Blogging

[teddywolf]

Last night at a large dinner out I was chatting with a number of people. The lady across the table from me mentioned recently returning from vacation overseas, in Germany. I has started the opening part of some news about cargo not being well-inspected, asking, "You know how the airlines keep losing checked luggage, so people keep bringing carry-ons? You know how we have to get inspected?"

She shuddered. "I had to get inspected on my way back from Germany. The security person grabbed my genitalia."

To sum up what she had to experience, the person grabbed her breasts and her crotch while performing the fairly invasive fully-clothed personal search. When she protested the rough handling she was receiving she was prevented from setting foot on her return flight.
The next day she got a manager at the airline, who went with her and ensured that she wouldn't be treated so roughly. The second time she wasn't. The security people apparently said that this kind of treatment was required for anybody travelling to the USA.

The airline charged her $200 to reschedule her flight but did give her travel vouchers to cover that cost. They mentioned her rough treatment wasn't their fault (well, it actually wasn't) but they had certain restrictions on what they could do.

To top it all off, the airline lost her luggage.

A couple of months ago there was a link from riba_rambles pointing to some imaging technology that would be a fine substitute for a pat-down. The level of detail it shows is a grayscale nude with no color differentiation. Some people have balked at putting in those scanners because they feel they'd be invasive.

So I have a question for the public: which is more invasive, a grayscale medical-quality picture of your nekkid body being looked at by somebody you don't know or having your crotch grabbed in a way you probably won't like by somebody you don't know?

Comments

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

As long as we (meaning Americans) passively sit by and allow this kind of bullying in the name of flimsy "security," the indignities and horror stories will continue. I know this isn't practical for a lot of people, but a very simple solution is to STOP DOING BUSINESS with these airlines. Let 'em go under.

Sooner or later some airline is going to realize that it's time to defy the goddamned TSA Gestapo and stop humiliating/threatening its paying customers. First airline to do so will make a freakin' fortune.

[redbird]

It's not just up to the airline, though, because aviation security affects people who don't fly.

You the passenger may be prepared to say "I'll risk dying in a hijacking--or having a shootout between a hijacker and another passenger--rather than be searched." That doesn't entitle you, and your fellow passengers, to take that risk for everyone on the ground, who isn't flying and had no chance to make that decision.

Yes, many of the new rules are ineffective and/or obnoxious. The solution is to figure out what actually will work, and do that consistently, not to have different rules on different airlines that are all in the same transport system. (Once someone is through security, they're in the system and unlikely to be searched again, no matter how many airports they go through.)

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

*nod* My gripe is a broader one: I thought the airlines were private companies and the planes they provide are considered private property. If that's true, then where's the federal government get off barging in, setting policy, and laying security mandates on these organizations? The airlines are either a totally Federal operation (like AmTrak and the Postal Service), or they're private --you can't have it both ways. I just wish the a-holes in Washington would pick one and be done with it.

Sorry 'bout that, my Free-Market Beast is bestirred. Lemme go calm him down with some Irish Coffee... *grin*