Who is the Terrorist? (The horror that air travel in the U.S. is becoming)

A fine line exists between a uniformed agent exercising governmental authority and crossing over into willful intimidation and abuse. A friend of mine once called it putting small people in big jobs. Well, after returning from a recent trip through Terminal One of the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., airport, I have a renewed appreciation of the liberties we honor each July 4. First, count me among those who believe our airlines should be as safe and secure as possible. If that means screening baggage and asking us to step through detectors, I have no problem with either. But the Transportation Security Administration is showing signs of needlessly imposing its own brand of terrorism on our own citizens.

A niece who serves in the U.S. military had departed a day before I did. She had called to tell me to "expect the worst" when I arrived at the airport, so when I walked into the terminal the next morning, it was in shorts without a belt, a loose-fitting golf shirt and sandals.

Even my carry-on bag contained only dirty clothes and some normal traveling odds and ends. Arriving nearly two hours early, I zipped through the e-ticket line and found only two ahead of me at TSA’s screening point. Well over a dozen agents clad in white shirts with "TSA" emblazoned on their backs were milling around, seemingly searching for any way to justify their existence.

Watch, ring, sandals, wallet and cell phone go into the small plastic bin. It all disappears through the x-ray machine with my carry-on. Everything is running smoothly. Then as I am exiting through the body-scan tunnel, the alarm.

A TSA agent claims my shoulder narrowly scraped one side. I had felt nothing. "Please step over here, sir," the agent says. Another sitting behind the baggage screening device begins shouting, "Bag check."

Out go my arms. No beeps. No armed terrorist here. Another agent explains that he has to rifle through my belongings. I say fine. He dives in to his elbow and gropes until he discovers something I’d long ago forgotten — my steel butane lighter. He flicks it. The faintest hint of a blue dot appears where there should be flame. "Sir," he says politely, "you’re going to have to take this outside and empty it if you want to keep it."

I look at the lighter, remind myself it had cost about $8 and reply, "Naw, go ahead, take it. It’s not worth all the hassle."

But he insists that I keep it, even escorting me to the nearby arrival gate and demonstrating how to insert the tip of a ball-point to empty the minuscule residue of fuel.

I obediently step 10 yards outside the arrival gate where two other TSA agents are standing guard and punch the pen’s tip into the lighter for one second. The bored younger of the two guards, apparently feeling especially authoritative in his new homeland job, bellows, "Hey, you. When he said take that outside, he meant to take it all the way outside this terminal. That thing could have toxic fumes in it."

Back to the line and another examination of me and my carry-on. I walk through the tunnel again. No alarm this time, but an agent’s voice still instructs me to "Please step over here to this row of seats for a body check." Meanwhile, my bag is passing through its second exam without hassle. The agent who had insisted on saving my lighter is overseeing the second wanding. Two minutes pass as he meticulously checks every inch, including the bottom of my bare feet.

In the process, I ask him a question about which I have wondered. "Can you tell me how many American citizens have hijacked airplanes in the United States during the past 30 or 40 years?"

He stares blankly and says, "I don’t know." I tell him I can’t think of one, short of the legendary D. B. Cooper in the Pacific Northwest a half-century ago, but he parachuted into oblivion.

Finally, the agent says I am fine and can leave. I grab my bag and draw a deep breath. The question of my legitimacy is resolved.

Arriving at my departure gate an hour early, I’m alone in the rows of seats. Placing the planet’s best scrutinized piece of carry-on luggage in the seat beside me, I lean back to stare at the ceiling. Yep, it was as needlessly bad as she warned it would be, I think.

The coffee stand 50 yards away beckons. I stroll over and wait several minutes in line. Then I return to the gate to find a large German shepherd and three uniformed TSA agents standing over my now-unzipped and once again well-rifled carry-on. "Are you Mr. Masterson?" the older one, who looks like a grizzled Philadelphia cop, fires the angry question like a bullet. "Yes, I am. Is there some problem?"

He looks at the bag, then angrily back at me. "Yeah, there’s a problem. You left your bag unattended. You’ll have to get it and come with me for another inspection."

