Ridiculous Airline Security Story N+1 and N+2...

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I wont bother trying to follow Rohit's entertaining writing...
I was also "randomly selected" on my last flight.
I was notified at the ticket counter of my special status.
They gave me a pink slip and marked my ticket.
They took my bag which was to be checked and sent
it to special xray machine, while i was supervised by a guard.
Once that passed, i went to the gate.  At the gate
i was called up, searched, bags opened, patted, touched
and a little embarassed.
It seems that if you are selected on your outbound leg,
you are also selected on your return leg.
I am a relatively young white guy.

I cant help think why i was selected.  I dont know if
i should beleive it, but i wonder if it had anything to
do with my getting upset at the security check on
my previous flight..
While going through the checkpoint on that flight,
i didnt lose my temper, but ended up being lectured..
Basically, as usual, i buzz the first detector.
Then I get the usual grope search.
They made me remove my shoes, wallet, belt
and made me push my pants a little down to
expose the underwear band, presumably
to see that there was no metal there.
They patted me down and all, sort of like usual these days.
I wonder if I can get a hand-job if I tell them
I have a metallic penis implant.


Once I had gotten dressed and put back together, I went
to the scanner to retreive my backpack and laptop.
Of course, since i had been gone so long, they had removed
it and put it in some secure area, not knowing who it
belonged to.  After a little bit, they came back with the bag
and laptop.  The lady then told me that they wanted to run it
through again, for reasons they didnt share.
Of course, under their supervision, they made me
walk the bag out to the front of the scanner and place
it on the belt for rescanning.
Once done, i was politely reminded that
since i had left the "secure area" i needed to be cleared
again.  Of course, i buzzed the stupid detector and had
to be sent to a secondary scan person.   This time,
i decided to grab my bag first, before they grope-searched me.
Well, it is loud and hard to hear in this particular space,
with lots of people moving around.
I stopped to get my bag, and mentioned this to the attendant.
Unfortunately, the person who was supposed to search me
when they yell "assist male blue shirt" or whatever, didnt like
this.  So, she starts telling me, apparently, to come to her.
I dont realize she is talking to me, as i am looking the
other way, trying to get my bag.
She progressively gets louder, until i turn to see where the
voice is coming from.  I notice that she
is talking to me, but SINCE SHE CANT FUCKING
SPEAK ENGLISH i cant understand what she wants.
I dont even know that she is the groper-to-be.
At this point, a numer of people are yelling at me
in mostly unintelligible strong accented english,
the policeman is moving toward me and the
national guard people appear to be moving
towards me as well.
Its kind of hard to explain the sort of
high anxiety moment, but basically,confused, irritated
and,impatient, I stop moving
and yell "speak clearly! what do you want?"
Im led away by some supervisor and the cop.
After a little warning about breaking security
laws or such, and a pretty condescending
talking to Im let go.
I was angry, but about to be late for my flight,
and figured that any protestations would surely
make me miss my flight and probably get myself
arrested.
I wonder if they took note or something.


as a side note.. I understand the security workers at SFO
are threatening a walk out because their panties
are in a twist over the federalization;  most
of them are no US citizens or residents which
disqualifies them apparently.
I dont know all the details, but basically i think that
citizenship tends to imply better english.  In this
regard, i think if you cant speak english clearly,
you have no business being in an authoritative
position where verbal commands and compliance
are extremely important....  Pound Sand!



----- Original Message -----
From: "Rohit Khare" <Rohit@KnowNow.com>
To: <FoRK@xent.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 10:44 PM
Subject: Ridiculous Airline Security Story N+1 and N+2...


