As someone who spends a fair amount of time traveling the current "security threat" response has had me standing in pointless lines for people to sniff my shoes for explosives.
Almost nothing I see reassures me that I'm any safer flying - in fact, some of the things I see disturb me even more by their sheer hypocrisy - for instance watching an un-scanned, un-xrayed person with carry on luggage go in an exit gate at Seatac recently.
It seems I'm not alone... a recent piece on the NYTimes "The Airport Security Follies" pointed out some of the more obvious flaws and got a pretty positive reaction in the comments... but still politicians need to be seen to be doing something (so they go for obvious high profile stuff, rather than actually making a difference).
Six years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, airport security remains a theater of the absurd. The changes put in place following the September 11th catastrophe have been drastic, and largely of two kinds: those practical and effective, and those irrational, wasteful and pointless.
The first variety have taken place almost entirely behind the scenes. Explosives scanning for checked luggage, for instance, was long overdue and is perhaps the most welcome addition. Unfortunately, at concourse checkpoints all across America, the madness of passenger screening continues in plain view. It began with pat-downs and the senseless confiscation of pointy objects. Then came the mandatory shoe removal, followed in the summer of 2006 by the prohibition of liquids and gels. We can only imagine what is next.
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How we got to this point is an interesting study in reactionary politics, fear-mongering and a disconcerting willingness of the American public to accept almost anything in the name of “security.” Conned and frightened, our nation demands not actual security, but security spectacle. And although a reasonable percentage of passengers, along with most security experts, would concur such theater serves no useful purpose, there has been surprisingly little outrage. In that regard, maybe we’ve gotten exactly the system we deserve.
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