Without defending some of Garrison Keillor’s old man grumpy asshole tendencies, I have to say this article got a wry smile out of me, probably because I’ve done a lot of flying lately,* and his descriptions of the kabuki of airport security are well-rendered. I watch all that with interest, too, because the psychology of unusual situations fascinates me. People—all people—are creatures of habit, and I don’t care how smart you are, if you’re thrust into a situation where you don’t know the protocol, you act like a puppy that just learned that its paws are effective for locomotion. But human beings are flexible and adept at learning new things pretty rapidly, so it was just a matter of time before the security lines at airports became mundane. Basically, if you’ve done it once correctly, you can repeat the process again with very little trouble or hesitation, and the delays became shorter as more and more people in the security line had flown since 9/11 and learned the ropes. Now like 95% of people in line know what to do, yet like Keillor says, the security guards still yell at you. Of course, I’ve worked service jobs myself, and that 5% of idiots out there tend to occupy 95% of your time and brainspace, so I can’t blame security guards for preemptive yelling, but still it does create this environment where you are reduced to an inmate of sorts for 10-20 minutes.
And considering that security procedures are close to useless for preventing terrorist attacks, I can’t help but think that demoralizing people is the point of the security kabuki at airports. I know I sound paranoid—and again, I think it’s by design and no individual security guard is responsible, though some definitely enjoy the sadistic potential more than others—but it’s well worth remembering that it was a bunch of Republicans who instituted these rules and they do better electorally if people are living in fear and have grown accustomed to the idea of authoritarian society. Small sadisms are actually quite an effective tool in bringing others into the fear state where you can control them, as any schoolyard bully who has perfected the art of needling behind the teacher’s back can tell you. In Wired magazine, a recent article about the Stasi noted that one tactic used against a state opponent was to follow her around, letting the air out of her baby stroller’s tires when she wasn’t looking, to make her think she was losing her mind.
The introduction of the rules governing liquid have a nominal security explanation about stopping people from bringing explosive materials on a plane, but the truth of the matter is that there’s not a lot of reason to think that they’re effective. You can bring two 3 oz bottles on the plane, but not one 6 oz bottle, so any terrorist who wishes to use 6 oz of flammable liquid would only need to pour it into two bottles. The quart-sized ziploc bag rule is a joke. There’s no magical zip-top properties that make lighter fluid not lighter fluid, if that’s what you’re bringing in. And it’s confusing to security personnel what a “zip-top” is—I’ve had no problem most of the time bringing on carry-on with my liquid items inside an actual zipper bag, but one time a security guy threatened to confiscate my make-up and shampoo and other items because the plastic zip-top is more terrorism-proof than a zipper. I convinced him otherwise, thank goodness, but won’t be running that risk again.
These rules wouldn’t prevent an assailant from boarding a plane, but their arbitrary nature is the point. For no real reason whatsoever, random people find themselves relinquishing items that are cherished enough that they decided to bring them on instead of subject them to the dangers of being checked and lost. But it’s not so severe an intrusion that people feel comfortable making a fuss. For example, the security guard who threatened my zipper bag was threatening to flush what probably was $75-$100 worth of junk of mine, expensive enough to be a real pinch, but not so much that I was willing to humiliate myself by getting upset and letting everyone know that $100 is a lot of money to me and that I was still willing to put it in this danger. The liquid rule is about this more than terrorism—having a rule where you can get people to obey even though they know it’s stupid, because it’s just under the line of being a big enough pain in the ass that people start to actually agitate.
Keillor trips over the big red flag that the security checkout is more a show of authoritarian state power than a reasonable security measure—the fear of even talking about it.
And also it seemed to me that I was the only one in line who was grinding my teeth. Everyone else was quite chipper, as if they were heading off on the class trip to Excelsior Amusement Park. So if I had spoken up and the shirts had thrown me to the ground and Maced me and stuffed me into a holding cell to await arraignment under the Patriot Act, I doubted that anyone would’ve come to my defense. They would’ve figured I must have had a shoe bomb on me or something…..
People didn’t talk about it. There it was, plain as the nose on your face, but it was just too awful to discuss. It was like your old husband getting blitzed at your parents’ 50th anniversary and trying to get everyone to sing “All You Need Is Love.” It’s like your child announcing that she’s written a memoir called “Spirals of Shame.” Don’t talk about it. Move on. Change the channel. Talk about your tomato plants and your good children, the ones who do not write memoirs, who don’t remember the terrible things you did to them, they just remember your birthday and when it comes time, they will pick out a wonderful nursing home for you. Breakfast is from 7 to 10 and they serve nice omelets and all the coffee you can drink. Nobody rushes you. What were we talking about? Little Rock.
A good authoritarian flex of power is about using the instinct of self-preservation to turn people against each other and to make them afraid of speaking out.** I won’t lie; even writing this piece causes me to fear for my future in air travel, fear that my name will be put on some list that means I never get to carry on any items again. It’s not a coincidence that Republicans are fond of laws and rules that instill this sort of “every man for himself” mentality and fear of speaking out lest you get put on some list somewhere. Marijuana will probably not be legalized in our lifetime because people have some ill-formed fear of being considered stoners by the public and worse, by the government. There’s so much interest from conservatives in flexing state power over people’s sex lives, for the same reason—to speak out against sodomy laws or bans on birth control methods is to come right out and say that you enjoy the use of these freedoms, which could, for a lot of people, threaten their livelihoods and place in society. So people quietly chafe but fear even speaking out, which really drives home why freedom of speech is the first right given to us in the Bill of Rights.
*For me, at least. Some people fly several times a month, and I don’t know how they don’t suffer long term health effects.
**A witch hunt works by the same principle. People who defend the accused will immediately be accused themselves, creating a silencing effect that makes it incorrectly seem that the accusation has overwhelming popular consensus.
101 Responses to “Cops and robbers at airport security”
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Freedom of Speech…as long as it’s the speech we’ve prepared for you…
and there’s nowhere to turn.
*i has a sad*
I recently flew out of TF Greene and there were signs saying that even talking about or joking about the security, terrorism, etc, would be grounds for immediate arrest. I was like WTF?
“random people”
I don’t see it as “random people”. While traveling with my sisters, the sisters(me included) with the foreign/ethnic sounding names kept getting stopped, questioned, and searched. Our last name is Greek. The sister who changed her name after marriage to an anglo-saxon white bread name was never subject to the same. My sisters and I look, speak, act, dress in very similar ways.
I would also like to applaud you for discussing this topic.
There is a transportation security consultant that comments on a local list I hang out on. He refers to this stuff as “security theater”. I have encountered this at Boston’s Logan Armpit, which I had the displeasure of traversing just last night. At one time a few years back I took my shoes off and was barked at for doing it, then scolded for NOT doing it further up. One time I was snapped at for removing all the e-junk from my laptop bag and using a bin for it, but counseled politely another time that it might work better in the future if I took out the peripherals and power supply and put them in a bin. He was friendly, so I laughed and said that I was just scolded for that on a previous trip.
Hard to believe that when former governor and pres candidate Mike Dukakis made a “joke” about a RNC person having a bomb in the 1990s while boarding a DC-bound flight, he wasn’t even arrested!
I thought it was interesting that the TSA is now trying to make the whole mess saner - not so that us peons may have a better time of it, but because calm places and calm people make it easier to spot the drug mules and terrorist wacks who have good reason to be tense and nervous. If everybody is tense and nervous, these people’s fidgeting doesn’t draw much attention. Seems that employees who are not rushed can do their jobs properly and be alert for odd shit, too. whooda thunk?
I’ve thought for a long time that the 3 oz bottle, plastic zip top bag rule is pretty bizarre, and wouldn’t really do anything to prevent any terrorism. I have been travelling more lately for work, and routinely pick up little bottles of lotion to carry in my purse, just in case it gets confiscated, so it’s no big loss. However, several times lately, I forgot it was in my purse, way down at the bottom, and didn’t put it in a baggie. No problems, no pat downs, no bag check, no questions.
