Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday that eventually, the requirement to remove your shoes at airport security checkpoints will be dropped.

“You’re going to see better technology over time” that will detect shoe bombs without running the shoes through the X-ray machine, she said.

But Napolitano wasn’t able to say when new technology would come into use and she said restrictions on liquids are likely to continue.

“In terms of what we see coming in the months and years ahead, it will probably be easier . . . to deal with the shoe issue before we can lift restrictions on liquids,” she said at a breakfast hosted by Politico.

Napolitano said restrictions on liquids are likely to continue in part because intelligence reports suggest that terrorists are still trying to use nonmetallic detonation devices aboard commercial airliners operating in the United States and Europe.