This became obvious last Christmas, when the airline staff member at the check-in counter swiped my passport through the reader as part of the check-in process - and didn't quite manage to hide her reaction to what she read on her monitor. But I'd already decided that I was on a list, because I'd been picked for the "random" extra security search every single time I'd passed through a US airport in the previous year or two.

But only US airports. Apparently they're either not sharing that list with other governments, or other governments think the list is a useless waste of time.

(Now wondering whether I've got myself bumped up to a higher priority "make trouble for troublemakers" list...)

Maybe MT is messing something up. Similar thing happened in one of JVP's comments in Open Thread 28.

I wonder if buying his book would get you on a no-fly list. Not that I would discourage anyone from doing so, I'd just suggest buying it in person, with cash, and without using your frequent buyer's club card. ;-)

It's a scary turn we've come to, though, when you can legitimately worry about what books you buy in this country. And sadly, not the first time I've heard that said or thought it myself.

"Calm as Hindu cows."

Well, it's possible that we're dealing with people who have tasted a little power for once in their lives and are drunk with the possibilities to get even for every slight and wrong they've ever suffered, real or imaginary. In fact, it's more than likely that quite a few fall into this group. However, I suspect others [especially the regular airline employees] have decided that the procedures are every bit as stupid and fallible as we think they are, and are enforcing them to the letter and beyond, in the hope that enough people will complain, and things will get changed. If they've been able to catch the attention of congressmen and senators with this ploy, they're succeeding. I may be too optimistic; it's easy to see how the security jobs would attract petty assholes looking for a chance to play the bully and get a paycheck, few of whom are bright enough to consider whether these policies are productive or not.

The FBI has not been here
(watch very closely for the dissappearance of this sign)

So there I am, two weeks ago, standing in front of the ticket counter with the poor deploying senior NCO and her locked Pelican case complete with M16A2. The counter boy announces to her that she will have to unlock the gun case and send it to the back for "inspection." Normally, I fill in for the passenger and escort the case to the back and unlock it, then relock it after it has been 'checked' (for cooties, I suspect, but I digress). However, Counter Boy announced that NEITHER of us were allowed to accompany the gun, and that the case MUST be unlocked.

Well, I didn't get an arm full of stripes by being unprepared to do deal with ignorance, apathy, and general ill will (I've been stationed on Navy bases, after all). I had issued my traveler my "Flying With Guns FAQ", which...oddly enough...has printouts of all the applicable regulations. The same ones that My Hero Jeff OTMG referenced in this very thread.

Counter Boy didn't believe the printouts, and had to get his supervisor. Wow. Double the ignorance, double the fun. After Counter Boy told me to "quit arguing", and I informed him that I was stating facts, not arguing...since arguing with an idiot just annoys you and confuses the idiot (that one made a cute 'whoosh' noise as it went over Counter Boy's pointy head, although his boss wasn't amused)...things got more interesting.

Counter Boy finally ran off and found the head TSA agent assigned to the spacious San Angelo Hair Care, Tire Sales, Chinese Restaurant, and Airport. Said agent read the regulations, announced that "...my regulations are classified" (which amused me, since I had his regs printed out, and carry a higher security clearance than most folks know even exist), and then said that "...no case would be locked in MY airport."

I, in my polite and calm fashion, honed from years of dealing with Airman...and Marines...offered to show him the Hooked on Phonics section the local library...and further offered to help him sound out the larger words as he worked through the lessons.

"Whoosh"

And this level of ignorance is when dealing with a uniformed and armed member of the citizenry. I shudder to think how they abuse citizens on a regular basis.

FWIW, I was finally allowed to carry the case back to the inspection section, unlock it for inspection, and relock it afterwards. Which I had done eight times in the last six weeks...at that same Airport. Note to travelers: don't even bother locking the cheap gun cases with the integral locks. At the San Angelo Tire Ca...well, you know what it is...Airport, one of the TSA agents has his own personal set of keys that will open most standard cases. He thinks it is funny that folks rely on standard locks. If a guy at an airport this small has keys like that, I suspect that every airport on the face of the planet is the same way or worse...

