Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Beware of Kindly Old Ladies in Sensible Shoes Who Hate America
There was an interesting column by Joe Sharkey in today's New York Times about airport security screening. Since two Russian planes were brought down last August by explosives believed to have been hidden in women's clothing, there have been more patdown searches of both men and women at U.S. airports, and more complaints from women about being patted down in an offensive manner. Sharkey's right, however, that even men can sometimes find the procedure offensive. Last year, a screener at the airport in Aspen, Colorado, got rather too intimate with my belt buckle while trying to figure out if it was setting off the metal detector. I suppose it's possible that some evil genius might figure a way to rig his belt buckle to explode. The trouble with such an explosion is that might not kill you--and it might injure you in such a way that you'd wish you were dead, if you get my drift. So I doubt it. (Before we left for DC last week, we heard that DC-area airports would be requiring people to remove sweaters and sweatshirts for screening if they were wearing shirts of any sort underneath--in essence, to partially strip--but they didn't.)
It's been nearly three years now since the immortal Shoe Bomber, Richard Reid, tried to light his tennies aboard a plane, but his legacy lives on every time a passenger has to remove his or her shoes while going through security. "Well, jeez, one guy tried to put a bomb in his shoe, so we'd better check all shoes now." (Thank goodness Reid didn't try to light his shorts.) As Sharkey notes, what makes the shoe screening requirement especially maddening is the inconsistency with which it's applied. Sometimes just putting your foot on the magic box is enough, but sometimes you have to take your shoes off and run them through the X-ray machine along with your comb and your hat. I once heard a screener tell a fellow passenger that if you had to take your shoes off, it meant there was some indeterminate increase in the level of threat. Well, maybe--but my experience has been that if the airport is really crowded, I'm going to have to take my shoes off, period. Maybe they think it'll make it harder for an evildoer to run.
I do my best to tolerate the screening procedure at the airport, but I'd sure like to know how effective it is, really. How many evildoers have actually been caught? How many nefarious acts have been prevented? We'll never know, of course, because that's classified, and there's a good argument that if we prevent one terrorist attack, whatever we spend is worth it. But given the widely reported shortcomings in security at ports, railways, and chemical plants, wouldn't some of the money we spend making sure somebody's grandma won't blow up a flight from Minneapolis to Bemidji be better spent on that?
Recommended Reading: You've probably heard about the giant NBA brawl on November 19, which involved players going into the stands to fight with fans. (A former radio colleague of mine, now the play-by-play broadcaster for the Indiana Pacers, was injured by a flying player.) I don't know if it was the worst thing ever to happen in pro sports--after all, soccer players in South America have been murdered for losing games. I do know that while it was shocking, it wasn't surprising. The game has adopted a hip-hop vibe over the last several years, and because violence is undeniably a part of that vibe, an incident like the one in Detroit was bound to happen eventually. The NBA has steadfastly denied this problem with its image, but the brawl may finally force the league out of denial. A lot of the commentary on the incident focused on whether it was symptomatic of broader problems in society. Jarrett Murphy of the Village Voice found--surprise!--that mainstream media outlets indeed found signs of moral rot in the incident. Murphy wonders why they have yet to apply a similar moral-value lens to, for example, the war in Iraq. Good question.
There was an interesting column by Joe Sharkey in today's New York Times about airport security screening. Since two Russian planes were brought down last August by explosives believed to have been hidden in women's clothing, there have been more patdown searches of both men and women at U.S. airports, and more complaints from women about being patted down in an offensive manner. Sharkey's right, however, that even men can sometimes find the procedure offensive. Last year, a screener at the airport in Aspen, Colorado, got rather too intimate with my belt buckle while trying to figure out if it was setting off the metal detector. I suppose it's possible that some evil genius might figure a way to rig his belt buckle to explode. The trouble with such an explosion is that might not kill you--and it might injure you in such a way that you'd wish you were dead, if you get my drift. So I doubt it. (Before we left for DC last week, we heard that DC-area airports would be requiring people to remove sweaters and sweatshirts for screening if they were wearing shirts of any sort underneath--in essence, to partially strip--but they didn't.)
It's been nearly three years now since the immortal Shoe Bomber, Richard Reid, tried to light his tennies aboard a plane, but his legacy lives on every time a passenger has to remove his or her shoes while going through security. "Well, jeez, one guy tried to put a bomb in his shoe, so we'd better check all shoes now." (Thank goodness Reid didn't try to light his shorts.) As Sharkey notes, what makes the shoe screening requirement especially maddening is the inconsistency with which it's applied. Sometimes just putting your foot on the magic box is enough, but sometimes you have to take your shoes off and run them through the X-ray machine along with your comb and your hat. I once heard a screener tell a fellow passenger that if you had to take your shoes off, it meant there was some indeterminate increase in the level of threat. Well, maybe--but my experience has been that if the airport is really crowded, I'm going to have to take my shoes off, period. Maybe they think it'll make it harder for an evildoer to run.
I do my best to tolerate the screening procedure at the airport, but I'd sure like to know how effective it is, really. How many evildoers have actually been caught? How many nefarious acts have been prevented? We'll never know, of course, because that's classified, and there's a good argument that if we prevent one terrorist attack, whatever we spend is worth it. But given the widely reported shortcomings in security at ports, railways, and chemical plants, wouldn't some of the money we spend making sure somebody's grandma won't blow up a flight from Minneapolis to Bemidji be better spent on that?
Recommended Reading: You've probably heard about the giant NBA brawl on November 19, which involved players going into the stands to fight with fans. (A former radio colleague of mine, now the play-by-play broadcaster for the Indiana Pacers, was injured by a flying player.) I don't know if it was the worst thing ever to happen in pro sports--after all, soccer players in South America have been murdered for losing games. I do know that while it was shocking, it wasn't surprising. The game has adopted a hip-hop vibe over the last several years, and because violence is undeniably a part of that vibe, an incident like the one in Detroit was bound to happen eventually. The NBA has steadfastly denied this problem with its image, but the brawl may finally force the league out of denial. A lot of the commentary on the incident focused on whether it was symptomatic of broader problems in society. Jarrett Murphy of the Village Voice found--surprise!--that mainstream media outlets indeed found signs of moral rot in the incident. Murphy wonders why they have yet to apply a similar moral-value lens to, for example, the war in Iraq. Good question.
