The entire "airport search" issue is simply a Fear Inducer. It's purpose is to reinforce the main tenet of the Bush Reign of Terror, and that is we must all be very scared and only George W. Bush can protect us and for that we must sacrifice our freedom.
I'd really appreciate it if the next president would simply say "here's some Change for you, forget all this fear crap" and go back to normal pre 9/11 airline safety measures.
We know Bush was illegally spying on Americans well before 9/11, and yet the tyrannt is still in office.
Posted by Gay Veteran at May 22, 2008 11:40 AMactually, it is about making people feel safe when it is clear the dolts running things have no idea how to make us safe.
It is called distraction.
Posted by the young Judith at May 22, 2008 11:48 AMThe bush administration is testing the will of the American people to see just how far they can go in destroying our founding priciples. First it's travel, then communication, then intimidating an independent news source, then spying on Quakers, etc...Mark these words: The bush administration will not go quietly come January 2009. As much as Hillary Clinton is damaging the dems side, Bush will gem up some reason to stay in office. If he left, criminal war trials would begin almost immediately. He won't have that - he;s the king!
Posted by Fred at May 22, 2008 12:46 PMI just lost $70 worth of Kiehls products to airport security. But I feel safer.
Posted by Jim DeRosa at May 22, 2008 01:19 PM"If he left, criminal war trials would begin almost immediately..."
Yeah, right! On what planet?
Posted by Shirin at May 22, 2008 01:42 PMThank you...thank you for this post. I have to travel a lot and for the past few years while standing in line to take off my shoes, belt, watch, jacket, etc. I always blurt out, "Well, this is what happens when you have a moron for a president." When I first started this I was met with silence and a few hard stares from some of my fellow line mates. Today, people around me tend to nod their heads and comment that they can't wait till Bush is gone.
Posted by Johnny at May 22, 2008 01:51 PMIt seems American Airlines (of which I am a Frequent Flier member) has me tagged as of this year as some kind of would-be terrorist. At least that is the best explanation I can think of for the fact that on two out of two flights I took last month on their lovely airline they "selected" me as someone who needed extra scrutiny in order to board their lovely aircraft. It was designated on my boarding pass, so apparently I am on some kind of "terrorist watch" list.
So, here I am, a well-dressed, well-groomed, ordinary-looking person wearing tastefully, understatedly stylish western clothing having all my belongings taken to a special station for examination, and being led (shoeless, of course) to a roped off "corral", where I stand for a few minutes, enclosed on four sides. Then one side of the corral is opened and I am led to an enclosed clear Plexiglas box where I stand for another few minutes before I am led to the "examining station" (that's what I am calling it - no idea what THEY call it), told to place my feet on little foot markers on the floor, and given a thorough "pat down" in full public view (I thought they were supposed to do this in private). Then my bags are opened and they go over them inside and out with some cloth or paper thingies that I guess are supposed to detect explosive residue or something.
I am not easily intimidated by stupidity, so when I was standing in that silly corral, and later in that awful plexiglas box, and later on being subjected to further indignities, I was more pissed off than anything else. I didn't say anything though. After all, the people at the airport were just doing what they are required to do to collect what must be a very meagre paycheck, and their manner was as decent and professional as it could have been (the people in Chicago were friendlier than the ones in San Francisco - go figure).
Something tells me that this is going to be the story from now on whenever I fly until and unless someone puts a stop to this whole inane pretense at "security". Interestingly, the worst I have ever been subjected to when traveling into and out of a number of regimes ruled by "brutal dictators and extremists" is being harrassed by some baggage check guy or passport control officer in the hopes I will give them a bit of baksheesh to let me pass through (a guy HAS to make a living, after all). Sadly for them, they never manage to get any money out of me, except in one case when I knew my bags were overweight and it helped me to avoid paying even more in overweight charges.
Posted by Shirin at May 22, 2008 02:06 PMThose who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Cory Doctorow and the good folks at Boing Boing call this for what it is: Security Theater.
Then my bags are opened and they go over them inside and out with some cloth or paper thingies that I guess are supposed to detect explosive residue or something.
I'm waiting for a professional chemist to be subjected to this process.
Posted by idiosynchronic at May 22, 2008 03:17 PMexactly, paradox, exactly.
i can barely stand to go into an airport any more.
the last time i was at our airport with my wife, a very loud transportation security "official", read "cop" announced to all of us in line to take off our shoes, right then - not as we approached the scanner - but right then. my wife, knowing how i feel, grabbed my arm for support and started to take off her shoes. i followed suit, but i wanted to just walk away.
that kind of behavior is just unacceptable in this county.
at another time i wore shoes, scandals, which i thought were ok to leave on. i told the security folks that, they scanned me thru, and then they held me in a glass cage for about 10 minutes until someone came to let me out and check my sandals.
these transportation security folks really do have a comeuppance waiting for them once there is a new congress.