Alex

On one recent trip, a security guard asked him: "are they loaded?"

"They are swords, not guns," said my cousin.

"Okay, but are they loaded?"

This went on in a "Who's On First" way for several rounds. Finally my cousin gritted his teeth and said "No, they're not loaded."

"That's all I needed to know," said the guard, and waved him through.

Feeling safer yet?

But at least the wand picks up the titanium!

Jane

I've definitely noticed this. The real short fuses and control-freaks now have the cover of national security to pursue their quest to hold unspeakable power and threat over someone else.

Most of them are nice enough I guess, but the outliers now seem to make no effort. It almost takes the edge off my sympathy for near industry-wide job losses and pay cuts. If I'm not alone in this, maybe the industry should consider that in addition to being scared and broke, people may not be flying as much because they know there's no recourse if they get stuck with the most insufferable of customer 'service' at random.

How many cops enforce laws they disagree with? (Hell, it's a requirement of the job that they do so)

How many jurors convict on laws they think are unjust? (Again, they're frequently told it's a requirement that they do so, although it is patently not)

How many people obey laws they don't agree with, or oppose (f'r example) recreational drug use, simply on the grounds that "it's illegal"? (I've run into many of these, who don't see anything morally or socially wrong with smoking a joint, but still think it's wrong to do it simply because of the illegality of it)

Most people will obey even utterly ridiculous laws simply because they exist, and because they have some sort of knee-jerk trust in/obedience to authority that compels them to accept all sorts of things they would never go for under normal circumstances.

http://marykay.typepad.com/gallimaufry/2004/07/its_gotten_even.html

As you know, Bob, we travel a lot. A Lot. Every time I go through security something is different; something has changed. It's also different at different airports. Apparently not all of them get identical information/instructions. I never know what it's going to be like except that it will be unpleasant. It raises my blood pressure every single time. I've finally figured out ways to avoid setting off the metal detectors, but I resent having to choose which shoes and which bra I put on based on whether I'm flying that day.

And yeah, they do indulge themselves in power trips. See my stories.

MKK

The third country was a rather different experience. I was screamed at [in a language that resembled english], told that I couldn't keep in contact [even visual] with my belongings, underwent a variety of inappropriate comments, and was told that it was "for my own good" - and delayed significantly.

I have had good experiences in the third country - but they've been badly coloured by the less than stellar happenings.

I do empathize with MKK about chosing what to wear - I travel in business casual these days, and it's dramatically reduced the number of times that I'm pulled over for secondary search.

The searches have become longer and more detailed. At one point, while waiting on a long line (the lines have become longer) someone suggested to me that I was being profiled because of a long beard, which he said was reminiscent of Bin Laden. [footnote: David Letterman suggested that Bin Laden would make a good President of the United States, because then we would have a President who knew where Bin Laden was]. So I shaved off my beard. For a while, the searches became shorter.

Later, my beard partially regrown vandykishly, I was on one of those long lines, and chatted with the attorney behind me. "They stop you so often because of the metal detectors," he said. "It's the silver in your hair."

This is the kind of culture that can slide into doing torture just because someone is in jail. The more sadistic cousins of these creeps man the worst of the jails. All foreigners, moreover, are guilty by reason of extraterritoriality.

FWIW, the only time I've had an issue with airport security was the time I accidentally took my car mug with me on a business trip to Seattle. It's one of those stainless-steel cylinders. I didn't check my bags, and discovered it in my backpack when I got to my hotel.

On the way home, the security people at Sea-Tac absolutely flipped out when they saw it in the x-ray. They made me take it out of my bag, but then curiously wouldn't let me open it to show them that all it contained was a couple of paper towels I had stuffed into it after I rinsed it.

We wound up adjourning to a small room, where I had an unpleasant discussion with a very angry uniformed woman. I let her scream at me and threaten to subject me to a strip search and bar me from flying for life for about fifteen minutes, and then was allowed to go on my way.

