From that piece: We know the terrorists are Moslem males, but act as if we didn’t.
Just flew from the east coast to the west, and saw precisely what everyone has been complaining about, the oddest people being taken out to the line to be closely searched, along with their luggage. The (blond) young mother of a tiny, fussing infant; an old man who complained almost tearily that this was the second time in a row he'd been selected; a genteel, elderly suburban lady who insisted her husband accompany her while she and her bag were led off for some special search. I saw more women being "randomly" selected than men. Most democratic, most insane. "Randomness" as the selection method is insane, given the circumstances. Let's hope they secretly pay extra attention to young Arab-looking males with one way tickets. This was on the trip back.
On the trip out, at the local airport, the security was much stricter: everyone was closely searched, an actual body-search, almost, but publicly. Personally, I found it reassuring. First they ran the wand over you, touching, missing no loci, and it was tuned to pick up everything metal however small. Then they did a pat down. I had read something someplace about some Hollywood starlet making a big fuss, complaining that her breasts had been touched, and I had sort of doubted that it had happened when I read it, but sure enough, they did that, though tactfully, I thought-- it was by a female, of course, who was supposedly feeling the top and bottom of your bra (the little metal part on the strap sets off the alarm, giving them an excuse; I was asked if there was an underwire as though that had signalled, too, but I hadn't heard any signal there, and there was no underwire) but the interesting thing was that after feeling the little metal bra strap clip, the woman turned her hands so the backs of her fingers were over your breasts, and lightly dragged them down, touching your breasts definitively but as though merely inadvertently on-the-way-to-checking-out the bottom of your bra--firmly enough so that if you were carrying something unusual and dangerous there (a couple of lumps of plastic explosive?) she would have felt it. I can see why it had to be done in public. Accusations of impropriety could be made.
I watched the scene for a while after I'd had my search (it was an eerily silent scene), and saw that the women who followed me seemed to be more embarrassed than I had been. Some blushed furiously. (The startling intimacy of the search had made me start laughing; I said to the woman patting me down, "I feel we're bonding," and to the assembled audience, "She and I are in love," which got a general laugh, but an uneasy, almost shocked one, except from the patting-down woman, who did laugh for real, and of course from N.) It's possible that if I'd been traveling alone I would have been more embarrassed, it occurs to me; or if I'd been in a less jolly mood setting off on a trip, so less able to handle it blithely. I think there was a constructive group conspiracy going on to pretend that this process was less invasive and surprising than it was. It was being handled sensibly in this way, I thought. Though the pretense wasn't sufficient to prevent an audience of fascinated males from clustering around to watch the blushing females get patted down.
Oh, I forgot: I was asked to pull out the front of my jeans and her hand went down there, too, as she peered in. No touching, just a sideways wave of the hand and a peek. The zipper on my jeans had set off the wand.
After that, some people, not including me but including N, got their carryons and shoes wiped with a little round wet-wipe sort of thing, which was then subjected to a test by some sort of machine, presumably to detect explosives-residue. Also, N had to take off his shoes and have them ex-rayed.
It was a very different way to travel than any I'd experienced before. I was once body-searched in Zambia, and thought how weird and third world it was; this was similar, except in Zambia it was done behind a curtain and there was no electronic helper, just a groping female employee. I think she was looking for ivory.
I am not complaining at all, just still sort of adjusting to the change in the world since my last flight. |