Plus, if the bottle has the manufacturer’s mark or label on it, that appears to be okay. I have a bottle marked Neutrogena Toner which I have been using for travel for several years because it’s small. It’s not Neutrogena toner in it any longer, but it says it is. Who says I couldn’t put lighter fluid in there? Unless someone opens it, there’s no way to tell it’s not toner.
The most ridiculous rule I have encountered has to do with my knitting needles… No metal needles are allowed, but plastic or wood are all good. What?! Come again?? an object with the same hardness and pointiness can come as long as it isn’t made of metal? Really? I mean, I’m not complaining, I went out and bought bamboo needles like a good little rule-follower, but I have to say that’s the strangest most arbitrary rule I’ve come across. if I can be dangerous with metal needles, I can be just as dangerous with my shiv of wood or plastic…
The best was the security guard who held them up to a supervisor and said “they’re plasic, so it’s good right?” and got the standard “as long as they aren’t metal” response. I’d feel safer if the rules were less arbitrary and more realistic. If you are going to ban pointy sticks, ban them all, of any material (and yes, I’m including pens and pencils in that ban… I don’t see why they can keep their hobby while I can’t…
), otherwise, what do you expect I can do with my non-conductive metal sticks that I can’t do with my wooden ones? (except knit faster)
I’ve flown to Europe a half-dozen times in the last year, and never fail to be shocked by how shocked I am to be treated like an adult human being by airport personnel outside of the states.
A critical overlooked factor is who is subject to these rules and who is exempt.
It’s been said many times that if abortion is made explicitly or de facto illegal, the wealthy and influential will be unaffected. They have means to accomplish their desires outside the mainstream.
Flying has already become an everyday example of this same factor.
You and I are subject to the bullshit of “homeland security” at the airport. The wealthy and influential have their limousine take them directly to the other part of the airport, away from the commercial airline terminals, where they board a private jet and immediately take off - no security check required.
So why should anybody “important” give a flying fuck what happens to the proles? It doesn’t affect them in the least. And if the proles are conditioned to accept their status with no complaint, they’re just that much easier to control. After all, we’re just extras in their life drama anyway…
Keillor’s just pissed because he isn’t quite up there high enough to get around the bullshit, but he thinks he should be…
That’s because you haven’t had enough of the Kool-Aid yet. Now put on your Reeboks, and shut the hell up.:P
Thanks for covering this topic. I fly only about once a year, but every since 9/11, and especially since the stupid “no liquids” rule it makes me incredibaly nervous. I worry that I will make an innocent mistake and be arrested. My husband had to strip down once, when his knee brace triggered the metal detector.
Last time I flew it was out of a small, local airport. The security gard scolded me for about 10 minutes because I had forgotten to put my lip gloss and mascara in a ziplock bag. I nodded my head and apologized, but I really wanted to say, “What the hell kind of danger is lip gloss!”
Hey, at least you are not brown male with “Jamal” for a name.
Flying in domestically now is about as nasty as entering backward corrupt third world despotic place. One has to bribe the fuckers.
( put expensive perfume inside the carry on or weird expensive looking disposable gadget, make eye contact. And make sure the guy knows from eye contact that you now he is stealing. Push his mind really hard so he gets distracted while his conscience is working for a few second. You can pass a lot of stuff this way. )
With down economy, it will get worst.
“I nodded my head and apologized, but I really wanted to say, “What the hell kind of danger is lip gloss!””
Remember - these are the same people who wouldn’t let Jose Padilla go to the dentist without wearing blackout goggles because they claimed he might send secret messages to al Qaeda by blinking his eyes.
Bottom line is they like to fuck with people. And any excuse is a good excuse…
While traveling with my sisters, the sisters(me included) with the foreign/ethnic sounding names kept getting stopped, questioned, and searched. Our last name is Greek.
For what it’s worth, I’ve had friends who easily pass for Muslim (i.e. they are brown and not blatantly Hispanic), including large dark-skinned Pakistani guys, tell me that they always expect to be hassled and yet never, ever have been.
Which leads me to believe that when this sort of thing happens it’s individual xenophobia/ignorance/sadism on the part of a particular HSA employee, and not a top-down racial profiling directive.
It’s a meme that seems impossible to kill in liberal circles, though.
Many years ago, but after 9/11, I was flying a lot for work and I always made sure to put my drafting compass (the thing used to draw circles) in my check-in luggage because of its pointy metal tip. This was my eleventieth compass, the one I had had for a few years already, and the only one of the many many compasses I had gone through in my life that I really liked because it worked like magic. It was damn expensive too.
Well, in one of those flights I forgot to take it out of my pencil case and into the suitcase, and I didn’t realize it until the security dude took it out and presented it to me with an attitude, and then proceeded to confiscate it. My pleads fell on deaf ears, and he just threw it in a trashcan. I’ve gone through many more compasses since then, and none of them compare to the one that got confiscated.
Every time I read an article about airport security, I remember my beloved compass and I sniffle a little bit…
Hey, at least you are not brown male with “Jamal” for a name.
Mumia! Long time no see, my brother!
Technically, even metal knitting needles are not banned according to the TSA website — they only “recommend” wooden or plastic. And even that’s up to the discretion of the guard. S/he can make you throw away your needles if s/he feels like it, even if you point out that they’re allowed.
It cracks me up that they recommend circular needles. Dude, I could totally garrote someone with my Knitpicks Options Harmony set — they’re probably more dangerous than a little 5-inch metal sock needle.
I noticed last time I got my jury duty notice that knitting needles are banned from the courthouse, but I can kinda see that. It’s a lot more likely that could be taken from you and used as a weapon in a place where, y’know, actual criminal cases are being heard and someone on trial could try and make a break for it. The courthouse is crochet only.
(Not that it matters to me — carpal tunnel problems + knitting obsession = wooden needles.)
It’s playing with the mind of menial apparatchik. Make them happy, make them feel very important, distract them, play with their sense of tedium.
Tell me about it! not to mention the projects that I’d do on circular needles are way bulkier and would take up too much of my carry-on (not to mention my lap!) to bother with on a flight…
On a trans-atlantic flight I had airport security ask me if I could actually knit (which I proceeded to do) before letting me on with the needles… I’m just glad I was mid-project and wasn’t planning on casting on during the flight. I think my needles may have hit the trash in that case.
the opoponax April 30, 2008 at 10:03 am
Which leads me to believe that when this sort of thing happens it’s individual xenophobia/ignorance/sadism on the part of a particular HSA employee, and not a top-down racial profiling directive.
always assume airport employees are racist, low level bureaucrats, petty thieves, only smart enough to fuck you. Play dumber if they think you are dumb, fit the script inside their head.
NEVER assume you can actually reason with them. Always think they want something. But too stupid to know what. It doesn’t matter where or what color. It’s the same everywhere, only a matter of degree and cultural variables. You will live longer that way and don’t have to waste as much time.
These folks are non-union
The hiring was political
Think Monica Goodling
With a gun
Get thee hence to Civil Service.
Every time I read an article about airport security, I remember my beloved compass and I sniffle a little bit…
I have the same nostalgia about a bottle of really fantastic lotion that got confiscated. It was a small-time company making their products in blender-sized batches, which had later discontinued that particular formulation.
always assume airport employees are racist…
Life is so much easier when you can think in terms of generalizations instead of individual humans, isn’t it?
We have had to travel a lot the past few years. It is amazing how the rules (especially in Boston) change from day to day. And then they yell at you for doing what you were yelled at to do the previous time. Shoes in bins, no shoes in bins. Chapstick is a liquid or gel today you stupid cow but tomorrow don’t bother me with a ziplock bag with chapstick in it. You’re not allowed this week to put your open top bag in a bin, but when we spill it on the belt, it’s your fault.