No problems at Sea-Tac or anywhere else (here or abroad) since.

Yep. Petty tyrants. But mostly smiling and making small talk seems to get me through security unhassled.

Well, thinking back, when I was 13 or so, I flew to Florida with a big bag of Brooklyn bagels and bialys. The X-ray folks were concerned, and then laughed when they opened the bag.

"Outside of New York City, the bialy is little known. Bialys came to the United States from Bialystok, Poland, and they are sometimes known as Bialystok kuchen. In the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews immigrated to American and settled in New York City. They brought with them their taste and recipes for bialys. While there were once dozens of bialy bakeries in New York, the number can now be counted on one hand. Bialys have long been a staple in New York delicatessens and a favorite of the Jewish community. True bialy lovers know where the best bakeries are. In fact, Manhattan's Lower East Side is lovingly called Bialy Central.'"

"A bialy is similar to a bagel, in that it is a round, chewy roll. But it is unlike a bagel in three important ways: One, it does not have a hole in the middle, but a depression; two, bialys never became popular outside of New York City; and three, bagels are boiled and bialys are baked. The indentation in the middle of the dough is filled with onion, garlic, or poppy seeds. Because the bialy has a very short shelf like, about 6 hours, they do not lend to being shipped around the country. They can be modest in size, 3 to 4 inches, or the size of a small pizza. Similar to the bialy is the onion pletzel and the onion board, popular Jewish breads from other countries."

In my old neighborhood, there were two bagel shops, directly across the street from each other. One had good bagels, the other, good bialys. Throw in some nice Nova, some cream cheese, sliced Bermuda onions and maybe a slice of tomato, and a fine brunch was at hand.

My own airport security story is far less outrageous than some told here, although just as ridiculous.

Julie and I were traveling from Columbus back home to San Diego, and she bought a fruit smoothie before we got on line for the gate. The smoothie came in a transparent plastic cup. She was told she could not go through the security gate with a transparent plastic cup, only opaque cups were allowed.

We argued that the regulation made no sense. Barr cups was silly, but preferring opaque cups to transparent ones was particularly silly. At least with a transparent cup you can see, well, whatever paranoid fantasy object you're afraid of.

So Julie ended up drinking the smoothie fast and getting an ice cream headache. And so the terrorists won that day.

Of course, the Peets (only Peets I know of in NY, BTW) by the gates in the United terminal at JFK will happily sell you an iced coffee in one of those oh-so-dangerous clear cups which you can then carry directly onto the plane.

As I said, I can see some logic to banning opaque cups, because things can be hidden in them. But a transparent cup is much harder to hide things in, you have to sort of suspend the object-to-be-hidden in the liquid to keep it from being spotted.

So, why hasn't Starbuck's come up with special airport-only foam cups to keep from annoying their customers?

That would be because T Heinz, the infamous "Ketchup Bomber," always carries a clear plastic cup onto planes she intends to bomb. It's common knowledge among conjurors that a clear plastic cup can distract an audience for a crucial 13/67 of a second. Heinz's documented use of the cup to direct attention away from her deadly plastique ketchup bottle led the TSA the security trolls to wise up, and now we're stuck with the consequences.

Most people will obey even utterly ridiculous laws simply because they exist, and because they have some sort of knee-jerk trust in/obedience to authority that compels them to accept all sorts of things they would never go for under normal circumstances.

Most laws, rational or not, carry some kind of penalty for violation. While I have no doubt that some people who indulge in recrational drugs (of whatever kind) think it's "wrong simply because of the illegality," many have a perfectly rational fear of losing their jobs or worse if they are caught doing it. I would hope that there's some kind of disciplinary procedure for a security employee who exceeds authority, but the rules are so vaguely worded that it's hard to know where that point lies (a point Bruce has made many times).

And having people obey laws they disagree with is fundamental to the concept of the rule of law. There are folks who really don't believe that beating their kids to death, or torching the house of a new neighbor who happens to be the wrong [fill in the blank], or stealing cash, property, or elections are "wrong;" the threat of punishment deters them, sometimes. (I know there are other forms of deterrence, and none of them works perfectly, but I don't think that's part of this particular issue.)

