Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

As you know, Crissy and I have been quite the nomads the past few weeks. On Sunday, we got back from about 5 days in California. All this traveling has given me some interesting anecdotes about the theater of the airport and border security.

First of all, it was much, much easier to enter Switzerland than for us to re-enter our own country. In Zurich, the guy just scanned our passports and said “Have a nice visit!” Customs was opt-in; if you had nothing to declare, just walk out of the airport! No forms, no fuss.

Granted, it wasn’t hard to re-enter the US, but it was quite annoying. Fill out this form, stand in this line, answer lots of questions, go stand in this line, answer more questions, and so on.

The fact that it’s easier to enter a foreign nation then your own is pretty frustrating.

Now about that stupid secondary screening. Usually, you only go to secondary screening if there’s a reason, like the TSA saw something weird in your carry-on luggage. Sometimes though, if TSA is staffed for it, they will “randomly” select people for secondary. And, as you may expect, I usually get chosen “randomly”.

It’s especially frustrating now that the Denver airport installed those Millimeter wave scanners. If you’re not familiar with these contraptions, they are basically scanners that produce a “three-dimensional image of the body, with facial features blurred for privacy.” These images are then reviewed by “by a Transportation Security Officer in a remote location.”

In other words, some guy is sitting in a dark room by himself and looking at naked pictures of you.

Fortunately, on my way back from California, I accidentally discovered a way for me to avoid secondary screening: stand in line behind a Sikh man.

Seriously, since the Sikh in front of me was wearing a turban, the TSA guys sent him straight to secondary and swooped in on him. I just walked right through as if as I were, well, white.

And how about that liquids rule? On a earlier trip, as I was departing the security area, I noticed that the flight attendant ahead of me had 2 1-liter bottles of water in her carry-on and had no problems getting through security!

Since we’re not supposed to have liquids (unless they are less than 3 oz), I was a little confused and asked her why the TSA didn’t take her water. It turns out that the airport worker unions raised a huge stink about the rules, so any airport employee is allowed to bring as much liquid as they want past security.

So, if you’re keeping track, I believe it’s: (1) unions are more important than “security”, (2) “security” is more important than liberty, and by the transitive property, (3) unions are more important than liberty. :-P