Security Insecurity
A buddy of mine flew to Las Vegas recently. Their return flight was held up because the plane had mechanical problems, so they had to wait and take another aircraft. He has a titanium hip, and when he travels the metal detectors always scream about him, so he wears shorts and a T-shirt to show he has nothing to hide.
On this particular trip, all his luggage was on the first plane, so all he had was a book and the minimal clothes he was wearing. He was stopped at security in Los Angeles.
"Where's your luggage?" they asked him.
"It's on another plane. It had mechanical problems and we had to take a different plane."
"What's in this book?"
"Nothing. It's just a book."
They kept turning the book over, riffling its pages and feeling it to see if there was anything hidden in it. They kept asking what was in the book and where his luggage was.
Connie and I are flying to Las Vegas this year to attend a wedding, and I'm not looking forward to it. I used to love flying, but I hate the idea of waiting in line and having over-zealous agents nit-picking every little gadget I own. But I also hate the idea of traveling without gadgets, like my laptop and PDA and cellphone and GPS and... what a geek I am!
Viva Las Vegas. Riiiiight. 
Posted by Dave Blog Tag: Chatter
Posted 9/17/2007 11:58:00 AM
L
On 9/17/2007 12:35 PM, 
Jen said...
On 9/17/2007 3:23 PM, Little Things said...
On 9/17/2007 6:24 PM, Alan said...
On 9/17/2007 6:43 PM, dkgoodman said...
On 9/18/2007 5:20 PM, Alan said...
5 Comments:
It's really REALLY inconsistent. Leaving for Disneyland the screener ripped me a new one for having the wrong size baggie for my "liquids and creams".
In LA after we checked in for the flight home the screeners were friendly enough. They showed the kids the 3 HUGE bins of stuff they had confiscated in under an hour which was a hoot. But then we got home and I unpacked our daypacks... and found all KINDS of contraband in the kids' carryons (juice boxes, deodorant, etc).
Pretty funny AND scary...
I travel way too often, and the screeners really do prefer if folks have a carry-on of some type. Not having anything but a book is a red flag.
I take my laptop and iPaq everywhere I go - just make sure you take your laptop out and put it in its own little bin when you go through security.
And if you have SSSSSS (the number of Ss isn't right, but a string of them is what you should be thinking) on your boarding pass, be prepared for special treatment.
Have fun in Vegas!!
There's a few over-zealous TSA types, but for the most part I've not had any real problems. Even when they found the TNT traces in my bag they were cool about it.
LOL Okay, Alan, you're gonna have to expand on that one!
I still can't believe that screening juice boxes is going to help anything, Jen. If you were a terrorist, wouldn't you just tape a packet of the evil fluid to your belly or something?
That's interesting about the SSSS's, LT. I'll have to keep an eye out for that. Didn't know that one.
What happens in Yuma, stays in Yuma.
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