• What's ticked?
• Accolades
• Contact us

c o l u m n s

• Cheap Charlie
• ChrisCrossings
• Err Travel
• Leocha
• Travel Notes
• Archives

Emasculated Again
Cheap Charlie · December 18, 2001

Well folks, like a dog with a bone, I don't want to give up on airport and airline security. At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I'm emboldened by the burgeoning ranks of rank-and-file journalists who now are starting to complain about the treatment passengers are getting at the hands of airport security personnel.

Another woman has written about the hands-on search of her breasts by security personnel. I even personally watched a public "security feel up" in Boston. Being a good guilty Catholic boy and former altar boy, I cringe when I recall that woman's experience. I'm embarrassed for her. At least my witnessed event involved a female security person fondling another female.

Last week, I flew from Boston to Miami. I noticed that the security personnel confiscated at least four pairs of nail clippers and an entire leather-bound manicure set while I was being searched at security in Boston. My nail clippers having already been emasculated - the offending nail file had previously been removed - were allowed to pass.

This has got to stop. I believe it will.

The American public is getting fed up. The media is beginning to complain and soon Jay Leno, David Letterman and Saturday Night Live will get into the act, if they haven't already. Security has to change.

I spoke with a half-dozen pilots who all, to a man, complained that the airport security system is going overboard and ignoring the real threat - explosives. Without a system to ferret out explosives, a majority of these pilots felt that the carry-on searches were only a charade to make the public feel safer without really accomplishing anything.

Let me admit that I have not interviewed the FAA to determine who made the regulation banning nail clippers and why nail clippers and manicure sets are forbidden.

These rules make no sense. My column last week recited a litany of reasons that these security checks are not necessary.

Furthermore, I haven't asked them why the FAA allows glass bottles of wine to go through the screening process while stopping nail clipper files. Why do the meals in first class have plastic knives, forks and spoons while serving wine from glass bottles poured into glass wineglasses? The FAA/governmental/security logic escapes me.

Call your congressional representative or senator. Call the president. Complain. Let them know you don't think this makes sense. Make sure they keep the pressure on the FAA and the airline industry to get the explosive detection machinery and baggage screening procedures in place by the congressionally mandated deadline of January 18.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday, December 17, 2001, reported the airlines and the FAA's litany of excuses regarding what they deem an impossible deadline. Airline lobbyists are working overtime to maintain the current charade rather than face reality. Meanwhile, JetBlue Airways and Frontier Airlines are already meeting the requirements.

It can be done. Remember the old saying, "Where there is a will, there is a way."

Let's find a way.

A massive bureaucracy we don't need. Next, begin thinking about the new Airport Security Bill that made its way through Congress. When you go to get your driver's license renewed, when you deal with City Hall, when you try to get an answer from the IRS, when you apply for a zoning variance, think about a new 28,000-person Federal bureaucracy that will face you every time you step onto a plane.

I don't know about you, but the speeches given in Congress were filled with the fact that Federal workers will be motivated by good salaries and benefits to perform at an optimal level.

Who are we kidding? Federal workers are not a panacea.

The story of the 9/11 hijackings is already replete with instances of Federal bureaucratic failures. From the consulate officers who issued the visas, to the State Department officials who OK'ed them, to the Federal law enforcement agencies who wouldn't speak with each other for fear of losing departmental control of parallel investigations, to immigration officials who issue limited-time visas with no enforcement; there is plenty of blame to go around.

Every one of these Federal employees is well-paid and motivated.

Ironically, the people who probably did their job the best were the security personnel. Not one illegal weapon was smuggled aboard any of the planes involved.

It is probably too late. We just have signed up for more of the same treatment that we all detest when faced with working our way through the Federal, State and local governments.

Let's save ourselves more aggravation. Ask your Representatives and Senators to take another look at what they have wrought in haste. Their misguided efforts to make us feel good immediately, will make us miserable in the long run.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at leocha@aol.com or access his Web site.