The boarding-security problem involves an attempt to apply a rigid ruleset to an extremely fluid question -- who and what constitute a genuine threat? The number of genuine threats is extremely small, but the penalty for failure is high. Passenger flow can only be restricted so much, or the entire complex system breaks down. (Someone who wanted to make a particular kind of statement could generate a very large number of false alerts, possibly shutting down air travel entirely for a few hours, and kill nobody, except perhaps a liver patient waiting for a transplant.)

And no, I'm certainly not letting TSA off the hook; I've been complaining about the ineptitude of US air security for almost twenty years now. The Europeans are (almost) uniformly polite, and always have been, and they've been at it longer and with considerable success. I would be surprised if this is due to some inherent cross-pond niceness; I suspect an element of accountability is involved.

I almost never have any of the problems cited here--but then again, I almost always fly showered, clean-shaven and with a business casual clothes and haircut. Of course, looking over 9/11 videos, I seem to recall that terrorists do the same.

"I have an artificial knee."

"Pass through."

Alarms.

"Ma'am, come this way."

"Of course."

"Please sit here. Now lift your leg out" Wands leg. Knee sets off alarm. "I'll have to pat your knee down."

"I'd be very happy to lift my pantleg to show you the knee."

"NO! Don't do that!"

There are two kinds of people: those who want to see the scar, and those who really don't. My doctor told me not to even bother with the card -- airport security pays no attention to them, and rightly so.

TSA-the only time I was ever second-searched, I was coming home from the San Diego Smofcon with a hat I bought at the zoo. Both getting on and at the transfer in, I think, Denver, I got second-searched at the gate before boarding (we didn't go out of the gate areas).

They never want to see my wallet card, either, and they always scan me from head to toe. Fortunately, no one's ever asked to see the scar, because I'd have to take my pants off.

When I used to use metal crutches, they would have me walk through with the crutches. Then they'd wand me, then they'd let me sit down while they sent the crutches through the X-ray. It was pretty time-consuming, but otherwise a reasonable process.

The fight with crutches was always convincing the flight attendants to leave them with me at my seat. "If anything happens, they can't be in the way," they would say. "If anything happens, I'm going to need them," I would tell them. "I'm not risking my life on the assumption that you would remember to get them back to me in an emergency."

I always won.

The one time I flew internally in the EU (connecting to Frankfurt via SAS's Copenhagen hub) I was very surprised that I wasn't asked for ID anywhere, except at the check-in counter. Not at security, even though the policy was "ticketed passengers only" and not at the gate.

And EU entry had me all confused. My passport was stamped in Denmark, and when I arrived in Frankfurt, there was no way for German customs to tell EU passengers from non-EU passengers, thus making clearing customs a bit of a joke.

Then again, both Copenhagen and Frankfurt airports had a lot more eyes-in-the-sky than I've seen here, so I guess security is more centralized. And yes, everyone was very nice, especially when I used my bad German on them.

My brother has a steel plate in his head (only medical thing ever wrong with him and it came from falling and hitting his head) and he's having trouble going through security, too. They're hoping things will calm down before they come back from Taiwan.

Then she got to my computer bag, and looked confused by my snowy white iBook. At this point, I got the attention of another person (who did speak English) and pointed out I was concerned that she was going to wreck my electronics. He took over the search from there, and my laptop was unscathed, but it was traumatic.

On the way back, the newly-minted TSA whizzed us through BWI security, apologized very politely to John when he had to have a secondary wand search, and seemed very proud of their role. It's too bad all that shiny-new pride in a job well done has tarnished into bitter insistence on double or triple-checking to see if you have your boarding pass and freaking out over items from the Levenger catalog.

This is very simple, and amazingly useful for people who can't walk comfortably without a cane, which is quite a few people, including me.

"I almost never have any of the problems cited here--but then again, I almost always fly showered, clean-shaven and with a business casual clothes and haircut."

