I fly at least three times a year, sometimes more. I consider myself a “frequent flyer.” The bored-looking Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents don’t know that. So every time I fly, I’m subjected to a monotoned, “Ma’am, please remove the laptop from the case,” even though it’s halfway out of the case already. As if I or anyone else doesn’t know by now to remove laptops.
And this taking off your shoes thing…hate it. Only last year taking off shoes was optional. If you beeped, then you’d take them off and go through the metal detector again. Now it’s mandatory. At least at Reagan National Airport.
I shouldn’t complain, really. I’m fortunate I can afford to fly (barely), but the “security” stuff gets old, you know? I’m resentful that I, probably the most unlikely kind of person on the planet to blow up an airplane, got picked for a “random search” at the gate once, if you can believe that. The whole thing was absolutely stupid. Some gloved “security” person going through my personal things, as if I were any sort of threat! It was an empty, politically correct display of how dumb the government can be. A random search?
I shouldn’t get upset about this stuff. But you see, knowing that undocumented illegal aliens are underneath the terminals working on airplanes while I, an American citizen, am being searched for sharp objects or a bomb raises my blood pressure.
But there may be a “lesser of two evils” solution. Starting this summer, the TSA will offer something called the Registered Traveler card. Frequent flyers like myself can avoid “security” searches and all that other nonsense for a fee. And a government background check into my private affairs:
The program is intended to let frequent air passengers avoid delays and to free up security screeners to focus on other travelers.
The TSA already has tested Registered Traveler at five airports beginning in the summer of 2004 through September 2005. Now it wants private companies to run the program, which was popular with frequent travelers.
Before the companies are allowed to sell Registered Traveler cards, they have to demonstrate that they can somehow figure out whether applicants are members of terrorist sleeper cells by plowing through bank records, insurance data and other personal information available commercially — or by some other method. (Source)
I don’t like it, but this is the age of terrorism. I can either keep complaining about stupid airport security, stop complaining and live with it, or relinquish some of my privacy rights so I can avoid it. Some choice. Life is a series of trade-offs.
Related Update: Speaking of illegal aliens, Immigration and Customs Enforcement canceled a contract with a private detention facility that held illegal aliens for budgetary reasons, reports Debbie Schlussel.
{ 25 comments }
I dunno, La Shawn. I kind of dig those deep cavity searches!
Hi La Shawn, I was on over 70 planes last year and have been through the ringer with all that mess.
I have flown enough to achieve a certain status with a particular airline and they print something on the boarding pass that indicates as such. Then the TSA ushers you to a faster lane …
where they still get all up in your business. If that is the lane they are going to beef up for all frequent fliers…it isn’t much of an improvement (although it is very nice to not have to wait as long before being searched head to toe.)
And Mike M. grow up … sheesh.
Doesn’t bother me. I work for the DoD with a TS clearance and have had to tell them everything about myself in order to get my clearance.
I used to work for the U.S. Attorneys Office, so I know all about security clearance and background checks. Still, I don’t like the idea of going through another.
I remember you agreeing whole heartedly with Michael Graham’s assessment of Islam as a terror organization. Well, a lot of black people happen to be Muslim; some black women who are Muslim wear head scarves or a burkha, while some don’t. Maybe your search was not as random as you’d like to think.
Since I’m not a Muslim and display no outward indication to the contrary, my point stands. If and when “black Muslims” start crashing up planes and blowing up buildings, I’ll revisit it.
Randy,
Sorry. Next time I’ll be sure to check my filthy wit at the door.
La Shawn,
I had to undergo a background check for my current job as a substitute teacher. I doubt it was as much a hassle as yours, but the criminal background check was about $75 (along with a pretty cool, ink-free fingerprint check), the medical fees for the TB test topped $50 (I had no insurance at the time). The costs were a bit cumbersome, though I completely understand the reasoning. I wouldn’t want someone teaching my kid without a background check.
And why can’t we just arm the pilots? Wouldn’t that be way simpler than harassing all the passengers? Sure, keep the x-ray scanners and the metal detectors and the sniffer dogs, but are the random searches and other nonsense useful at all?
Of course there needs to be security, but the measures should be actually useful not just window dressing.
I get searched everytime I get on a plane, so I don’t think those searches are random.
I think wearing ‘urban’ clothing automatically makes you a target because of the much looser fit. Afterall, it must be much easier to fit a bomb in a velour suit than a pair of wranglers, right?
Ok..no, they’re racist.
FL Mom,
I’m all for arms on board, particularly with pilots, though I’m often reminded of that great scene from “Goldfinger” in which Pussy Galore threatens to shoot James Bond during a mid-air flight. Of course, that’s fiction, but I’ve heard of other pressurization problems on planes should guns be discharged mid-flight. That would be my only concern.
LB said: “As if I or anyone else doesn’t know by now to remove laptops.”
When I was traveling through London’s Heathrow Airport in 2003 on my way to Kuwait, I had my laptop with me and proceeded to pull it out at the security checkpoint just as I had done on the previous two stops in the States.
The security officer looked at me strangely and told me to put the laptop back in the bag before putting it on the conveyor belt to go through x-ray. Confused, I questioned him and said, “really? We have to in America.”
Trying his best not to roll his eyes, he threw my bag on the belt as he said in his dry unemotional British tone – “this isn’t America.”
