April 3rd, 2006
Eight days ago Sally Moon and her sister took their mother Bernice “Bea” Boart to the airport so she could fly out to visit their other sister for a month. Bea, a survivor of breast cancer surgery in 1997, has been wheelchair-bound since 1999 when a fall broke her hip; furthermore, she suffered a major stroke in 2004 that caused ementia and is under strict dorctor’s orders not to stand without assistance or her walker. She carried a special orthopedic card to alert airport security that she has a metal plate in her hip. Sally’s sister did not have concource clearance so Sally was the one that pushed her mother to the special security screening site in the wheelchair. Sally had been assured by Frontier Airlines and Transportation Security Administration staffers that screeners would not requre her mother to get out of her chair for the security check, so she turned to put her mothers bags on the x-ray belt.
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Tags: Transportation Security Administration, Frontier Airlines, WorldNetDaily
August 16th, 2005
I heard this story on NPR this morning and it made me laugh. It’s funny because of the ineptness of the whole thing and not because it’s becoming a hassle to people.
I’m all for airport security. I’ve said so in the past — even if I’m inevitably the one watching them take out every single item from my purse to display to the world because the combination of an iPod Mini and a Palm Pilot in one small bag might indicate evil-doing. If it makes me safer in the long run, I’m good. I hate flying as it is, I don’t want to add worrying about terrorists on the plane to my list of worries like plunging from the air and smashing into the ground.
[“Israeli military releases another baby photo(Scarily, this is a real Middle Eastern baby in military garb)”] Anyway, so I heard this story on NPR this morning about children being stopped from boarding planes because their names match or are similar to names from the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list. This results in a major hassle as parents are forced to miss flights while trying to have birth certificates, passports, and other identification faxed to the airport security folks.
Critics including the American Civil Liberties Union say the government doesn’t provide enough information about the people on the lists, so innocent passengers can be caught up in the security sweep if they happen to have the same name as someone on the lists. [“Babies Caught Up in ‘No-Fly’ Confusion”]
I think if a child is five or under, he or she is probably not a terrorist…unless maybe it’s that baby from Family Guy. I also think that real terrorists don’t fly under their real names, but that’s just me. Anyway, I think airport security needs to exercise some common sense here — especially since TSA claims they’ve instructed security not to detain anyone under 12. Really, is this too hard to figure out?
The TSA has a “passenger ombudsman” who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2. [“Babies Caught Up in ‘No-Fly’ Confusion”]
Tags: NPR, no-fly list, Transportation Security Administration, ACLU, innocent, Terrorists
August 14th, 2005
Later this month the Transportation Security Administration will meet to review the airline security passenger screening processes to make them more passenger-friendly (ie. quicker). Among the proposed chages:
- lifting the ban on razorblades, small knives, scissors, ice picks, and bows and arrows
- reducing passenger patdowns “by giving screeners the discretion not to search those wearing tight-fitting clothes. It also suggests exempting several categories of passengers from screening, including federal judges, members of Congress, Cabinet members, state governors, high-ranking military officers and those with high-level security clearances.”
- no longer require passengers to remove their shoes; “Instead, only passengers who set off metal detectors, are flagged by a computer screening system or look “reasonably suspicious” would be asked to do so.”
Ummmm…isn’t that what we were doing before 9-11? Is this how soon we forget? Is detering terrorists through a little inconvenience to passengers and security really that much of a problem?
O.K. I’ll admit that going anywhere via airplane has been an extra bit of hassle since 9-11. I hate flying as it is (the logic of big metal box hurling itself through the air seems wrong to me), but since 9-11, I have been patted down on almost every visit to the airports. My name must be on some list — though I don’t know how petite red-headed me could be mistaken for a terrorist, unless they’re thinking IRA 
O.K. and it doesn’t help that I have a tendency to argue with airline people and security. Anyway, right after 9-11, I’d get checked 3 or 4 times before getting on a plane. I’d get checked at every stop. I quickly learned to expect it. I dress for it. I carry my jewelry in a bag in my purse rather than wear it. I never wear shoes that tie. I fully accept the situation and you know why? It makes me feel safer to know that security is that strict. It makes me feel like I’m not going to be on a plane where strangers are going to whip out scissors, ice picks, and razorblades and try to take over the plane. It makes me feel safter to know that everyone has to go through the same procedure.
It makes me feel safer. Period.
With the London bombings still vividly in our minds and the recent arrest of a man who tried to take a bomb on a plane, is now really the time to relax security for airports? Is this how soon we forget?
(Go to CNN.com for full story)
Tags: Transportation Security Administration, 9/11, terrorism