He’s right. I blundered by going for coffee and mindlessly leaving my bag in the seat. I suppose that policy hadn’t even dawned on me since the damned thing had already been twice screened and thoroughly ransacked.

As we walk, this portly agent who never smiles reaches in to snatch the ticket jacket from my now notorious bag. He opens the cover. It is empty. "So just where is your ticket, Mr. Masterson?" he scowls accusingly. By now, I’m feeling like the uniformed Gestapo with their German shepherd have set Mr. Peacefully Traveling American up like a domino. I am definitely being made to look like a terrorist or some other kind of criminal. "My ticket was in there when I came through the gate twice before," I say, my heart now somewhere near my tonsils. "I don’t know where it is. This is crazy. It has to be somewhere in my bag."

By now, I am back in the inspection line for the third time. The little bag gets another search and I get wanded for a third and then a fourth time after a second specialist agent is brought in with a wand so sensitive that the staples in my checkbook sets it to singing. He also wants to see the bottom of my feet.

Through it all, the older cop wannabee agent is staring menacingly as if it’s him against me, and I am wondering (almost out loud) just what in the name of unnecessary fear and jackbooted intimidation we are inflicting on our own citizens today.

And by the way, where the heck is the ticket that 15 minutes earlier had been safely secured in my luggage?

Finally, the second wand wielder completes his assignment and I am pronounced clean in Terminal One of the Fort Lauderdale airport for the third time. With a smirk, the older agent grabs the ticket jacket and replaces my ticket, which he has been secretly holding all along. "Let this be a lesson to you, Mr. Masterson," he says. "Someone can put something into your luggage just as easily as they can take something out." Thirty minutes later, I was feeling the weight of the 757 finally lifting away from Florida soil, headed back to civilization. Rest assured, neither this American citizen nor the carry-on bag now permanently stitched to his hip will ever return for more guilty-until-proven-innocent treatment. Should your travel plans take you through Terminal One in Fort Lauderdale, I’d advise traveling naked without a carry-on.

If you know of a single instance of 60-year-old females hijacking planes let us know

If the TSA starts giving one legged 60 year old ladies a free pass, then you can bet that the terrorists will recruit one legged 60 year old ladies to commit acts of terror. And BTW, can you think of a single instance prior to 09.11 when terrorists crashed fully loaded passenger jets into tall buildings? The rules have changed since 09.11 and the result is that little old ladies may have to suffer a little inconvience.

Profiling would change alot of this. All you have to do is look for arab islamic muslims. We all know this.

Until John Smith, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed lad of English heritage, decides to blow up a jet after converting to Islam during his junior year at Berkley.

we have to keep in mind that it's not a perfect system and we do have to work outside the profile as well as inside.

I think this is a case of locking the barn after the horse escapes. I have flown as little as possible since 9/11 because it is a terrible, demeaning experience and I am a very compliant customer.

Just think if someone on one of the highjacked flights 9/11 had a can of hairspray and a cigarette lighter we might still be seeing the twin towers on the NY skyline.

Wait till they start taking the diapers off babies to check their bottoms...

I think they should. Remember, we are talking about a group of people who have no respect for human life, who will gladly accept $1000 to celebrate the death of a a teenage son in the name of Jihad.

HardStarboard wrote: This guy flunked 21st Century Travel 101.

He didn't do anything maliciously and didn't deserve to be treated like a suspect.

The fact is inescapable that U.S. airport security is so aggravating because it kowtows to political correctnes.

The people who are supposed to know about travel trends say that increasingly people are driving on trips of less than 1000 miles rather than going through the aggravation of flying.

American Airlines has just laid off 3100 flight attendents.

Unless the TSA reigns in its employees' petty trannies people will be increasingly reluctant to fly and some U.S. airlines are going belly-up.

When TSA recently had a round of layoffs, long lines appeared here again. The rumor is that the TSA'ers are staging a work rules slowdown.

The airlines were so happy to dump security on the feds. Wonder if they still think that was a good call.

"He didn't do anything maliciously and didn't deserve to be treated like a suspect.

