Everyone that ever worked at an airport is now apparently with Homeland Security. I feel so safe. Although I have to admit if they would stop this obvious terrorist in front of me to go through his luggage instead of the eighty year old WASP grandmother they did stop I would probably feel safer. God forbid we profile.
I am currently going through my third security screening since I have to take three flights to get home and I show my boarding pass and passport to the Homeland Security agent before I am allowed to be screened. However, at the end of this long line I am again asked for my boarding pass and ID by a second Homeland Security agent before I can cram all my stuff through the Xray machine. Apparently they don't trust the first boarding card/ID checker any more than they trust me.
I hand the second/assistand/backup Homeland Security ID/boarding pass checker my boarding card and my passport. She takes the boarding card but puts her hands up and backs off when I try to hand her my passport. "Please open your passport to the picture page and show it to me!" She shouts. I am puzzled. She takes everyones drivers license and looks at it but will not touch my passport. I open the passport and hold it up to her. "You don't have to shove it in my face!" She yells at me again. I look at the passport and then at her scrunched up furious face, they are about 15" apart. I don't consider this shoving it in her face so I don't move it. She finally looks at it, scribbles on my boarding card and shoves it back in my hand.
I am not happy to be here but I must be here to get home. I have taken off my jacket, shoes, my belt, emptied my pockets, put my liquid and gels in a plastic baggie and would have taken my laptop out of my briefcase but I don't have one. All of this goes into plastic trays and through the Xray machine as the ever-alert Homeland Security agent Xray person talks on her cell phone. I count six more Homeland Security agents standing around talking but having no apparent duties to perform.
I haven't enjoyed flying since 9-11. Not because I am afraid of being blown up or flow into a very tall building but because I hate being treated as a potential terrorist by people who's law enforcement background probably includes guarding a mall.
One guy tries to blow his shoes up and we all have to take off our shoes, thank god he didn't cram the explosives up his ass.
As I implied earlier, I can tell these fine guardians of our safety who the terrorist are and what they look like but nooooooooo, that would be profiling and we all know profiling is wrong.
Homeland Insecurity Or: Why Am I Standing Here In My Socks Taking My Belt Off In Front Of These Strangers.
REACTIONSAscending | Descending
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Man, I'm glad to see you back. This was funny and sad and horribly unsettling. Because it was accurate. After I flew back and forth from Raleigh NC to San Francisco last month (it might have been late in August) I swore to myself I'd never subject myself to airport date rape again. It's flatly himiliating. On the way West, I followed the rules, but heading home, I broke each and every one of them according to instructions I got from an article in Harper's about the lunacy and utter incompetence of Homeland Security. And I breezed through easier than I did when I was obeying their idiotic rules.
And a funny coincidence: the "Open your passport to the picture and show it to me!" is exactly back cover art of the liner notes of the Chuck Prophet record, Let Freedom Ring, which was released today. After 8 grueling days of recording the record, Chuck looks pretty much like the corpse of a zombie, but he's holding up his passport -- opened to the p[cture page -- where he looks fine and healthy. It's fucking ludicrous.
Flying back at about the same time -- him heading west and me heading east -- they ran me through the same drill in Atlanta. And they yelled at me too. "Open your passport to the picture page! Now!" I didn't raise my voice, but I said "No. I don't have to. You want to look, open the motherfucker up." My passport was sitting on the counter right in front of this idiot. He called somebody, some superior who ordered me around as well. I still shrugged and stuck to the same line I used before: "I don't have to and you can't make me."
I wasted about an hour, but I had a long, long layover. They kept ordering me to open it up and I kept refusing. Higher ups and even higher ups were called. Some Justice Department lawboy finally told them that (and he was pissed at me too) that I was well within my rights: I had to present my passport but they couldn't make me do anything with it. It kept me awake before my connecting flight.
They never opened my passport to verify my identity. They forget about my shoes my belt, even sending me through the x-ray machine. Idiots. Absolute idiots.
Homeland _Security_ indeed. But at least their fine services don't cost us anything, right DD?
And a funny coincidence: the "Open your passport to the picture and show it to me!" is exactly back cover art of the liner notes of the Chuck Prophet record, Let Freedom Ring, which was released today. After 8 grueling days of recording the record, Chuck looks pretty much like the corpse of a zombie, but he's holding up his passport -- opened to the p[cture page -- where he looks fine and healthy. It's fucking ludicrous.
Flying back at about the same time -- him heading west and me heading east -- they ran me through the same drill in Atlanta. And they yelled at me too. "Open your passport to the picture page! Now!" I didn't raise my voice, but I said "No. I don't have to. You want to look, open the motherfucker up." My passport was sitting on the counter right in front of this idiot. He called somebody, some superior who ordered me around as well. I still shrugged and stuck to the same line I used before: "I don't have to and you can't make me."
I wasted about an hour, but I had a long, long layover. They kept ordering me to open it up and I kept refusing. Higher ups and even higher ups were called. Some Justice Department lawboy finally told them that (and he was pissed at me too) that I was well within my rights: I had to present my passport but they couldn't make me do anything with it. It kept me awake before my connecting flight.
They never opened my passport to verify my identity. They forget about my shoes my belt, even sending me through the x-ray machine. Idiots. Absolute idiots.
Homeland _Security_ indeed. But at least their fine services don't cost us anything, right DD?
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
any idea whats up with that behavior? i haven't come across it yet, but every other person who has asked for my passport in the world has taken it from me and thumbed through it...is this just lazyness? afraid of papercuts? seems they would want to handle the document to see if it real? now i will think about this all day long....thanks dd (welcome back)
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
"Airport date rape" "Afraid of paper cuts?" I think I'm writing something witty and you Brinklets put me to shame with great one liners.
I missed you guys. DD
I missed you guys. DD
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