One guy opened my father’s medications (he has had a major organ transplant) and managed to dump them all over the floor. Pills, no liquids. Then several agents people started giving my dad a hard time. I guess having to take pills makes you a problem.
My eight year old has been yelled at for not taking off a sweat shirt, she only had an undershirt underneath.
I have travelled all my life and all over the world, and US security these days is like what I remember when I has a teenageer in the early eighties in the then Soviet Union. If you place your bag at the wrong angle or in the wrong order or whatever some jerk with a machine gun would start yelling at you.
Yes it is authoritarianism. And it certainly isn’t making us safer.
A witch hunt works by the same principle. People who defend the accused will immediately be accused themselves, creating a silencing effect that makes it incorrectly seem that the accusation has overwhelming popular consensus.
I think this is the crux of the matter. This was the operating principle for the GOP post-Sept. 11….
My question is where are the Democrats on this?
No doubt they are afraid of saying anything lest they be tarred and feathered as “weak on national security”, but this sort of national security theatre exemplifies all that “I vote GOP ‘cause I hates gummints” find wrong (or at least claim to find wrong) about government programs.
Given that the Dems. are since FDR the party of good governance doing good things, the Dems. need to really take a stand for good governance. Even if the will never win over the votes of the “I vote GOP ‘cause I hates gummints” crowd (because that crowd really has other reasons to dislike “gummint” that are not so, shall we say, bona fide), a number of people, including Christian conservatives (who do have an antinomian streak sometimes), will respond to Democratic efforts at taking a stand against “National Security Theatre” and stupid liquor laws and local government corruption and speed traps with “I’ll never vote for those gay abortionist hippies in the Dem. party, but they sure are right about ‘national security theatre’”. Which means their friends will say “even the conservative [X] thinks the Dems. are right on ‘national security theatre’, so the Dems. must be right, so I’ll vote for them”.
So why aren’t the Dems. cleaning house in getting rid of corrupt political machines (I betcha those machines are what keeps parts of the Midwest “red”: their idea of a Dem. is the corrupt and ineffective mayor of the nearest city — get rid of that negative example, and the Dems. will do a lot to further their image in much of the country)? Why aren’t they tackling “National Security Theatre”? Why aren’t they pushing for stricter federal laws that will ensure that I can go 40 MPH on a highway in NJ without getting a 4 point ticket?
I know it sounds crass to say it, but bad governance hurts the Democratic “brand”. So why don’t Democratic politicians start to deal with the problem if only to help the “brand”?
the opoponax April 30, 2008 at 10:30 am
always assume airport employees are racist… //
Life is so much easier when you can think in terms of generalizations instead of individual humans, isn’t it?
That’s how the world airport operates. You want to bring your bleeding heart in it? Good luck.
The last time I flew was to a large city in the mid-west over a year ago. My sister had died in a house fire there a week before Christmas and I had to meet with the probate attorneys, as well as go through the house itself to try to find salvageable mementos for my parents, who were devastated and just could not bear to make the trip. Just a quick “down one day/back the next” trip.
Anyways… I was quite exhausted emotionally and physically on the return trip home and going through the lines had accidentally kept a partially empty water bottle in my hand. Also, despite my best efforts in the hotel room the night before to clean them, the salvaged items smelled heavily of the smoke- even through plastic bags.
Rather than berate, TSA were quite kind and understanding when I explained my error, as well as respectful when I showed them the items I had recovered and wanted to bring aboard as carry-on rather than check. Potentially losing those items as well would have been too much… They were very helpful when I was at a very frail moment in my life.
On one of the photography forums I frequent, somebody pointed out a series of articles describing how cops at O’Hare were getting their guns stolen at the airport. I think guns have to be checked and thoroughly documented/marked, so of course they’re easy for someone to find if they want to steal them.
Doesn’t that make you feel all warm inside?
My question is where are the Democrats on this?
Considering that the TSA is part of Homeland Security, which is under the executive branch, what I would really like to see is a Democratic presidential administration having the balls to reorganize all of this in a somewhat less visible way, rather than a public outcry from Dems who are actually powerless to do anything (which would just invite more “Teh Demrats Luv Terriss” criticism from the Right).
That’s how the world airport operates. You want to bring your bleeding heart in it? Good luck.
I’m not saying we should be out cuddling our local TSA staff. Alls I’m saying is that it’s not terribly useful to simply think in generalizations, especially generalizations that don’t necessarily resemble reality. Oh, wait, why am I talking to Squashed? I already know he’s a tool, I don’t have to generalize.
Opoponax,
You must be joking? The entire problem with airport security kabuki is that it is based on not thinking about the populace as “individuals” but as stereotypical problems. For example–it simply can’t be that even two percent of the people who fly every day are terrorists. Not.Possible. In putting into place an intrusive system of screening and viewing the TSA/government knows that what they are attempting to do is to discourage an infinitesmally small number of actually dangerous people from doing something that might–just might–have the potential to cause some loss of life. Not even very much loss of life, actually. The realest most realio danger, of course, isn’t hijacking a jetliner but hickacking a much smaller plane and crashing it into the many unhardened nuclear or chemical plants. Again the realest most realio danger of the hijacked airliner is over because by hardening cockpit doors and grasping the danger of the hijacked plane the liklihood that the plane itself will be used as a weapon rather than merely go down is zilch. And planes going down? Realistically, its not that many people.
so now we get to the way that everyone is inconvenienced by airport security. In fact, as you point out so dismissively, racism is only part of the equation. My husband is routinely scanned and he’s an older white guy who looks like an ed koren character from the new yorker. As my daughter said to me a few months ago–what is a terrorist? all I know is that daddy is frequently mistaken for one.–but taht doesn’t mean that racial profiling isn’t also done on a regular basis and for quite racist reasons if by that we mean founded on the racist assumption that dark skinned puerto ricans and american blacks are secretly aligned with muslim terrorist groups.
aimai
the opoponax April 30, 2008 at 10:59 am
I’m not saying we should be out cuddling our local TSA staff. Alls I’m saying is that it’s not terribly useful to simply think in generalizations, especially generalizations that don’t necessarily resemble reality. Oh, wait, why am I talking to Squashed? I already know he’s a tool, I don’t have to generalize.
don’t be silly. That’s EXACTLY how airport operates. It’s GENERALIZATION at its finest. (race, clothing, body shape, papers, profile) Bureaucratic procedure and training.
You can learn a lot about a place just by observing how the little guys at the airport operates. Because everywhere it’s the same. (command structure, thinking efficiency of low level operative, economic stratification, budget, etc)
She went away for the holidays
Said she’s going to L.A.
But she never got there
She never got there
She never got there, they say
The JFK took my soda away
They took it away
Away from me
The JFK took my soda away
They took it away
Away from me…
the opoponax April 30, 2008 at 10:59 am
I’m not saying we should be out cuddling our local TSA staff. Alls I’m saying is that it’s not terribly useful to simply think in generalizations, especially generalizations that don’t necessarily resemble reality. Oh, wait, why am I talking to Squashed? I already know he’s a tool, I don’t have to generalize.
let’s put it this way.
If we travel together. I will make sure you and I go through different inspection line, just so you don’t try to make eye contact with me when you are lost.
Because you think everybody is white and you can get away with it by being nice and chatty.
Everybody else will think, you are a cover and the next guy gets it.
Skyscraper: Funny. I have a very Greek name, both first and last (even though I have never been to Greece and don’t speak a word of the language), and I’ve never gotten any hassle at the airport over it. Just goes to show how arbitrary the whole thing is, I guess.
Someone should organize a protest. Just get a bunch of people together and hang around the airport with signs saying “The Goddamn Bottle Rule is Moronic and You All Goddamn Know It” and similar.
