“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” – Benjamin Franklin
That does it; I’m not flying anymore. Oh, sure, that’s no big hit to the airline industry, seeing as I fly on a commercial airline maybe once every other year. Regardless, I cannot reconcile thinking of myself as a free American citizen with the unnecessary assault on personal liberty taking place in the name of “security” at America’s airports.
The final straw is the new TSA requirement that screeners perform pat-down searches on randomly selected passengers. You may have seen the many TV news reports about the practice, usually focusing on a female screener running her hands around the breasts of a female passenger. This change is thanks to reports that it may have been female passengers who may have smuggled explosives in their bras that may have downed the Russian airliner a few months ago. Or maybe not, no one knows for sure.
I don’t know what offends me more. On one hand, you have the sacrificial TSA spokesperson that has to offer the absurd qualification that the women’s breasts are only patted down by the backside of the screener’s hands. Well, then, that makes all the difference in the world. I wonder if Governor Schwarzenegger could have used that justification against the accusations of his serial groping. “Ya, I may have touched dose women on their breasts and buttocks and things of that nature… but I only used da backside of my hands.” Besides, anyone can ask for their search to be performed in a private room. You can step out of line, waste more precious time at the airport, and suffer an obtrusive and unnecessary personal violation in private. That makes it all better, huh, ladies?
On the other hand, you have the dozens of passengers I’ve seen interviewed on these news reports who seem willing to accept this affront to American values. “It’s a bit uncomfortable,” one woman said, “but we live in times of terrorism and if this keeps us a little safer, I support it.” Americans are in love with the illusion of security and it looks like many are willing to sacrifice just about anything for that dream.
It’s been amazing watching the things Americans have been willing to put up with in this post-September 11 world. One French idiot tries to light a shoe bomb on fire, now we all have to take off our shoes before getting on a plane. What is this, a Japanese restaurant? If you want us to take off our shoes you could at least dress up the stewardesses as geishas, put some paper walls between first class and coach, and serve us some sushi. (Yes, I called ’em “stewardesses”. Not only is it a perfectly good word, it is the longest word you can type using only the home keys of one hand. Don’t ask how I know so much about one-handed typing.)
Oddly enough, however, smuggling bombs in your shoes is forbidden, but it’s still perfectly okay to bring matches and lighters. You’re not allowed to smoke or otherwise light any fires on planes (a rare, sensible airline rule), so why do you need fire starters? Because the tobacco lobby pushed Congress to remove matches and lighters from the forbidden items list so that flight-deprived smokers wouldn’t have to waste five minutes buying a new lighter to quell their nicotine fit once they land. It’s nice to know that Congress can’t be bothered with passing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, but they have plenty of time to protect tobacco company profits. Feeling any safer?
While you’re allowed to keep your lighters, you must surrender such potential weapons as toenail clippers and knitting needles. There must’ve been a foiled plot where the terrorists threatened the pilot with a pedicure and knitted slippers. The TSA officials would remind us that the 9/11 terrorists took down their planes with lowly box cutters. I say that the passengers thought the threat of being cut was enough to wait out the hijacking and landing. As the Pennsylvania flight proved, once the passengers knew they were doomed, box-cutters weren’t much of a weapon. Who thinks that now, after 9/11, a terrorist threatening a plane full of passengers with toenail clippers would last long enough to utter the second syllable of “Allah akbar!”
The other strange thing is the shortsightedness of the TSA in defining what a weapon is. Toenail clippers, knitting needles, and pocketknives are forbidden, but you’re allowed to bring on tube socks and soap. You put a few bars of Ivory into a long tube sock and you have an effective weapon. Canes, walking sticks, and other items that could be used as a staff are allowed, too. I can assure you that my former martial arts instructor could do more damage to you with an eighteen-inch stick than a team of al Qaeda could do with pocketknives. Wouldn’t we all be safer if passengers were just shackled to their seats on the plane? Then we’d be safe from the tube-sock wielding martial-artist terrorists, too.
You can’t even lock up your baggage anymore. You accept that federal screeners are going to be riffling through your luggage once it goes behind the wall. Thefts from passenger luggage have gone way up, but to be fair, we haven’t had any airplanes blowing up in mid-air. In addition, most screeners are incredibly professional. Very few of them are stealing stuff from your luggage or secretly getting off on touching or sniffing your boxer shorts or lingerie.
The latest solution for those of you worried about the security of your luggage is a new combination lock. This lock is special because it can be unlocked by a security key that only the baggage screeners will have. That key is specially guarded by magic spells to prevent it from being copied and distributed to criminals. A crack team of security hobgoblins and intelligence ogres will investigate any misuse of the special security key.
Yet while you and your luggage are undergoing such scrutiny, most of the things that get loaded into an airplane get no such attention. Only a tiny percentage of air cargo is screened in any way. You and your patted-down breasts, x-rayed shoes, and pawed-through luggage sit confident in the illusion of false security over a large cargo hold filled with potential bombs. Feeling safer yet?
All of this sacrifice just to enjoy the luxury of Mary-Kate-sized seats for our J-Lo-sized butts, horrible meals (if they are offered at all), and all the legroom a member of the Lollipop Guild could ask for. You put up with it all because you always have, because there’s no other way to travel 500 miles-per-hour. The airline industry and the government that coddles it know they can put you through anything, and not only will you continue to fly, you won’t even complain when your tax dollars are used to bail out whichever airline declares bankruptcy this month.
It’s gone far enough for me. I’ve known this airport security was a sham since the old days when they asked you the famous “three questions” – have you packed your own bags, have your bags been in your possession, have any unknown persons asked you to carry anything onboard? “Nah, I had Ahmed, this homeless guy I know, pack my luggage. He brought them here to the airport for me after he stopped by the mosque. Then somebody that no one knows” – isn’t everyone known by someone? – “gave me this ticking box to take on the plane.”
No, I never said that, only because I hate private interviews with jack-booted federal thugs. I could even make an allowance because even though a terrorist would lie when answering those questions, perhaps an alert ticket agent would sense a nervous man trying to lie. Then I checked in one time with an electronic ticket. Right there, on the screen where I had entered my name and flight number, was the question – “Have you packed your own bags?” – with a blinking YES and NO awaiting my keyboard response. Don’t you feel safer knowing that we expect terrorists to give truthful answers to a computer?
So no more airplanes for me. Unless there’s an emergency that requires me to fly, and in that case I’ll be the guy in line wearing nothing but a Speedo and checking no luggage. You’ll know for sure that I’m no terrorist (and no Speedo model, that’s for sure.) However, thanks to the metal pins in my foot, I’m still going to hold you up in the security line. Either that or I’m dressing up like Benjamin Franklin and (like the bass player from Spinal Tap) putting a foil-wrapped cucumber in my pants. You know, a cucumber in a tube sock makes one heck of a weapon…
What is it going to take for the rest of you? Strip searches? Body cavity searches? “Gigli” as the permanent in-flight movie? How much of the Fourth Amendment will you give up before you finally feel safe?
