My brother once asked an airport rep the purpose of those seemingly silly questions. He was told that the purpose was not to elicit useful information, but to preclude any alibi in the event dangerous items were found by other means. In other words, if you were found to have weapons, explosives, whatever, you couldn't defend yourself by saying, "Gee, I left my bags alone for a while, someone else must have put them there." The series of questions is designed to eliminate potential excuses, not provoke a confession.
IMO, better the so called fascists at the airport than the crazies on the road.
This is a stupid question totally unlikely to elicit useful information.
This question was asked well before September 11th or the Patriot Act.
Take off your shoes, please."
Cut me a break--if you don't have adequate technology to figure out what is in my shoes without hassling me then go back to the drawing board until you do.
If you have not metal in your shoes you can walk right through and I have a number of times. The problem is often shoes that you would never think have metal do indeed have metal in them. The intent of having you take your shoes off and place them in the x-ray machine is so they do not have to hassle with a complete search.
"Empty your pockets into this tray."
Same as above.
Same as above as well.
"Cigarette lighters are prohibited in checked bags or carry on bags or your pockets."
This is an incredibly stupid and useless policy. I suppose if someone brought a few thousand on board it might be relevant.
Most lighters have always been prohibitted but if dening you the opportunity to bring a cigarette lighter on an aircraft is fascism to you, you obviously have no idea what hell was really released by such awful regimes. It sounds to me that you have been babied and protected so long by this great nation that you have no idea how evil the world can be and that there really are people who want to kill you and me. I suppose it would be okay to try and stop them as long as we don't inconvince you or prevent you from holding on to your Bic lighter.
This is a stupid question totally unlikely to elicit useful information. When I was in college, I had a friend from India. He flew home to India on British Airways (stopover in London) for Christmas in the same year that the Pan Am flight exploded over Lockerbie. A few weeks after Lockerbie, he flew to London, was there for a few days visiting friends, then went to Heathrow to fly BA back to the USA. The woman in front of him was wearing a veil and the usual mideastern robe thing. They asked if anyone had packed her bags. This woman, not being the brightest bulb in the pack, said that she had not packed her bags, that was the job of her servants, and she hoped they packed the right things for her trip, but she really didn't know exactly what they packed.
Well, British Airways took her and her bags into a little room so they could see exactly what those servants might have packed...