You must be joking? The entire problem with airport security kabuki is that it is based on not thinking about the populace as “individuals” but as stereotypical problems.
Yes, and in order to rectify the COPIOUS problems of the system, we need to know what said problems actually are rather than working based on stock assumptions like “all non-WASP travelers are uniformly and systematically harrassed by the TSA.”
Handing the Democrats power to restructure the TSA based on generalizations the Left likes is no more helpful than leaving the reins in the hands of Republicans who’ve built it on the foundation of generalizations the Right likes.
The only way I can make it through an airport security line is after 2 or 3 white russians and/or a valium.
Mrs Nice Guy here. I used to get a lot of attention from security people (”used to” = “don’t travel much any more”). Someone commented that I don’t look like a terrorist, and I replied that I am the opposite of the profile (older, white, female), so I’m the kind of person they have to search so they can prove they’re not picking on the young, brown, and male people. I make the stats average out.
the opoponax April 30, 2008 at 11:17 am
we need to know what said problems actually are rather than working based on stock assumptions like
you can’t. What you propose is a bit like eradicating poverty by giving people money and hope you win.
What you are dealing is very fundamental policy stance, international relationship and the reality of what a country is. You got to change everything.
Like eradicating poverty, you have to change everything. education, urban structure, structural poverty, working condition, pop culture, etc etc.
I understand what you mean, but your view is considerably naive.
The only way I can make it through an airport security line is after 2 or 3 white russians and/or a valium.
Which leads me to believe that when this sort of thing happens it’s individual xenophobia/ignorance/sadism on the part of a particular HSA employee, and not a top-down racial profiling directive.
You mean the TSA is only empowering and tacitly supporting petty racists and enabling their behavior, stopping short of making racism an actual official policy? Why that’s so much better!
Certainly the last seven years of the Bush administration have demonstrated that it would never put forward an apparently acceptable policy which they then utterly undermine at every step of execution. You know like how they passed that Clear Skies program, and now all the skies everywhere are perfectly clear!
You need to learn Magic Loop or two circulars — socks should get past security and are small enough for a carry-on. But, then, I’m one of those freaks who uses circulars for everything, even flat knitting — the leverage on straights is just too weird to me.
Oddly, for all of the other horrible disorganization at LAX, the security people aren’t too bad though I haven’t flown out of there since the EXACT MORNING of the liquids scare. Even though there was this big new security issue, they were actually pretty polite and patient with mistakes, like my putting my boarding pass into my bad that was going through the x-ray instead of keeping it in my hand for inspection. The guy working the walk-through scanner let me get it from my bag after it went through the scanner and show it to him.
On the other hand, I think it was LAX where they tried to insist that my disabled brother walk through the scanner without his cane and without his shoes. Did I mention he wears plastic braces on his feet and legs that are slippery? And that he’s a partial paraplegic who can’t walk more than 2 or 3 steps without his cane?
If we travel together. I will make sure you and I go through different inspection line, just so you don’t try to make eye contact with me when you are lost.
Because you think everybody is white and you can get away with it by being nice and chatty.
Everybody else will think, you are a cover and the next guy gets it.
Actually, my understanding of this is not based on my own experiences as a white woman (though I’ve gotten my share of general snottiness, btw).
It’s based on conversations with Muslim, “Middle-Eastern-Looking”, and otherwise non-white friends who fly often.
According to them, they don’t face racially motivated harrassment in airports; or at least not in any systematic way that would incline one to generalize — one South Asian friend once might possibly have gotten the stink-eye at Bush Airport in Houston, but then again the TSA apparatchik might just have been in a bad mood; it wasn’t blatantly racist.
I would guess that, considering these are close friends I’ve had racism-oriented conversations with in the past, they were probably not lying to me about it.
In fact, I would say that it’s an element of white privilege to make completely uninformed assumptions about what kinds of situations people of color face, without actually backing that up with the experiences of people of color.
the opoponax April 30, 2008 at 11:43 am
According to them, they don’t face racially motivated harrassment in airports; or at least not in any systematic way that would incline one to generalize — one South Asian friend once might possibly have gotten the stink-eye at Bush Airport in Houston, but then again the TSA apparatchik might just have been in a bad mood; it wasn’t blatantly racist.
depending on port of entry, what airlines, what’s the destination, etc. But in general, profiling is rampant.
You mean the TSA is only empowering and tacitly supporting petty racists and enabling their behavior, stopping short of making racism an actual official policy? Why that’s so much better!
*eyeroll*
I’m not saying it’s BETTER.
I’m saying that the well-meaning white liberal assumption that the TSA openly uses racial profiling is incorrect. Basing your beliefs about what changes need to be made in airport security based on the assumption that non-WASPS are systematically harrassed will not lead to reality-based solutions, any more than the assumption that all brown people are terrorists will.
My favourite TSA Security Theatre story occured during a flight out of LAX a couple of years ago. There was an unusually long queue headed toward the first, and most useless, security check (the one where some looks at your ID after the airline agent has inspected it, but before letting you get into the queue for the X-ray machines, where your ID is checked again).
The queue was moving very slowly, but as I got into it I figured: must be a heavy travel day. As I got closer to the front, though, I heard more and more grumbling and tsk-tsking — not even the angry type, more of the sad and disappointed sort.
When I got close enough to the head of the queue, I saw why: the cheerful fellow painstakingly checking each line of the ID and looking back and forth from the photo to the passenger was … well, how to put this delicately? He was borderline mentally retarded/disabled. Visibly so. Enough that even layman passengers standing in line could notice.
No-one was abusive or impatient toward the guy, because bullying mentally disabled people is just about the ultimate in douchebaggery. We’re all for employing mentally disabled people who are capable of working and attaining a level of self-sufficiency. But I can guarantee you from the mumbling and shared glances that everyone waiting was thinking the same thing: this, right here is how seriously the TSA and DHS and the Cheney administration really takes airport security, and this is what we’ve been reduced to in the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free.
But thinking and talking about it are two different things. And no-one in that queue, myself included, talked about it openly before or after we passed the checkpoint. Some whispers among spouses, accompanied by “German Glances”, but nothing more. Instead, we moved along, serf-like, toward the next petty and random indignity.
“Ihr papiere, bitte!”
the opoponax April 30, 2008 at 11:47 am
I’m saying that the well-meaning white liberal assumption that the TSA openly uses racial profiling is incorrect.
they are using racial profiling. (all we need is confirmation. manual, database set up, etc) Then massive class action suit.
depending on port of entry, what airlines, what’s the destination, etc. But in general, profiling is rampant.
Based on my conversations, that’s not an assumption we can make.
I’ve talked about this with probably a dozen people who might be easily mistaken for Muslims. One person had one experience he thought might perhaps have been racially motivated, but then again he honestly wasn’t sure and thought maybe it was his own generalizations that led him to jump to conclusions.
If profiling was “rampant”, one would have to assume that, out of a dozen obvious profilees, you would get more than one borderline “maybe”. For instance, if you got a dozen black men together and asked them if they’d ever been harassed by cops for “existing while black”, all of them would probably be able to relay multiple experiences.
Airport-related matters are heavy on my mind these days.
When I lived in Kenya I got engaged and now after about a year of struggle with immigration my man is going to be coming here next month. He has never flown at all and now his first trip is a big international, 3 leg, 30 hour itinerary and he is all by himself. I am always overwhelmed by trips like that so I can’t imagine what it will be like for him.
Plus he is pretty dark complected and has a Muslim name (though neither he nor in his family is Muslim, go figure) so I wonder whether he will be hassled much. I don’t really know what to tell him to expect. He is entering the US through Houston on a flight from Dubai and I would hate for his first experience with the country to be getting yelled at or strip searched or something.
Woe is me. If anybody needs me I will be over here worrying.
