Extra Ordinary Ideas

Air Sick

The Transportation Safety Administration has indeed become a monster, and I’m embarrassed that I didn’t do more to oppose its creation two years ago. I should’ve written an editorial. Or at least called my congresswoman. Instead I endure airport security once every month or two knowing that, to some small extent, it is my own fault.

Of course, many professions romanticized in the wake of September 11th were pretty self-important for a bit. Newly above reproach for poorly managed budgets and pushy unions, police and fire departments leveraged their status to secure pay hikes. In Seattle, allegations of police excesses were forgotten, because who could criticize brave men in uniform?

Even DC transit bureaucrats invoke patriotism to make their jobs easier. A poster in the subway states roughly, “Now more than ever, take your own d*** garbage off the train with you.” Not that a discarded cup or bottle looks so much like a suitcase bomb, of course, but city employees are way too important now for janitorial work.

Still, the airport safety attitude is by far the most insufferable. Air travel has not for some time been known for customer service. Flight attendants were well ahead of the game, reminding flyers even pre-9/11 that they “are here primarily for your safety,” and scolding us about frivolous use of our call buttons.

But the newly unfireable, militarized TSA authorities are the worst. The control freaks have taken over, and travelers are bullied with profound self-importance and little effort at civility. “Everyone empty your pockets now, and take those belts off. No, any belt! I don’t care,” the officers bark as I wonder when, exactly, I enlisted.

Retaliation is common against passengers who appear to resent the TSA’s interactive style. Even a request for clarification is a challenge worthy of punishment. At Boston Logan recently an officer “recommended” that we remove our shoes. Now, I happen to know that mine don’t beep. Still, his recommendations to those ahead of me were heeded, so I thought I’d double check. “So you’re just recommending the shoe thing?" I asked, “because mine don’t beep.”

“That’s right, you don’t have to take them off,” he answered. I stepped through silently. Please step over there for a personal inspection, and take your shoes off please,” the officer then announced victoriously. I wondered if this was on camera.

All of the above would be less galling if TSA employees were actually focused on finding weaponry. But instead they are focused on looking like they are looking. At National Airport I waited while an officer I can only hope was a rookie spent more than 20 minutes conducting an incompetent search of my carry-on that was intended to appear unimaginably thorough. He was so jazzed up – in the manner of a bomb squad on a deadline – that he missed obvious pockets even as he scrutinized the lining for suspicious lint.

The same fellow laid my suitcase on its side, placing an undue amount of weight on the curved handle. When I moved forward to retract the handle he put his hand on his gun and literally screamed at me to back off. These guys are terrorist-fighting Supermen, and they demand that you acknowledge it.

I’m relieved that the journalistic backlash has arrived, though sorry it must be led, as usual, by niche publications.

Posted by Marie Gryphon on January 15, 2004