Thanksgiving 2010, Pt. 3

This holiday week is typically the most heavily-traveled in the US calendar; come tomorrow every TV station in the nation will have “news” teams at every airport even remotely close to the broadcast area, “reporting” on how many bazillion travelers are trying to get over the river to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.

But there’s another travel story taking up electrons: the choice air travelers have in 70 airports of either going through the new Superman-X-Ray-Vision scanners or else submitting to a thorough pat down by TSA staff. (These scanners give a “nearly naked” view of anyone passing through them; presumably they would find your explosive underwear if you were of a mind to blow up your flight. The patters-down are the same TSA employees who’ve endeared themselves via their charm and professionalism to the flying public for the last eight years.) The scan/pat conundrum has been in place for a couple of weeks and has got a lot of bad press from travelers whose videoed experiences went viral over the Web.

(After the first couple of YouTube maelstroms the TSA started confiscating the mobile phones and video cameras of passengers who refused to be scanned. Good to know the agency can actually learn; bad to know that it’s the wrong lesson.)

Airline pilots have also decried the process and they’ve been given a dispensation from having to do either. The intensity of the scan multiplied by the number of times an air crew has to show up for work may be a health hazard; and TSA chief John Pistole has declared pilots “trusted partners who ensure the safety of millions of passengers flying every day.”

(Evidently, however, those members of the crew who don’t sit on the flight deck aren’t “trusted partners”; flight attendants will have to go through the scanners or submit to pat-downs, even though they generally go through the same security background check as pilots. Pistole spoke about how everything would fall apart if pilots couldn’t make their way expeditiously to their craft. But nothing happens until the stews show up, so I’m not getting the distinction that’s being made.)

So there’s been a call for a National Opt Out Day tomorrow—the busiest flying day of the year—by having travelers decline the scan and go through the pat-down, thus slowing down the security process. The boycotters are also asking passengers to demand the pat-downs in full public view, so that everyone will understand what the experience is.

Naturally, Pistole has responded by urging people not to do anything that will screw up a system that’s barely hanging together now. (Not the way he precisely described it.) This is all for our protection, etc.

Well, but is it? Seems to me like TSA has been three steps behind terrorist technology from the git-go. I do not feel like they’re actually anticipating what may be coming down the pike; just reacting to what has been discovered apparently by chance in the past. I’m reminded of the folk tale about Foolish Jack, who hasn’t got the sense he was born with. He drops a gold coin he was bringing to his mother into a river; when she berates him by saying he should have put it in his pocket, he says he will follow her instructions. So the next day he’s given a pitcher of milk to take home; he pours it in his pocket. His mother says he should have balanced the pitcher on his head and he says he will follow her instructions. The next day it’s butter, which he puts on his head and it melts. And so on and so forth.

(Hear a story teller’s version of the tale here.)

And I think I’m seeing butter dripping down all the heads of TSA, and that doesn’t make me feel secure at all.

What would make me feel better is if people would stop trying to user their persons to blow up things, including aircraft, nightclubs, pizza parlors and government buildings.

If they’re not going to do that, then governments should think about what actually might protect the non-explosive citizenry, come up with 1)a plan; 2)truly appropriate technologies; and 3)consistent policies to enforce and use 1) and 2).

“Coming up with” includes having the intestinal fortitude to fully fund the programs (to include investing in initial and continuing staff training) as well as to stand up to the various industries and special interests that don’t want to have to take extra steps (or expense—since their cost-benefit risk analysis has indicated that it’s cheaper to lose a 757 every once in a while than to run thorough security checks on all cargo shipments) to comply.

I’m also beginning to think that profiling should be a part of the plan. If non-TSA security agencies on US soil think it’s key to sniffing out terrorists before they commit acts of violence, why is it unreasonable to include it as part of programs to ensure the safety of air travel? I have an Irish name on US passport; I’ve never been asked to step out of line for a private chat when I passed through HM Immigration at Heathrow, but I know I fit a profile and I was therefore careful to be extra-special not-crabby or –flip when the agents asked about the purpose of my visit. I respect the fact that there are serious reasons why Irish names on US passports entering the country could raise someone’s anxiety level and I’m willing to let them do what they need to do to satisfy themselves that I have not, in fact, packed any undeclared gelignite in my carry-on.

Governments should also at least look like they’ve thought further ahead than the self-explosive contingent, so that the rest of us don’t always feel like the latest “program” is a reaction to the last attempt, but is actually an anticipation of the next one. (What’re the odds that now there’s going to be a ban on toner cartridges on aircraft?)

And if they’re going to scan, pat, wave crystals or consult Ouija boards at airports, I want the system to be the same at every damn facility, and I want everyone who flies to know that if something off the scan/pat/Ouija/crystal spectrum turns up you are gonna have some esplaining to do, Lucy, and you sure as hell aren’t going to make your flight.

It’s all this muddle that’s pissing me off.

In the meantime, it’ll be interesting for once to stay at home and watch those travel-chaos-at-the-airport stories on the local channels to see if any travelers really are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.