*nervously bites nails*
He’s probably more likely to face racially-motivated harassment at Immigration, where he will have to beat back a lot of stereotypes that he is or wants to be an illegal immigrant, papers probably aren’t in order, may or may not have an international criminal record, etc. etc.
The racist assumptions of US Immigration are a lot better documented than those of your average TSA security screener (who has very little actual recourse, anyway, other than to make you feel like shit).
My question is where are the Democrats on this?
Based on past performance, I can tell you which of the two potential Presidential nominees would be more inclined to start cleaning out this mess. Hint: it isn’t the one who panders to Safety Moms about the eeeeevil of video games.
The only way I can make it through an airport security line is after 2 or 3 white russians and/or a valium.
I’m not a big drinker or a fan of bad and overpriced airline booze, but more often than not the first thing I do after the plane hits cruising altitude is order a nice vodka.
I only wish we had a decent European-style rail system, instead of the joke that is Amtrak (though the Acela train is ok). Instead, the government continues to subsidise the established airlines’ worst practises through corporate welfare.
Amtrak
the opoponax April 30, 2008 at 11:55 am
I’ve talked about this with probably a dozen people who might be easily mistaken for Muslims.
you are assuming that this is only domestic airport and some air travel.
no, It’s how global airport work.
for eg. my friend, he is white. always gets stop in Japan, even tho he is clean. Because his profile looks like a drug mule. (he is gay and try to hide it, but keep wearing that earing) In europe he can go through a custom declaration butt naked with a pound of cocaine hanging and he would still look legit.
airport security is about profiling.
Coincidentally, Peggy Noonan just wrote about “airport security kabuki” in her WSJ column.
But her point seems to be that they shouldn’t be inconviencing white people. Or at least not middle-aged white women. Or at the very least, not Peggy Noonan.
and didn’t Noonan write that same article, like, a year ago? WTF?
Somebody should put Peggy Noonan name in no fly list. (open a lot of web pages that trigger keyword relationship between her name and trigger words)
That’ll be hilarious.
“Coincidentally, Peggy Noonan just wrote about “airport security kabuki” in her WSJ column.”
“Don’t you know who I AM?!?!?!“…
Rule of thumb on Amtrak, phylosopher: if the rail journey is going to take more than 4 hours, suck it up and take the plane. At that point, the hassles of air travel are more than offset by the under-funded Amtrak’s constant lateness, poor maintenance and surly staff.
Funny TSA stories?
I was flying out of Newark and, as per normal for me, I arrived pretty early. When I was checking into Air Canada for the shuttle up to Toronto, the woman at the counter asked if, instead of waiting for a later flight, I’d like to get on an earlier one that was boarding right then. I said sure, with the understanding that they weren’t going to hold the plane and if I couldn’t clear security in time I’d have to come back and they’d put me on the original flight. My luggage would be waiting at the plane to make sure I got on before they loaded it.
Thankfully the place wasn’t busy. I left the counter, went immediately through security with no delay (there was no one in line), and walked directly on board the plane, the door closing behind me when I got on. Couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 minutes from counter to aircraft seat.
When I got to Edmonton later that day, I opened my luggage and low and behold, one of those little “Your luggage has been inspected by the TSA” slips of paper.
Which I knew was complete and total bullshit. Inspection my ass. They only had time to open the suitcase, throw the paper in, and close it. There was no way they had time to do any “inspection” worthy of the name. Talk about kabuki.
Rule of thumb on Amtrak, phylosopher: if the rail journey is going to take more than 4 hours, suck it up and take the plane.
I have to say I disagree. If you have the time, opt for Amtrak. No security bullshit (you can show up at the station 5 minutes before your train leaves, if you want). Comfier seats with more leg and aisle room. You can get up and stretch your legs all you want. Trains are almost never full to capacity, which means you often get a whole row to yourself and virtually never have to deal with obnoxious fellow passengers all up in your space. You can carry on and/or check as much stuff as you want. You arrive in the middle of town, rather than an hour away from anywhere you’d actually want to go. There are about 5 times as many restrooms per customer. Food is always available and never as bad. The snack car even has cheap beer!
Of course, most people don’t have 3 days to get between coasts. In which case, you have to fly.
Give me 8 hours on a train over 5 hours flying and dealing with airports, anyday.
I have to say, though, it’s not just the USA that does this kind of crap in airports. I flew in and out of about ten different European airports last year, and Lisbon, Madrid, the UK airports, and Dublin all have the liquid rule. It’s dumber than dumb.
Anyone remember the lighter rule that finally got overturned this summer? Before that, you were allowed to have up to SIX books of matches, but no lighters.
Also, all this security makes airports hell on a smoker. I got searched at JFK when I showed up in the security line for the third time, even though I fail to see what’s more suspicious about going through security MULTIPLE times.
Strangely enough, the most lax airport I’ve ever been in was Schipol, in Amsterdam. You’d think they would at least search people’s pockets when they’re leaving Europe’s premier drug playground, but I guess not.
I’m amazed that some of you were able to get through security with liquids with unstandard or no plastic bags. I remember specifically a couple years back right about when the rule was first put into place I realized halfway through the security line that I had a liquid lip gloss in my bag. No doubt I could have just left it in my bag and it would have gone unnoticed but I didn’t want to be caught in a lie so when I got to the front of the line I brandished it and told the woman that I just realized I had it and I didn’t have a plastic bag. Apparently, my honesty was grounds to search my bag (wtf) and then she was quite insistent that I couldn’t go through with it without a plastic baggie despite the fact that the qt-sized bag requirement is obviously in place to keep things together and limit the number of bottles you can take aboard, and I had only one item so the issue was moot. I was lucky that she was searching my bag because as I was trying to argue with her (tearing up as I do in stressful situations and not wanting to get in trouble over a stupid lip gloss but not wanting to back down over the issue) she found a sandwich sized ziploc in my bag (used and smeared with cookie frosting) and asked what it was. I was so freaked out at that point I nearly burst into tears as I told her it was from my lunch or something. That obviously wasn’t what she meant, because she popped my lip gloss into the bag and sent me on my merry way.
Now what was the point of that torturous encounter? Really?
I’ve had similar experiences with other kinds of security… I really hate that power trip they go on. One time I was going to a football game and was meeting my boyfriend there but was bringing him a canister of peppermint tea for his irritable bowel syndrome. Our stadium has a no opened bottles rule because they don’t want you to bring in alcohol but in the past I’d gotten through without declaring open water containers. Of course, my honesty got the better of me this time because I didn’t want the tea confiscated as it was quite important to me that I get it in. So I explained the situation to the woman letting me through the gate. She gave me a hard time and when I started to argue with her she brought over someone higher up and he came over, sniffed the bottle and said it was fine (peppermint tea doesn’t smell a thing like alcohol… and it was quite obvious that that was what it was and that I wasn’t full of shit because again, I was tearing up). That was annoying and all but after he went away she lectured me about not telling them in advance that I was bringing it. Just had to get in a scolding even after her superior had let me off the hook.
I’m a little white girl and am probably lucky to have gotten away with this stuff in the end but the attitudes of security guards have honestly given me a real problem with and fear of authority that is probably less justified than the fears of others.
As for knitting needles, I imagine they recommend circular because you’re much less likely to poke someone next to you in those tiny seats. When I knit with straights I’m liable to hit someone.
Oh, I forgot another way that Amtrak is superior to flying — you can use your cellphone and any other electronics you want throughout the trip.
Exactly right.
And MikeEss too
Found that exactly in my shortimer stint in the can.
Regular sweeps by black-clad swatzi types always upturned all your lockers and tore out all the bedding but invariably inclluded ass-hole checks too.
[Only visual in my experience, I am very grateful to report….but?]
Just to humiliate and intimidate.
