Opuscula Searched once Won’t suffice For screeners

I DON’T TRAVEL A LOT BY AIR anymore, but when I do, I usually have an intermediate stop.

Most often Spain, Italy, or the UK. (I try very hard to avoid France.)

Each time,

* I undergo a security check at the originating airport
* Stay in the “sanitized” zone until boarding my flight
* Stay on the plane to my flight’s intermediate destination
* Get off the plane in a “sanitized” zone and hustle to the gate for my connecting flight — which always seems to be at the opposite end of the airport.

Just before getting to the departure area for the second leg of my journey I must, once again submit to a security check.

Why?

 

Joe Heller cartoon of naked travelers going through airport security check

 

Everyone and everything in the “sanitized” area should have been cleared and all threats identified and neutralized.

I certainly had no opportunity to become a threat — remember, I was thoroughly screened before I boarded my first flight.

It seems that each time I get to the second screening it is something else.

Here I need to remove shoes.

There I need to take off my belt.

Always I have to empty my pockets.

Some places I can keep a jacket on; others the jacket goes into a bin.

Of all the airport screenings I have suffered, I like Lod (TLV or Ben Gurion) the best.

Why?

The Israelis do what the Supremes made illegal in the U.S.; the Israeli’s profile. On my first trip to Israel in May 1975, I had two tall duffle bags (right). Before boarding an El Al plane at JFK the screener asked what was in the duffles and did I pack them myself. (This was pre-Xray screening.) I answered truthfully and the duffles and I were on the way.

Before anyone tells me profiling is discrimination, I will relate two instances to belie that opinion.

At JFK, before boarding another flight to Israel, I was called to a secondary baggage check. While waiting my turn, I watched as the security guy went through an elderly couples luggage item-by-item. Me? I answered a few questions and was on my way.

I have seen Muslim families whiz through checks at Lod, and Jews get stopped. It happened to me — I had two bottles of arak and the xray machine “saw” them; I had to unpack everything to get to the bottles and show them to the security guy. (I have not been stopped since.)

In Italy, going from my US-Rome flight to my next flight, the inspector saw a small metal box in my carry on.

What’s that, he asked.

It’s a key safe (see image to right) I’m taking to my daughter, I replied.

And I was on my way.

Mind, the carry on was checked when I boarded my first flight and raised no interest.

I don’t know if the security people outside the U.S. are allowed to profile. I think it is a very good option. It does require special training, but — at least in Israel — it works.

But my initial question remains unanswered: Why does a once-screened passenger who never left the sanitized area of the airport have to be screened again.

My stowed luggage, supposedly checked at the originating airport, is not rechecked even though it is handled by numerous people between the originating airport and the final destination.

Is it a make-work effort?

It might be a better idea to screen all the vendors, baggage handlers, and crew that go on board.

Beside being disgruntled about a second security screening — again, with belt, without belt; with shoes, without shoes — as a former Enterprise Risk Management practitioner, I am a little paranoid about things out of my sight; they are not out of mind.

So why DO I have to go through yet another screening when I have remained in a sanitized part of the airport?

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