Speaking of which, I just saw Mitch's photo in the latest SFWA BULLETIN, and was taken aback. For some reason, I had always envisioned the online "Mitch Wagner" as being a fairly stocky, dark curly-haired, bearded fellow. Not so, apparently.

The last time my wife Hilde flew was before 9/11. If she flew nowadays, what with the artifical knees, hips, shoulders, elbows and neck, she'd almost certainly be taken aside for wanding.

(I don't know if Hilde would make the Guinness book for most-joint-replacement-surgeries, but considering that some of the current replacements are replacements for replacements that wore out after a few decades, she'd be a definite contender. One of those achievements she would be happier not to have had to be eligible for in the first place.)

Two years before September 11th: I went through SFO wearing black vinyl pants, velvet tank top, black leather jacket painted with NIN logos and skeletal dragons, and a pair of handcuffs attached to said vinyl pants. Oh, and I had blue hair. The security guards said, "Cool jacket!" (The handcuffs were illegal to carry on, even then. But nobody stopped me.)

Now: Innocuous T-shirt and black slacks and shoes I can take off super quick. And I get searched all the time. (I don't mind it though--I'm not like the daft woman in the search line ahead of me who was complaining at the top of her lungs about how there were "no women terrorists".)

I used to be fat--as a matter of fact, that picture was taken at my peak weight, I weigh something like 45 pounds less now. So you could describe me, now as "stocky" or "stout"--words I prefer--or "pudgy" or "plump."

And I used to have a thick head of brown, curly hair, and a ponytail. But, alas, my hair started to thin. Very few guys look good with long, thinning hair. I am not one of them. So I went for Preemptive Baldness, not shaving my head but going in for the number-two-clipper-all-over-look.

I did seriously consider shaving my head. Funny thing: back when Soren de Selby shaved his--which was when I had hair down to mid-shoulderblades--I thought the decision was REALLY REALLY PECULIAR. Now, it's a mainstream fashion choice.

And I had a beard in the early 90s. It didn't look good, though. Elegant women of my acquaintance convinced me that long hair AND a beard was Too Much Hair; I needed to pick one or another.

Unfortunately, that's never followed up with: "I knew you were witting and charming, but I never imagined what a good-looking fellow you are!'

This is a trivial problem compared to the difficulties other people have reported - a friend who works for British Airways says that Muslim employees are regularly refusing to fly into the US any more because of the way they're treated on arrival - but it's one thing I will not miss about not going to the US any more.

In five years, your "photo ID" will have to include your LiveJournal icon. This may actually improve its utility as a security device.

Your Wile E. Coyote morphing back and forth into Bruce Dern animated LiveJournal icon has been suspended due to a properly formatted complaint regarding possible copyright violation. Your passport/photoID has likewise been suspended. Please feel free to email your planned schedule for correcting the intellectual property dispute. Until then, your account and citizenship have been temporariliy suspended. Please enjoy the attached animated President Ashcroft icon. This was posted while listening to the new song "Liberty?" by Viola and the Terrorists. Thank you.

-- LiveJournal/Homeland Security Support Team

For those who don't know what a Pocket Rocket is, it is a very tiny massage device that is remarkably powerful for something that runs off a single AA cell. The manufacturer describes it as a pocket-sized massage device suitable for taking to the gym, and handy for massaging sore muscles while out and about. This is in fact exactly what I bought it for, and why it's in my handbag when I get on a plane - a few years ago I had the interesting experience of flying from London to San Francisco in economy class a day or two after I'd pulled my neck and shoulder (again), and had no intention of getting on the return flight without something to massage my shoulder with. But it does, of course, look like something sold by the sort of shop I did in fact buy it from. :-)

*scampers off to get patent*

If you're carrying more than the usual duty-free allowance, you may want to make sure you check a bag so you have evidence of an intra-EU trip.

John M., another point is that outside of the big hubs (and even at some of them), security in European airports is often very close to the gate. In Berlin (Tegel), for example, you check in at the gate and immediately go through security. The airport has invested in lots of machines so that lines stay very short. This is obviously harder to manage in places where there are a lot of transfers, but otherwise a good solution.