Same mechanisms exactly in operation there..just a different authoritarian regimen. And I’m sure my experience was representative…
just a different but mostly nonviolent population
Depends on your purpose. I have a family wedding to get to up north this summer and I’m desperately trying to figure out a way we can take the Coast Starlight one way. Leisurely trip up the coast with beautiful scenery (the Coast Starlight literally runs along the beach in many places) or stressful trip to LAX? Not a difficult choice.
Tried the 5+ hour Amtrak trip a couple of times after 2002, opoponax, and ended up in a “never again” moment. The first time, the train was full to capacity for the first 3 hours. I had to pull a “I know the head of Amtrak” (which I did, very tenuously) to get the seat I’d paid for rather than standing in the aisle like at least 20 other people. 2 hours late to arrival due to innumerable starts and stops. The second time, the train was three hours late arriving at the destination (maintenance issues and starts and stops if so much as a hand-pump car was sitting stationary on the adjacent track). Granted, this was a popular route (NYC to Florida), but I’m told the Amtrak experience is pretty similar on other long trips.
The plane can be miserable, but on a domestic flight you’re generally looking at it being over in under 4 hours. I fly Jetblue whenever possible, so it’s usually a fairly pleasant experience once you’re actually on the aircraft, and most of the time I can wrangle a full row. I’ll concede the phone issue, but I sort of like having a break from yahoos yammering into their mobiles (on Jetblue, the built-in TVs or a book allow me live without my many gadgets for the 30-minute ascents and descents). And however you travel, if you’re still relying on the airline to feed you you’re a fool (another benefit of the brain-dead TSA rules - airport concessions get to sell more overpriced food and beverages).
Now on rail journeys of less than four hours between urban areas, I completely agree with you and do it fairly frequently. Downtown to downtown, no 45-minute drives to and from the airports, no 1-2 hour security theatre at departure (though the morons will probably institute that on Amtrak, too, if they haven’t already). At 5 hours, though, rail vs air becomes a coin toss decision. More than that, take the plane and try to get it over with.
“…I’m desperately trying to figure out a way we can take the Coast Starlight one way.”
…but I thought taking one-way flights automatically made you more suspicious…?
Depends on your purpose. I have a family wedding to get to up north this summer and I’m desperately trying to figure out a way we can take the Coast Starlight one way. Leisurely trip up the coast with beautiful scenery (the Coast Starlight literally runs along the beach in many places) or stressful trip to LAX? Not a difficult choice.
As long as you can choose what day and time you travel (”desperately” indicates a challenge — not surprising given Amtrak service cuts) and “leisurely” is a factor, and you’re willing to allow for a 2-hour delay in arrival, go for it. I’m talking more about point A to B travel, where the grim and unleisurely goal is to get to your destination in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of hassle, with the most comfort possible for your price.
Except for rare and fortunate cases like yours (and college road trips) the days of “getting there is half the fun” are long gone in the US.
Since the point of the post is obviously the bit about the knitting needles…:$
I fly regularly both from US airports and internationally, and I’ve never been given trouble about my (metal) needles. However, I’ve noticed that double-pointed needles tend to scare flight attendants, so now I try to only bring circulars. Luckily cowls are the perfect travel project so it’s not really a hassle…
As to the security nightmare - I agree with everyone else about the inconsistently-applied misery. Customs/Immigration is even worse - people calling you by your first name to intimidate you and make you feel vulnerable, even when it’s clear that they have absolutely nothing to hassle you for. My short, cute, white, blond, “innocent-looking” little sister ALWAYS gets pulled out for special screening, we think so that they can pretend they don’t do racial profiling the rest of the time.
I fly out of the New York area about once a month and am constantly surprised by both the laxness and rudeness that one gets here, in contrast to my flight from London where the heightened security measures were very carefully enforced, yet the enforcers had no problem behaving professionally while doing so…
I’m told the Amtrak experience is pretty similar on other long trips.
I’ve taken long trips via Amtrak 4 or 5 times in the past few years and had smooth sailing every time.
Though the lateness is an issue. As long as you’re not on a tightly scheduled trip, this is pretty easy to be zen about.
The reason trains are late, btw, is that Amtrak doesn’t have priority on the tracks because they’re privately owned by freight companies. Better funding and management wouldn’t change this.
I also have to say that the one time I had a borderline crappy experience was headed up the east coast through the deep south — I noticed that my fellow passengers were predominantly black, and that the Amtrak staff was outrageously surly to them, and total sweetie-pies to cute little white girl moi.
Don’t know if anyone has touched on this or not. I use a CPAP machine & have to travel w/it. The airlines have to let you carry it on because it is a neccessary medical device. It is subject to extra scrutiny because of this. Once while waiting, I inquired as to why and the very nice lady (seriously, I was surprised) who was checking it for explosives told me that they had picked up some chatter on the internet about these types of devices and that there were exceptions for them. From then on all necessary medical devices had to be searched even after going through the x-ray.
I avoided Logan Armpit in Boston for years because Providence and Manchester offered lower fares and cheap parking close in and organized layout - stuff people with small children value! Logan Armpit had basic issues with, well, hygeine and signage and organization and that scared me as well. The place was a poorly run disaster waiting to happen on 9/11/01.
On 10/11/01 I flew out of Manchester, NH and it was tense and security was amazingly tight, but orderly, efficient, and sincere. I’m sure the guy with the NRA jacket that got searched 4 times wouldn’t agree, though.
In August, 2002 I flew out of Boston as the fares were cheap and Zog wasn’t coming with us and could drop us off. After being scolded about taking off shoes, scolded about not taking off shoes, scolded for suggesting that they put up a sign that says what they want, I got us through security.
Now I frequently carry bike tools as I am a cycle commuter. I took my backpack before the flight and carefully removed all the non-security friendly items. My husband borrowed my multi-tool from my desk - it has lots of allen wrenches, two screwdrivers, wrenches, a knife … and returned it to my pack.
I found it mid-flight. After all the bullshit about shoes, I had a weapon at the ready, nay a choice of weapons at the ready!
Though the lateness is an issue. As long as you’re not on a tightly scheduled trip, this is pretty easy to be zen about.
If you’re not on a tightly scheduled trip within the lower 48, there’s little point in flying — period fullstop. Domestic air travel and leisurely travel have been diametrically opposed concepts for at least 25 years, so if we’re even discussing a choice between the rail and air, leisure doesn’t factor in.
The reason trains are late, btw, is that Amtrak doesn’t have priority on the tracks because they’re privately owned by freight companies. Better funding and management wouldn’t change this.
Exactly. It’s a question of prioritisation at the Federal level. When freight is the priority on the tracks, passengers are lucky to be treated by the system as slightly more than livestock.
Better funding addresses maintenance (breakdowns are another major source of frequent delays). Better management addresses customer service and capacity management. Better prioritisation means that the tracks are freed up for passenger service (something that the Feds will have to face soon, like it or not)
Amtrak as a system fails on all three counts. I’m not arguing for privatisation — with infrastructure of this scale, that would make things worse. But judging even by the imperfect examples set in the EU and Canada, a national passenger rail service can do a lot better than Amtrak on the 4+ hour trips.
I also have to say that the one time I had a borderline crappy experience was headed up the east coast through the deep south — I noticed that my fellow passengers were predominantly black, and that the Amtrak staff was outrageously surly to them, and total sweetie-pies to cute little white girl moi.
That’s probably similar to the NYC to Florida run. The train staff, whatever their race, were uniformly surly to all passengers, whatever their race. In your case, I’m not sure how staff being “total sweetie-pies” to you counts as a “borderline crappy” experience. I would have settled for a consistent customer-service orientation toward all passengers.
Domestic air travel and leisurely travel have been diametrically opposed concepts for at least 25 years, so if we’re even discussing a choice between the rail and air, leisure doesn’t factor in.