Posted by orionATL at May 22, 2008 03:27 PMBe sure not to miss the cover of this week's New Yorker.
It's particularly appropriate.
Posted by Radiowalla at May 22, 2008 04:15 PM"these transportation security folks really do have a comeuppance waiting for them once there is a new congress."
Boy, there are a lot of people here today who are dreaming! If you think "security" measures are going to be eased or even become any more sane with a new Congress, you are living on another planet. I would have thought liberals would have learned from the performance of the "new" Congress elected in 2004.
Just as Obama feels compelled to pretend, against every piece of actual evidence, that Iran is "intent on developing nuclear weapons", and poses a "grave threat", any new government, including the administration, and including the Congress, will feel compelled to be deeply "security conscious", and if anything will make up even more, even sillier and more demeaning requirements.
By the way, that "glass cage" you were placed in sounds just like the one I was placed in. Felt good, didn't it!
Posted by Shirin at May 22, 2008 04:21 PMObedience training.
Another American industry circling the drain thanks to its own greed and Cheneyfascism. I refuse to go near it.
The whole fucking thing deserves to collapse, and hopefully be rebuilt by grown-up humans.
Posted by Sharkbabe at May 22, 2008 05:12 PMWell, just what do you suggest we do about it? Change our minds about flying? Are we supposed to stage a revolt right there and refuse to take off our shoes? I don't particularly want to be put on the "No fly" list. That's why I don't travel with a copy of the Qu'ran. I hate the humiliation as much as anyone, but I wonder what the author of this post expects us to do about it.
Posted by D. Read at May 22, 2008 06:25 PMAs an airline pilot, I can say that it is even more insane than you make it out to be.
To those above, the airline I fly for is not responsible for the crap you go through. It is an absolute joke. I hate the crap, likely more than you, this fatal burden on the airline industry.
Just remember, a dictatorship really does need a lot of "obedient" people. Use of fear is an efficient way to ensure "obedience".
Posted by SkyHo at May 22, 2008 06:27 PMRemoving your shoes is bad, and removing anything "liquid" or "cream" is the worst! I remember buying a big bottle of water at an airport, to take with me on a long flight. I got to the connecting airport, had to go through another security line, and they confiscated it before I could even take a sip.
I really think it's a ruse to make people spend more money at the airport buying essentials they would otherwise get, cheaper, elsewhere.
Posted by wilder at May 22, 2008 07:52 PMMy frail, 86-year-old, recently widowed Mother, who had not flown for 25 years, was yelled at in the airport security line in Seattle (where I had been yelled at a couple of weeks before). She will never go to the airport again.
Posted by bob h at May 23, 2008 03:10 AMWho would have ever thought that the citizens of this Country would subject themselves to this type of humiliation. I no longer fly anywhere. My last flight from the Denver Airport was the last straw, as I watched the lines of robots doing what the masters said (including me).
Posted by Judith#1 at May 23, 2008 07:47 AMOK, all of you who are so self-righteous about this issue, how do YOU travel when you need to? Or do you have the luxury of being able to choose not to travel? Can you understand that not everyone has that luxury? Some people have to travel, and flying is the only reasonable way to get where they need to go. So they tolerate what they are required to tolerate in order to do what their lives require.
I, for one, can't figure out how to manage the kind of international traveling I do without flying. I use ground transportation when it makes sense time wise to do so, but it's awfully difficult and much too time consuming to move from one continent to another that way.
Posted by Shirin at May 23, 2008 10:09 AMI also have to fly for work. It's definitely security theatrics, not security. Most recently I inadvertently carried a small tool kit with disallowed stuff in my carry-on bag, but the X Ray Team never caught it.
I agree with many of the previous commenters. It's nothing other than a degradation ritual, formerly confined to contexts like fraternity hazing. We now have to be suitably abject before Government.
I think the notion that covers it best is what I would call slow-motion fascism. The Roberts Court will only extend the humiliation tactics using whatever cases it can. And the Democrats, as good corporate toadies, are just as supportive of it as are the Thugs.
Posted by baked potato at May 23, 2008 03:56 PMSo what are you going to do about it, remains the question. Hope that Obama changes the rules? Give the Airlines more carte blanche, aka "deregulation?"
Protest and get arrested and miss your flight and vacation and lose your job etc?
It isn't going to change unless pressure is put on the government to change it, so we need to go beyond documenting the atrocities to demanding solutions. Perhaps a mass refusal to comply at the airport some day, maybe an organized flight where everybody cn afford the hassle that day, instead of on the spur of the moment when it would really matter more.
Or perhaps we need a new Rosa Parks to make the case, I'm not putting up with this shit anymore.
Posted by Duckman GR at May 24, 2008 08:34 AM