Campaigners are calling on passengers to stage a mass boycott of new intrusive security measures at the busiest travel time of the year. It could delay up to 24 million people travelling over the Thanksgiving holiday.
The White House has said it is "desperately" working to balance the privacy concerns of travellers with their security needs.
But as al-Qaeda pledges to attack soft targets in the West, can the US afford to compromise security? And what is the way out of this predicament?
Joining the programme are Shiraz Maher, a senior fellow at the international centre for study of radicalisation at King's college London; Phil Rees, a terrorism expert and the author of Dining with Terrorists; and Osama Abu-Rshade, the editor of Al-Meezan, an Arab bi-weekly newspaper based out of DC.
This episode of Inside Story aired from Wednesday, November 24, 2010.