I don’t see where this makes sense. If I live in New York, have a week’s vacation time, and want to go back down south and visit family, I’m going to fly because it’s a two day drive and 19 hours on a train or bus. It doesn’t matter how “leisurely” a trip it is. If I’m going to DC for a conference, I’m going to take the bus, even though it’s a quick trip for official purposes.
I might be a bit of an exception, because I’m somewhat of a freelancer and get blocks of time off each year which I can use to schedule travel at my own pace. But it doesn’t necessarily occur to me that everyone always flies when they need to get somewhere quickly and efficiently, and always takes other modes when they have time on their hands.
In your case, I’m not sure how staff being “total sweetie-pies” to you counts as a “borderline crappy” experience. I would have settled for a consistent customer-service orientation toward all passengers.
It was borderline crappy because, while it obviously really, really sucked to witness baldfaced racism, it’s not like I (or anyone else there, regardless of race) was strapped into a cramped seat for hours on end, forbidden to bring more than the bare minimum of personal effects, etc etc.
I don’t like bad customer service, but considering that the average Amtrak passenger has virtually no interaction with the Amtrak employees (another plus), I don’t actually care that much.
Not to mention that I was coming from the rural south, land of baldfaced racism. I wish I could set my life up such that I never had to witness this stuff, but being from the south I can’t.
“I don’t see where this makes sense. ”
If you can see the distinction between “leisurely travel” (a relatively care-free journey that may or may not have a destination) and “leisure travel” (travel to reach a destination where one can be leisurely), it’ll make sense.
Neither of the travel scenarios you describe would qualify as leisurely travel, and only the first would qualify as leisure travel. Mnemosyne’s Coast Starlight scenario is closer to the mark when it comes to both leisurely and leisure travel, but it’s an exception to the rule of domestic travel.
Depending on how you reckon things, for a space of about 30 years a real effort was made by the airlines to make domestic air travel as leisurely as possible (helped by the fact that airport security was virtually non-existent, and because air travel was very expensive). Jetblue and perhaps Virgin America still make an attempt to do this, but the major carriers have basically given up and turned into government-subsidised livestock transport. And everyone has to put up with the TSA’s security theatre, not to mention airport traffic.
It was borderline crappy because, while it obviously really, really sucked to witness baldfaced racism
I can definitely see how that would ruin your trip. Customer service and lack of professionalism is most definitely a management problem, as opposed to a funding problem or a prioritisation problem. It’s one area where Amtrak could start making changes immediately.
In any case, since you say passengers had very little interaction with staff, the preferential treatment you were accorded and the racism you witnessed may have been anomalies. Sometimes people are in crappy moods, or take a liking to you. My experiences were different: no-one, not staff or passengers, wanted to be on those runs, and there was a lot of unpleasant and non-race-specific interaction as a result.
A nitpick: the Bill of Rights does not give rights. It recognizes and enumerates rights that people have, inherently and inalienably, regardless of governments’ opinions. This reasoning is echoed also in the Declaration and in the Ninth Amendment.
A large portion of the security staff are subcontractors working through temp agencies. One effect of the constantly shifting rules and inspections to promote airport security was that a whole lot of the airport security staff who had been government employees were gotten rid of and replaced with subcontractors.
Note also when a rule says the crew has discretion what that really means is that the people running random inspections have discretion as to whether or not someone can be fired immediately for having whatever item.
A nitpick: the Bill of Rights does not give rights. It recognizes and enumerates rights that people have, inherently and inalienably, regardless of governments’ opinions. This reasoning is echoed also in the Declaration and in the Ninth Amendment.
A political illusion - necessary, but an illusion nonetheless. It let your Constitutional arrangements neatly sidestep some rather difficult to counter attacks (but didn’t help much when the problem of people disagreeing over slavery wouldn’t go away).
It’s less silly than a constitutional monarchy, mind you.
When I was an undergrad, I had a pet beta fish. For breaks I’d have to fly home halfway across the country, and I’d put the fish in a Nalgene bottle to get him there. No one ever gave me a hard time–mostly they were pretty amused–except once in D.C. when they took the bottle into a back room or something to swab it for… something.
Could never get away with that now.
I mean, I guess it could have been a bottle full of acid to throw in the pilot’s cafe or something. Then again, if the bottle had been full of anything but water, the fish wouldn’t've been swimming around quite so happily.
In other news, the best way to avoid getting hassled by security in my experience has been to fly with a pissed off cat.
Hmph, I think I have a comment in mod… just testing to see if this goes through.
Rights are a political illusion? No, I disagree. And since you offered no support for your assertion, I won’t bother either. What a happy waste of time. If only more blog smackdowns were this easy.
After 14 flights in the USA last year, I am now on a European trip. I was pleasantly surprised and refreshed by the smooth, efficient and polite security officers at Heathrow, Rome, Trieste, Belgrade and Berlin airports. And within USA, bigger airports are worse than small - JFK and La Guardia and even San Francisco were pretty horrible experiences, while it was pleasant in Milwaukee and always pleasant in Raleigh.
The experience of landing at JFK or O’hare is a mix between landing in Delhi and Moscow. It’s like entering prison processing system, the ultimate showcase of Republican government style. Even Beijing airport gives far smoother experience. It’s completely unpleasant experience for intercontinental flight. I haven’t feel this way since eastern europe in the 90’s.
Maybe I should try traveling in despotic sub saharan countries and see what it feels. I’ve never try that.
The whole security thing at airports is a joke. About a year or two ago, I was sitting at Denver airport waiting for a flight. I was chatting with the young man sitting next to me who was from somewhere in the Middle East (I forget where, he told me). Suddenly there’s a huge commotion and no less than SIX security people come charging down the corridor to our gate, wands waving, radios blaring. The guy sitting next to me, poor man, nearly passed out in fear they were coming for him. But the person they were after, who they nearly stripped in the damn gate to check for metal with a hand held wand, was a little girl of *maybe* 13, hair in pigtails, wearing a pink track suit.
Not being used to traveling she’d apparently “escaped” some checkpoint somewhere without removing her shoes…which by the way, were flip flops. I’m sure she was a terrible security risk.
It’s more like Simon Says than kabuki. The civilian participants don’t all know their moves; only the TSA officers do, and they are not so benevolent as to never want to trip you up.
I just figured out what this reminded me of — the arrests on COPS, where the officer is yelling at the suspect to do whatever he’s not doing.
Or sometimes what he’s doing. I saw one officer yell at someone lying on his back, “roll over onto your back!” and keep yelling until the suspect rolled over onto his stomach.
In about half the US states, when you’re pulled over, you’re supposed to stay in the car; in the other half, you’re supposed to get out. If you do the opposite thing you’re immediately going to get yelled at.
Rights are a political illusion? No, I disagree.
Fine with me. Try persuading a tumor you have a right to life, a broken spine that you have a right to liberty, or an impacted wisdom tooth that you have a right to happiness.
Many people here probably remember when airlines used to give you free gifts, instead of taking away your freedoms. . .
They phased this practice out when I was still very young (I remember getting packages of playing cards), so you can guess how old I am.
I still see the airline freebies (bags and cosmetic cases) in thrift stores.
I still see the airline freebies (bags and cosmetic cases) in thrift stores.
A friend gave me one of the fitted toiletry bags they used to hand out on trans atlantic and transpacific flights. I tossed the old stuff and use it as a nifty kit to hold a spare tube, tire pump, tire levers, buttblinkers, hand wipes, adjustable wrench, and that insecure and threatening multi-tool mentioned above.