> Executive Summary: I am near my limit of anger with the "random",
> "neutral" FAA passenger profiling algorithm. I have every reason to
> believe some programmer has coded some strictures into it which would
> truly offend American civil society if translated from mathematics
> back into the ugly politics from whence it came.
>
> Soon after my last installment, I had to turn back around and fly out
> of Denver. They made me X-ray my *shoes*... This time, the problem
> was *too much* time on their hands. The second story is how I missed
> the last flight back home on Thanksgiving eve because the security
> supervisor wouldn't show up to process me at the gate in time. That
> snowballed into a series of Catch-22 situations trying to find a lost
> pair of glasses along the way.
>
> First, Denver. A tip on avoiding the Disneyland-like lines at the two
> main X-ray posts -- even though, strictly speaking, that's an insult
> to Disneyland, since even they've instituted a take-a-number pass
> system for the most popular rides.
>
> Rather than take the train to one of the outlying concourses, ignore
> the main signage and *walk* to Terminal A over a bridge on the
> ticketing level. That's the X-ray post to Continental, British, etc.
> Much less popular, even though many a savvy traveler knew that was
> the way around United's silly carryon sizer templates (Contintental's
> machines don't use them). Then take the train to wherever you really
> need to get to.
>
> A co-worker and I arrived at DIA together, and I was able to purchase
> a new ticket, and even with the foolishness of fellow business
> travelers in stocking-feet waiting for their shoes back, I caught up
> with him in the same train car... he spent the entire time in United
> lines.
>
> Now, for the real outrage.
>
> Today, I was warned about massive Thanksgiving delays at Sea-Tac, so
> I cut short a beer with a buddy in Bellevue to race back two and a
> half hours in advance. I returned the car, picked up a boarding pass
> from a pliant robot kiosk, and got through security in a wink. Two
> hours in advance... no problem, right?
>
> Well, I was a selectee, presumably since it was a one-way ticket. So
> I sat through yet another embarassing tearing-apart of my bags, and
> this time they found a pocket screwdriver. A promotional pen-style
> screwdriver that I've had for ten years (it's a NeXT repair shop :-)
>
> 1. They think you are not allowed to board with a three-inch,
> 1/8-inch wide screwdriver.
>
> 2. You are not allowed to ask the aircrew to hold it for you on the
flight.
>
> 3. You are not allowed to leave the selectee table until a "GSC"
> supervisor comes to look it over.
>
> At this point, there's twenty minutes left.... tick-tock... now, the
> flight is almost completely boarded. You're still waiting. And now
> you suddenly realize you've lost your $400 prescription sunglasses.
>
> 4. You keep all your metal -- everything -- in your jacket at all
> times, so that you can x-ray a jacket rather than begin to empty out
> pockets. Your sunglasses have fallen out at some checkpoint.
>
> At this point, you start tracing back your steps. It's 7 minutes or
> so to push-back.
>
> 5. If you leave the selectee table, you will have to be searched all
> over again when you return to the gate
>
> 6. They do not have walkie-talkies to ask security if your glasses
> were stuck in the X-ray tunnel
>
> 7. See #3: You are not allowed to leave at all until the mythical GSC
arrives.
>
> Finally, a GSC arrives. Two minutes or so to departure, you haven't
> been given any chance to run down and solve the mystery.
>
> 8. The screwdriver must be confiscated or bags must be checked.
>
> 9. Just because you have been flying with it all week means nothing.
> "We're supposed to randomly change what the FAA is looking for every
> day". Parse that, if you dare!
>
> 10. Any carry-on bag may be gate-checked *except* those containing
> "forbidden carry-on items". Catch-22 #1.
>
> So now you're finally free to run back to the X-ray post and miss your
flight.
>
> 11. With about fifteen uniformed personnel of various stripes
> (National Guard, Argenbright, Alaska, and United), none of the first
> half-dozen people you ask claims to know about lost articles.
>
> 12. Before you can find a supervisor, the GSC has wandered back to
> warn them you are carrying a screwdriver.
>
> 13. So at this point, instead of any sympathy for a harried traveler
> asking for a supervisor, it's time for a lecture about "having
> committed two federal crimes, bringing a forbidden item into a
> screening area, lying about it to a ticket agent, two fines at
> $11,000 each" -- which they take the pompous time to warn you adds up
> to "a potential total fine of $22,000" since you're not paying enough
> attention to the supercillious bastard who won't admit to knowing who
> to ask about lost articles.
>
> Note that A) you are not allowed to leave your bags unaccompanied;
> and B) the only way for a solo traveler to speak to a security
> supervisor is to enter the screening area. Catch-22 #2.
>
> 14. Sufficiently alarmed, I am ordered to walk around, get back in
> line, and wait to be escorted back to the *front* of the metal
> detector to be handed my bags back.
>
> At this point, my interest is in going back to the Rental car desk
> and asking if I left the glasses there. At no point has anyone
> volunteered a back-up flight alternative for how I might every make
> it back to Northern California tonight.
>
> Ultimately, when rebooking my ticket for a later flight to SFO, I
> mention that I missed my flight because as a selectee, the personnel
> needed to inspect me were not available in time. I get snapped at for
> suggesting I was at all inconvenienced. And I'm marked as a selectee
> again.
>
> And when I finally wade through security for the fourth time, the
> same super is there to claim that the glasses must have been swept up
> to Port of Seattle Lost and Found. But that he doesn't know what
> their phone number is.
>
> 15. Seattle is the only airport in the world without white courtesy
> telephones :-)
>
> But while looking for those phones, the wandering GSC comes back
> around and huddles with the supervisor, staring at me. She's
> obviously asking him how I could have come back in without having
> checked my bag - and my dreaded screwdriver. Gingerly, they begin to
> follow me back out of the screening area. I decide to placate their
> fears that I got back through their infallible dragnet with
> contraband.
>
> "Oh, I mailed it to myself, first-class air-mail!"
>
> ...
>
> Clever solutions aside, the outcome of this story is that a very
> harried, very frequent traveling US citizen was at no point treated
> like an innocent person anxious to solve a problem. Instead, every
> contact is an opportunity to be treated like a suspect criminal. In
> three hours, I was patted down four times, had my bags X-rayed twice,
> hand-searched twice more, and went through metal detectors six times.
>
> The irony of it all is that the selectee program was created by the
> FAA for those passengers who choose NOT to provide photo
> identification as a matter of right.
>
> CAPPS, the Computer-Assisted Passenger Profiling System, deserves to
> be sued out of existence. I'm almost ready to join the ACLU. These
> so-called "confidential" criteria are not convincingly as neutral as
> the cheery pink "You have been randomly selected"! flyers in your
> ticket indicate. And the time-filling additional random searches by
> the gate security supervisor were even more visibly biased towards
> brown young men. Even one Army soldier on Thanksgiving leave.
>
> I am sick of being treated as guilty until proven innocent!
>
> Not least by such a patently fallible and placebo-driven security
> system... The Feds will be *such* an improvement. -- not!
>
> Yours,
>    Rohit
>
>
> http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork
>
>