakers.

To what point are we willing to submit to these increasingly demanding security measures in hopes of avoiding security breaches? Terrorists abroad will inevitably continue to plot against Americans, and as they innovate, we will be subjected to more invasive security measures. Critics throughout the country already consider the TSA’s new body scanners to be just another expensive brick in the wall of an already bloated security apparatus.

While many of these measures are taken for passenger safety and peace of mind, their indefinite efficiency and effectiveness makes the price of passengers’ dignity and tax-payers’ money seem quite unjustified. Furthermore, a lack of effective communication to the general public has created a great deal of negative media attention cultivating uncertainty, apprehension and resentment among travelers.

Perhaps the TSA could embark on more tried and true security measures like those deployed in Israeli airports. Strategic options like behavioral surveillance, scrupulous questioning and extensive background checks have made airports like Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport the safest in the world.

Whatever the coming holiday season holds in store, we all need to reassess our approach to security. The invasive, humiliating and fiscally draining tolls of our current airport security system might be too high a price to pay for an unproven methodology. Instead, perhaps, innovation instead of mere reaction could provide the leg up we need to ensure the safety of traveling Americans.