I have flown four times in the last month for business, and will fly three more times this month alone. I fly a LOT. And I have to take anti-anxiety medication to make it bearable. I move through security in usually under two minutes, in an exquisite ballet of submission and disgust. I haven’t been wanded and patted down or had anything confiscated in months, and this is a victory. In the past month’s travels, I have been twice selected for additional screening, made to stand quietly and watch someone remove things from my carry on bag and examine them. My checked bags are regularly searched, and I know this because I find pre-printed notes indicating that my things have been pawed through by TSA employees for unstated reasons. The other travelers do not chatter happily, they bitch and moan quietly to each other. They’re hopelessly languid or abominably rude. And oh yeah, the bins. The bins have suction and it’s a huge pain to pry them apart while managing your ID, your boarding pass, your carry on, your shoes, and your laptop, but no one helps anyone else. So if you wonder if you’re screwed if the TSA people go crazy authoritarian on you, the answer is there while people stand motionless, watching other people struggle against the bin suction with dull eyes, waiting their turn to be herded through.
And that is security, if everything goes well. After I get through security, my flights get delayed, or cancelled if I happen to be trying to get out in a freak snowstorm. My flights are in an “oversold” situation and I’m bumped but my luggage moves serenly on to my final destination without me. My luggage goes missing, in whole or part. About these things, airline employees could not possibly care less. If I manage to get on the plane with all my belongings, my seatmate is confused about the purpose of the armrest, comfortably stretched out and digging his elbow into my side while I twist helplessly away as far as I can get against the window or into the aisle. The air conditioning goes out on the plane. The plane is freezing cold. The plane has to let off fuel because it’s too heavy. In the unlikely event of an emergency (in which there is any hope of survival)… They promise we’re third in line to take off, now. It’s just a little turbulance so the captain has turned on the seatbelt sign again. We’re circling back around in this violent thunderstorm because the lights on the runway were off. Really.
And perversely, I and all my fellow travelers, are paying for the dubious privilege of this experience. An inmate for 20 minutes? Nonono, from the time you take the turn to the airport from the time you’re leaving it in your rearview. Prisoner to however they deem fit to treat you because if you’re good, and no one makes any trouble, you’ll be able to be home in two hours instead of sixteen.
California’s Amtrack is, I’ve read, managed separately from Amtrack elsewhere. If they are running even 10 minutes late, they will announce, apologize, and have the connecting buses held. They actually ran a bit early more often, because they allow for delay.
The service was professional and excellent every trip I took– double-checking your plans matched your ticket; recognizing asthma equipment on sight and thereby letting us sit when other young passengers were asked to move upstairs (elderly and disabled get priority for downstairs); and great courtesy.
Last time we took a longish car drive, I started to crack up, because a song came on the radio about a crappy California road trip (Fresno; 200 gallons from LA) and the chorus was “All Aboard”. Obviously, the band liked Amtrack, too!
I’m so old, I got little wing pins all the time for being a brave little flier! They’d probably be worth a fortune now if I could lay my hands on them.
I’ve not had a lot of problems with the kabuki, but since 9/11, I’ve only flown between Nashville (politest city in the US), and DC, where they know what the fuck they’re doing. And on many of those flights I had a freaked-out kitty with me (RIP, Independence Air), so that probably helped.
Once, at Dulles, I’d forgotten about the beautiful penknife my father had given me, which I’d slipped into my carry-on days before. The TSA lady was kind enough to run it back to him just outside the checkpoint so a treasured almost-heirloom didn’t get the heave-ho. I thanked her profusely.
Another time, in Nashville, I’d forgotten to check my purse for the cheap lighters that breed there like cheap t-shirts in the dresser. Poor guy wound up with a veritable bouquet of lighters that took him two hands to hold. He asked me what I wanted to do with them; I was like, “For God’s sake, toss ‘em, they’re junk!” And I apologized, again profusely.
I spent years waiting tables and tending bar, though, so I tend to approach public service people with all the generosity of spirit and cheer I can muster, just out of solidarity.
I don’t think it’s a show of authoritarian state power. Or, if it is, it’s a parody of state power.
It’s a sign of genuine weakness. It’s a sign that they don’t really know what the fuck to do, so they do something that they think looks like knowing what the fuck to do.
In that sense, it’s almost sad, because I’ve flown out of airports where the security is both polite and incredibly incisive. The TSA people are just trained like the robots in HHGTTG to sound like they have an authority in bestowing that their practices clearly don’t deliver.
As a result, I go through the motions, because it’s all bullshit. On the other hand, I’m a pale motherfucker with a non-scary-foreigner surname, and as such, don’t get the sharp end.
’sfunny. I flew out of Logan in March 2001, and on September 11, I knew instinctively that at least some of the planes had gone out of there. For someone with experience of European airports, Logan was just frakking shambolic.
On the constitutional issue: I’m with Phoenician. The negative liberty model was an innovation in its time, and while it’s nice of the US constitution to imply that certain rights were pre-existing, it’s just a formulation. ‘If only more blog smackdowns were this easy’, says Grammar RWA. Oh, silly commenter: I’ve got a couple of large volumes of John Locke that would leave quite a bruise. The notion that those rights pre-exist is constituted in the statement that they cannot be violated. Rights do not float around like dandelion fluff: they have to be asserted and defended. Curiously, they’re like trademarks: the most ’self-evident’ of rights will vanish if you don’t lay claim to it.
As an American living abroad, I have been harrassed by dumbass customs or immigration people in the U.S. wondering why I have lived outside of God’s American paradise for so long. What do I not like about America they ask. Do they intentionally hire the dumbest and most ignorant people for these jobs?
It’s low cost operation, they are not going to put high paying brains in there. (think your comcast cable guy)
I am surprised they haven’t privatize it and outsource the inspection to call center in Thailand. (much nicer people’ tho)
Typo alert, mnemosyne: you left out the phrase “on an aircraft, just for a change” after the word “someone”.http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/01/dhs-grounds-air-mars.html#comments
DHS grounds air marshalls for having names similar to the no-fly list
Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) familiar with the situation say the mix-ups, in which marshals are mistaken for terrorism suspects who share the same names, have gone on for years — just as they have for thousands of members of the traveling public.
One air marshal said it has been “a major problem, where guys are denied boarding by the airline.”
“In some cases, planes have departed without any coverage because the airline employees were adamant they would not fly,” said the air marshal, who asked not to be named because the job requires anonymity. “I’ve seen guys actually being denied boarding.”
A second air marshal said one agent “has been getting harassed for six years because his exact name is on the no-fly list.”
But of course.
I haven’t flown since 2002, but Natasha and I flew several times after 9-11-01, and the way they handled wheelchair users like her made this all blindingly obvious–both by the way they acted in default mode, and how they reacted when we managed to break the ice of their routine by calmly pointing out how impossible it was for her to comply with their peremptory orders.
Unlike a lot of other wheelchair users who typically fly, Natasha’s chair was unpowered–which on the whole is a great convenience in flying, because airlines have legitimate issues with the batteries that power electric wheelchairs. But this mean that I was her “motor” as well as steering system, and so we blew out their mental circuits because I could not be searated from her. Nor could she “Step out of the chair, ma’am!” as she was routinely ordered to do.
I found the attitude of the process rude, demeaning, and terrorizing–as long as we were moving on track. Once it became clear that Natasha and I couldn’t fit into their little pre-planned slots, after a moment of embarrassment or two, the people involved became much more humane and helpful. Clearly it wasn’t a amtter of crude, rude people, but a procedure designed to make them so.
There is a darker side to this that I am loathe to elaborate on on the Net-let me just say–if we had indeed had nefarious intentions, we could have done a lot more harm than the average pair of travellers, and as far as I could see there was nothing to stop us from doing so. Further deponent saieth not.
I’ve been saying for years that the “security” at airports (and elsewhere) is meant to train Americans to follow orders w/out thinking. It makes us willing to suffer indignity and ridicule at the hands of authorities. Hmmm.
The liquid rule is about this more than terrorism
Threatening random civilians to keep a populance in fear is very close to the definition of terrorism, actually.