You clear immigration at the first stop within the Schengen zone, but wait to clear customs at the last stop. (Otherwise, it'd be like the USA, where you have to claim your bags, clear customs, and then put your bags back into the system at a transfer desk.)

An illustrative example:

When flying from Boston to Munich via Paris, we got off the plane, cleared Schengen immigration, then had the choice of heading for baggage claim and customs, or going through a security check and entering the Schengen area at CDG. As it turned out, our original flight to MUC was cancelled, so we went out through customs (without our checked bags, and without being stopped), got the details on our rebooking from the service desk, had some food, went through security, and waited in the lounge (since we'd come in on the transatlantic flight in business class).

When we reached MUC, we were stopped by German customs, even though we had already entered the Schengen zone; our checked bags didn't have the green stripe tags. It was a fairly short stop, though, once we figured out what the guy was asking and he switched to English instead of exercising my very minimal German (which is even more minimal after a long night and day of travel).

(I'll refrain from explaining the rules on getting a Schengen visa for those who need visas; this comment is already too long.)

Then there's the special situation of the UK and Ireland, which are outside Schengen but have their own common travel area.

And, yes, there is a watch list for Schengen entry, though I certainly hope that it's better implemented than the US "no-fly" list has been.

I imagine they'll ban paper soon. Y'know, 'cause of paper cuts. Those buggers can be nasty!

This brilliant policy mitigates that risk.

When General Ashcroft arrives at the pearly gates of heaven, I hope that Saint Peter points to the sign with the color code for Threat Level of attack from Hell, shrugs, and pulls the lever to the trap door...

Feeling safer yet?

The second time was when my flight got rebooked on a different airline and I had to go through the full search because of that-- must look like a one-way ticket on the screens. And I once had to get one bag searched when the screener got nervous about my metal hard-shell glasses case I carry. (I come from a family that's managed to run glasses over with desk chairs and cars, as well as drop them from a (small) airplane during takeoff. I take no chances.)

But overall, my experiences haven't been bad-- due in large part, I suspect, to the fact that my name isn't on any watch lists. (I'm scared to think what my job, which involves a great deal of travel, would be like if I were.) Security screeners are almost always nice to me-- but then, I look significantly younger than I am, and I try to look even younger when I fly, and ever-so-slightly clueless. In my experience clean-cut all-American female teenager types generally don't get hassled.

Of course, having said this, I'll be two hours in Security full search tomorrow and miss my flight....

Surely Ted/dy is short for Edward (like our Ned Kelly, who has a folk song about him called My Name is Edward Kelly)? So is it not likely that on a ticket or passenger list he would be down as "E Kennedy"?

Just had to say that. Please resume usual transmission now.

Sophisticated new computer programs will immediately alert the police whenever anyone viewed by any of the cameras placed at buildings and other structures considered terrorist targets wanders aimlessly in circles, lingers outside a public building, pulls a car onto the shoulder of a highway, or leaves a package and walks away from it. Images of those people will be highlighted in color at the city's central monitoring station, allowing dispatchers to send police officers to the scene immediately.

In other words, if you get on the bad-people list, you can be constantly harassed by the police. This also strikes me as a first-rate way to do racial profiling.

Run for the hills! Someone is early!

Sheesh.

Surely Ted/dy is short for Edward (like our Ned Kelly, who has a folk song about him called My Name is Edward Kelly)? So is it not likely that on a ticket or passenger list he would be down as "E Kennedy"?

Actually, "Ted" is usually short for "Theodore", at least in my experience

"Blessed are They who go around in circles, for They shall be known as Wheels."
-- Anonymous Rotary club member

This apparently wasn't a false hit -- Cat Stevens really is on the Watch List.

I know that I'm feeling safer by the minute.

And for Democrats remember George McGovern's statement that his government put him into a bomb laden B24 quicker than it trusted him to fly commercial.

The common quip is that both these men had flight training and had expressed differences with the American government in the past.