"

He left a bag unattended and got to get rescreened. He did make it onto his flight, though. He was stupid.

In the FNC report the whole line of people were shoe and sock-less all tramping on the same floor. YUK.

I just went through this for the first time last week at LAX. I felt so grossed out in my bare feet at an International Airport. It was more sickening than using a public phone. Then I had to put my germy SARS carrying feet back into my formerly pristine shoes.

I understand what those of you defending these new policies are saying, but it really seems like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Yes. If we start checking only male Arabs in their 30's the terrorist will change tactics. Of course, if they've already decided Arab males in their 30's are the most reliable agent, the change would hurt their effectiveness. Some of this stuff is nonsense. The hijackers were too cheap to buy round trip tickets so now everyone on a one-way ticket gets extra scrutiny. Don't they think the terrorists would figure that out and blow the extra $150 on a round trip?

I'll pass along one compliment to TSA. When our regional airport switched over to TSA, the screeners found a swiss army knife that had been in my computer bag for years. I had traveled over a hundred times with it and no one noticed. TSA caught it the first time.

MineralMan wrote: He left a bag unattended and got to get rescreened. He did make it onto his flight, though. He was stupid.

If that was all that happened then there would be no problem.

But the TSA guy filched his ticket to 'teach him a lesson' and thereby caused a lot of unnecessary stress and confusion.

How would you like it if you left your car running and unattended and when you returned found a cop had secreted your driver's license and registration in order to make you sweat?

The author of the article did not deserve some of the crap that the TSA guys shoveled his way.

MineralMan wrote: He left a bag unattended and got to get rescreened. He did make it onto his flight, though. He was stupid.

If that was all that happened then there would be no problem.

But the TSA guy filched his ticket to 'teach him a lesson' and thereby caused a lot of unnecessary stress and confusion.

How would you like it if you left your car running and unattended and when you returned found a cop had secreted your driver's license and registration in order to make you sweat?

The author of the article did not deserve some of the crap that the TSA guys shoveled his way.

There's more than one set of horses. I've never been fond of flying, my post 9-11 experience almost not all at from the pre 9-11.

It's not a matter of having a can of hairspray and a lighter, it's a matter of using it. Prior to 9-11 there was no reason to fightback, hijackers just took prisoners and negotiated for stupid stuff. 99% of hijack victims would survive. Anyway as any criminal can tell you, once you make somebody bleed everybody else starts complying, that's how fear works.

Anyway as any criminal can tell you, once you make somebody bleed everybody else starts complying, that's how fear works.

I guess somebody forgot to tell the passengers that went down with the plane in Pennsylvania. Most people puss-out, but not everybody.

One is schizophrenic and is constantly ranting about the evil government agents that are everywhere around her.

What's her FR screen name?

No, somebody DID tell them. Because the hijackers forced them to call relatives and because that plane was in the air so long they found out that they were going to die either way. The most dangerous animal in the world is the cornered animal. Once someone has nothing to lose the rules change.

"But the TSA guy filched his ticket to 'teach him a lesson' and thereby caused a lot of unnecessary stress and confusion"

And why do you suppose they took the ticket? They do that so they know whose bag it is. That makes sense, right? Then they page you. I've seen it happen in airports when stupid people leave their bags sitting around.

He got on his plane. He's an idiot.

"As we walk, this portly agent who never smiles reaches in to snatch the ticket jacket from my now notorious bag. He opens the cover. It is empty. "So just where is your ticket, Mr. Masterson?" he scowls accusingly. By now, I’m feeling like the uniformed Gestapo with their German shepherd have set Mr. Peacefully Traveling American up like a domino. I am definitely being made to look like a terrorist or some other kind of criminal. "My ticket was in there when I came through the gate twice before," I say, my heart now somewhere near my tonsils. "I don’t know where it is. This is crazy. It has to be somewhere in my bag."

The author of this article is essentially pissed that no one finds him relevant. Next!

of course, you could determine that at a glance...

They were wearing the distinctive garb of Mohammedan clergy and chattering in Arabic. I doubt they were Amish or Buddhists.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.