As I walked through the metal detector and retrieved my zipped up laptop, I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
I understand your frustration, but at the same time I try and look at it as a opportunity for the TSA to do their job when I have to go through it. I say this because every time I fly, I have to go through a search (shoes, pat-down, wand) because I travel with a metal walker and don’t use the detectors – as th walker won’t fit and it would certainly go off. Do I like it? Not really. Is it a fact of life for me, yeah it is. I just make sure I’m there early enough so as not to be held up and miss my flight. I’m sure that my attitude toward things comes as a welcome surprise to the TSA folks.
Without puffery or pontificating, I can only advise that when I get to the airport, which I do weekly, I remind myself that “this is where I am and this is what I have to do.”
Mostly, I find the TSA people are pretty patient and polite since they are facing the same types of personalities the checker in a 12 items or less lane is facing at the grocery store. The more impatient or self important the client, the greater the burden of the experience.
I don’t disagree that the whole program is probably misguided, but it is the program. Maybe everyone should fly El Al one time or pass through Narita (Tokyo) to get a perspective on how pervasive our own process could be.
I hope I didn’t imply that I’m rude or arrogant toward the TSA agents. I may be seething on the inside, I’m quite patient and pleasant on the outside.
LaShawn, you would not be rude nor would you be arrogant toward anyone, and I apologize for any implication that you might be. My point is that many in the line before you arrived have been both rude and arrogant and that all takes a stress toll on the TSA people.
I sometimes travel with my 86 year old mother-in-law who does not brook foolishness. I have wondered many times why the TSA didn’t just duct tape her and load her with the baggage.
She has to take her shoes off and explain the metal in her bones and sit fuming while they go through her bags. And she is the original bag lady, so she has sacks and bundles galore.
The best part is her ordering the TSA people to help her get her shoes back on. She is always an entraining scene. (I hide behind a post.)
La Shawn:
Here’s a security story like no other.
A colleague’s husband is a commercial pilot.
He had to go through an incredible song and dance to obtain a permit to carry a gun in the cockpit.
He had to travel from Shreveport to Dallas to take a psychological test.
He was extensively tested in the military to be certified to fly with nuclear bombs on board. This apparently was not good enough for the TSA.
Shoes:
Since Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber”tried to blow up a plane, the TSA has been VERY aware of shoes.
In fact, one man with shoes that seemed too large for his feet had some explosives hidden there. Another man had wires sticking out of his pants by his shoes.
Sounds like a good idea, sort of like a right to carry card in our state. It would free up valuable time and resources to concentrate on more likely suspects.
I don’t think those “random” searches are quite as pointless as most people think they are. My husband gets extra scrutiny every time he flies(several times a year), no exceptions. I imagine it’s because he has a very Middle Eastern look to him. He’s actually mostly of German descent with a smidge of Cherokee, but like his dad says, he somehow manages to look Lebanese. We’re both quite happy that they spend the extra time making sure he’s not a terrorist. Seems to me the randomness is just for show so that the ACLU can’t complain of profiling, but reasonable profiling is happening just the same. I hope so, anyway…
I feel like I’ve spent much of the last 10 years on and off planes – anything that can get me through those lines at O’Hare and yet keep me safe sounds good. This type of voluntary disclosure of data makes sense to me: more time to roam the magazine stores in the airport lamenting the fact that none of them sell National Review, or anything to the right of Time.
The security card sounds like a convenience for terrorists with enough money to make a counterfeit.
I think we should just take off our shoes and let the TSA guys do their job. And have a little faith there is more security going on behind the scenes than we are going to be told about. After all does it make sense that checking if i have smelly feet is why we havent had a plane hijacked in the last 5 years?
My dad won’t fly anymore — he drives almost everywhere (okay, I’m special enough he consented to fly to come see. But this does make me feel pretty good!) Because of all the searches, etc.
Me? I don’t get nearly so worked up. See, the people on the 9-11 plains may have been Middle Eastern, but not ALL terrorists are Middle Eastern. Unfortunately, we have Americans who are perfectly happy to help them out. At first, I was annoyed about the “obvious PC ness” of it. THen I started listening to the news… With the people we’ve got here, random searches is what it has to be. There is no profile of a terrorist, either by race or by where you are traveling or anything. If there being a random chance at any time of being extra-searched keeps them from considering using planes again, the searches have done their job as far as I’m considered.
You don’t have to be the terrorist for the terrorist to have slipped something into your bag.
They picked me out for a search once, too. Of course that was the day I put on my pants with the pockets already full from the day before. And I had both my best pocket knife and my razor-blade windshield-sticker scraper with me. I’m lucky they let me on the plane at all!
LaShawn:
Don’t mean to be or sound rude, but three times a year does not count (imho) as a frequent flyer. I’m on a plane every week, as are a number of my co-workers. The TSA program is intended for true “road warriors” (I hate that term, there’s nothing “warrior” like in what we do, maybe “road drudges” would be better, but who would own up to that title).
The TSA program is intended for those of us who do travel VERY-regularly, in part, because we are often in a position of having very narrow windows of opportunity to meet our flights (I could tell you some stories!).
I would (respectfully) urge you and your readers to (re-)condsider carefully, whether your flying patterns truely require or warrent a TSA Frequent Flyer card. I do understand and appreciate the hassels you go through (because I endure it every week), but at least at its inception, don’t “clog” the system because you fly once a quarter.
Love your blog
dla
I wrote that “I consider myself” a frequent flyer, and as far as I’m concerned, flying three or more times a year is frequent for me. Besides, if I don’t qualify for the card on that basis, I’ll do what people do these days: sue.
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