It’s fun to go places.
It’s gotten more enjoyable these past years as the government has expanded its interests from liking long walks on the beach and pina coladas, delving into Uncle Sam’s Hell-On-Earth Travel Agency, which is exemplified in a sort of schizophrenic attempt to both bail out a troubled airline industry and make it so customers don’t want to use it.
The recent attempt to blow up a plane by a male Nigerian passenger has beget some interesting news articles. Here’s the money quote, though, to the question everyone is likely thinking:
Federal officials imposed stricter screening measures after the incident.
Really.
Knitting needles? No, but then yes. Fingernail clippers? No, but then yes. Liquids? Definitely no, but then a 3 oz. yes. Shoes and belts? Oh yes, except for a short period of time in the security line. Personal dignity? No. Shoes with fuses out the back? Probably not. Hand lotion in a 3.1 oz bottle? Absolutely not! Powdery substances? Looks like a new no. Suspicious, uh, bulge in your underwear? I’d like to see them try.
Power-hungry and bitchy security agents who mistake a uniform with a stripe on the pant leg for permission to arrest, unlawfully detain, and otherwise insult and berate normal people for going too slowly through the metal detector and getting behind their bag or going too quickly and getting ahead of their bag in the scanner, or in any way make them get up off of their stool? Oh, yes.
So we are scanned, searched, felt up, pulled aside, insulted, partially stripped, pockets emptied, charged fees, suffer private property confiscation, multiple ID checks, all-but cattle-prods, eye-rolling, crammed into metal culverts with wings, and no more peanuts and $5 dried out sandwiches once on board as reward.
Expensive perfume and liquor, random toiletries, forgetful tourists who mistakenly packed things in their carry-on — not on my watch!
Nigerian guy with some sort of incendiary device? Bring it on through.
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I’m driving, thank you.
Good plan. Blizzard and all, but good plan.
What gets me is that it’s the passengers that end up doing something to keep themselves safe. All the rudeness they go through for “government security” and, when it comes right down to it, the passengers do the work to keep themselves secure.
I’ve flown only twice since 9/11, both business, and both short, there-and-back stints in the same day so I had no overnight luggage. My first was in 2006, so I was completely unfamiliar with all the post 9-11 routines at the airport. I tried not to stare at others, but I had no other way to figure out what to do short of looking like an idiot.
But, yeah, passengers are presumed dupes until it counts.