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.

Well, last February I was traveling to New York. I am a redheaded, middle-aged Orthodox Jew. I got pulled out of line for the random "special treatment." Meanwhile, while they were going through the linings of my shoes and the inside band of my hat and the pockets of my overcoat and jacket, several gentlemen of the Mohammedan persuasion, one of whom was carrying a large cane and the other, a young gent in his 20's wearing a bulging backpack, were obsequiously salaamed on through the boarding gate.

I asked the security professional who was thoroughly inspecting my person, why these guys were not being treated as thoroughly as myself. They gave me the fisheye and said, "So you think they should be?" At that point I figured that if I said HELL YES I would miss my plane so I just said, "it might be a good idea" and they let me board just as the jetway was being unlatched for takeoff.

bing bing bing. Catspaw gets the prize.

It's really not terribly difficult to not look Muslim, even for an Arab. And as for the idea that all terrorists are Muslim tell that to people blown by the IRA and Ulster. Most of the people complaining are probably the same folks who complained about lack of security before. If people want security they need to understand it's going to be a pain in the ass, that's how security works.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to use a key to go to the bathroom and a badge to get some more soda... ah security.

Lessons:

1. Check your bags before you go to the airport so that you can be sure to remove any "dangerous cargo". If you fail to do so, it will delay you.

2. Don't be a smart aleck at the security checkpoint in airports and they will leave you alone.

3. Never leave a bag unattended in the airport, not even to step away to get coffee.

4. Whatever joke or wisecrack you have just got to share with the security people, they have already heard it 100 times and are no longer amused.

Jeez, this guy seems kinda jerky to me, even if the security guys did go overboard (especially keeping his ticket, which I find completely unacceptable under any circumstances).

"But Mike sounds a bit stupid. You really don't leave your bag and wander off like that. And I suspect he's leaving out a few smart-ass remarks of his own in the retelling of this story."

Yeah. And, actually, I carry a butane lighter with me all the time. I put it in the little tray with all the other junk I forgot to take out of my pockets, and it just goes through. Cigarette lighters are allowed.

I always wonder about the folks who seem to have all this trouble. I travel all the time, and have been selected for additional screening a few times. I'm polite and cooperative, and it takes a couple of minutes, then I'm on my way.

Smart off to the folks, though, and simple psychology takes over. You want to be a smart***? Be prepared to wait a bit. Want to get on the plane? Be polite.

Checked a 25 lb tote of work tools in Boise on Sunday. Southwest agent took me to TSA inspector who looked at the agent, she nodded something, and he put a cable tie on it and sent it to the baggage loading area. At the gate, the TSA inspector had me take my cell phone off my belt and said that I didn't have to take off my sneakers to go through the metal detector. My biggest hassle was finding a SmartCart to take my bags to the check-in counter.

In my travels, I have found that folks in the larger cities and those east of the Mississippi tend to be more surley, arrogant and more likely a pain in the a** than those out in the heartland. Could be just my liking my rural, western lifestyle, but maybe not.

Just searching Muslims would never have done. I'm not sure they should even get high priority, it takes about half an hour of skilled makeup application to change someone's apparent nationality. And even without that the areas of the world with a lot of Muslims have plenty of non-Muslims, take away the symbols and try to tell the difference between an Israeli and a Palestinian these are people of the same basic race who've diverged in religion and culture, same thing goes for India and its neighbors.

While I'm not against profiling by race or any other visible key 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.

Hey there, fellow godless atheist!

I always wonder about the folks who seem to have all this trouble.

Yeah, me too. Makes me think of that woman who was breast feeding her baby while going 65 mph on the Ohio Turnpike. Why did she ignore the officer trying to pull her over for 3 miles? Well, she's been "sexually assaulted twice" and "assaulted by a trooper" as well, you see.

Or a relative of mine who is inexplicably harassed by every single landlord she's ever had.

Or the guy who has a string of rotten bosses all through out his working life.

I mean, many of us run across a jerk, but some people just draw them like flies. Do they ever contemplate the possibilty that THEY are the jerk, the smart-ass, the passive-aggressive SOB? No, of course not! They're just... so darn unlucky!

"In my travels, I have found that folks in the larger cities and those east of the Mississippi tend to be more surley, arrogant and more likely a pain in the a** than those out in the heartland. Could be just my liking my rural, western lifestyle, but maybe not."

It does seem that way. I solve the problem, usually, by flying out of regional airports instead of the big city ones. The cost is usually the same, and you skip the traffic, parking, and other annoyances.

Further, I travel in sweats...a nice workout suit. I carry one carry-on and check one other bag. In it, I don't put anything suspicious, like big bottles of shampoo and the like. Just clothes.

I no longer take my laptop on most trips, since I moved my email to Yahoo, and can check it anywhere. If I need files, I burn a CD. When I go through security, I've moved _everything_ out of my pockets and into my carryon bag. No metal, no beep. I just travel clean these days and don't have anything anywhere that sets off any alarms.

Also, don't be the first to board the plane. Don't jump to the front of the boarding line. They seem to choose folks at the front for gate screening, almost exclusively.

But, the best tip of all is to fly in and out of regional airports. The folks working there are a lot nicer.

I doubt if I'd been able to ID Richard Reid, Jose Padilla and Jihad Johnny Walker as a Muslim at first glance.

Get your eyes checked, and don't drive until you do.

If you put me to screening planes, those three would be the first ones to get the treatment.

But it's not just that. I will guarantee you that if the nineteen hijackers tried that stunt today, the passengers would be far more useful in stopping them than the shiite-for-brains in TSA.

"I mean, many of us run across a jerk, but some people just draw them like flies. Do they ever contemplate the possibilty that THEY are the jerk, the smart-ass, the passive-aggressive SOB? No, of course not! They're just... so darn unlucky!"

You have a point, for sure. I'm a big guy and look like a crazed biker, with my _large_ full beard and longish hair. But...when I'm dealing with others, I wear a big smile and say "thank you" a lot. It works wonders for clearing the way through things like security lines.

I try very hard to look around me and to follow the directions posted on signs, etc. If the sign says that laptops need to be screened separately, I don't just shove my carryon on the X-ray belt with the laptop inside. I read the sign, take the laptop out, and have it on already when I get to the screening area. Sheesh! How hard is that?

I can't believe how many people beep the metal detector, and _then_ they take all the junk out of their pockets, holding up the whole line for the rest of us who have done our best not to hold up the line. Have these folks never flown before? I see it every time I go through security. Beep, then out comes the change and the keys and the Zippo and all the other stuff. Go through again. Beep! Then they get wanded. Oh, you mean that big old belly cover rodeo belt buckle registers on the metal detector? You mean my steel-shank cowboy boots trigger it? Who'd have guessed.

Of course, then the person starts getting huffy, like it's the screener's fault that they're an idiot who can't think ahead when travelling.

It would be amusing if it didn't hold everyone else up so much.

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