From my perspective, which today happens to be Singapore, I am halfway through a ten-flight round the world tour of international conferences. I have ‘done’ Hong Kong and mainland China; next up New York and Washington DC. I wonder how much longer I can keep this up. I do it regularly.
I often reflect, and discuss with other frequent flier colleagues, just what the point is of airport security. All the scanning, patting down and, if Pol Pot is on duty, shoes off and a rummage through your bags.
What bugs me most is the capricious nature of airport security. I recall being shouted at, in Manchester airport, “do not take your belt off”. I never found out why.
Then, at one flight a day (meaning they have too much time on their hands), Humberside airport, I offered to remove my shoes. They were Russel & Bromley and have a metal plate in the sole which always sets the alarm off, necessitating their removal and back through the scanner. I was told, sternly, that if I insisted on taking my shoes off then all my luggage would be taken out and searched. Again, I never found out why. As luck would have it, my shoes did not set off the alarm. I strongly suspect that they had turned it off.
But back to my point, which is “what is the point of airport security?” I have relatives who worked in baggage and security for a major North American airline. They assure me that it was all a complete charade and achieves nothing except slowing the process of getting into the airport and annoying a great many people in the meantime.
A friend who was a senior employee in a major Far Eastern airline made it her duty always to smuggle a bottle of spirits in her hand luggage through security. She said she had never failed, but I never found out her secret.
The film The Ghost Writer starring Pierce Brosnan is a thinly disguised but fictional account of Tony Blair, post Blair government, living in luxury in some exotic location. Being interviewed about his record in office and, in response to the interviewer asking him about his government tightening airport security, he explodes with anger. He asks the interviewer if there were two planes he could board but only one had a security queue, which one he would board. The interviewer did not respond, but I turned to my wife and said: “I would probably take my chances”.
Correct me if I am wrong, but has there ever been a newspaper article or TV news item on a terrorist plot to blow up a plane or carry weapons on-board that has been thwarted by one of our little Hitlers and his or her scanners and wands? I don’t think so.
Liquid restrictions are useless. You could do some damage with 1000ml of flammable liquid contained in toiletry bottles, provided each was no larger than the magical 100ml, of course. And how much better if four or five of you were plotting and each brought on 1000ml of something dangerous? My wife had her 125ml bottle of some potion taken off her and binned at Heathrow recently, even though the bottle only contained about 10ml of liquid. What on earth did that achieve?
They do claim to test liquids randomly or if they suspect something. But when mine were tested at Heathrow Terminal 5 at the start of this sojourn, it involved the chap taking them away, holding the plastic bag up and peering in at the contents. My 100ml tube of toothpaste could have contained Semtex for all he knew.
Relatively speaking, Milan Linate is the best airport I regularly use. Long ago, they installed scanners which – allegedly – obviate the need to remove electronics and liquids. One is through like the proverbial dose of salts, and the only remnant of the old regime is that you must remove your belt. Again, I have never discovered what that is about.
Deep joy ensued the announcement that Heathrow Terminal 5 was installing these new style scanners at the Fast Track to the First Class lounge. I use this almost monthly, and was delighted to be whisked through with a colleague a few months ago. But the last two times I have used it, guess what? It is liquids out again. It suggests to me that either having to inspect liquids manually is a complete piece of theatre, or that the ability of the scanners to inspect liquids while they remain in your bag is a complete fiction. Logic dictates that it is either one or the other, and common sense dictates that neither is necessary.
I am aware, if I want to board a plane, that I must subject myself to the ritual humiliation of airport security checks. They blame the terrorists. I blame the governments. Where else would you get prosperous and successful people in their daily lives to walk through a narrow door, in full view of everyone in their stocking soles and holding up their trousers? I increasingly conclude that humiliation is the point.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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Go through the procedure … only to be allowed to buy several litres of highly inflammable brandy in duty free. I’m sure this hasn’t occurred to any suicidal martyrs yet or perhaps it’s because they view alcohol as haram and burning to death through a booze fuelled inferno would mean they don’t qualify for their 72 virgins? ;o)
Yes, Roger, as you say, apart from the ritual humiliation it is the arbitrary behavior of the security staff that inflames me. I’m hard of hearing anyway and attempting to second guess their mood and rules whilst trying to remove laptop, Kindle, phone etc means usually getting it wrong when arriving at the trays. Add to that my, now, 10 year old replacement knee always setting off the alarm thus requiring the full pat down procedures, there’s the the concern my bag, laptop, wallet, passport etc has beaten me through the process and is lying around inviting anyone to help themselves. It’s pure theatre.
At the annual United Guilds service at St Paul’s cathedral, handbags are ‘searched’ – i.e. you open your bag and they peer inside and wave you on. You have never seen such a patrician bunch of people as the congregants at that service. The only people who look as if they might be terrorists are the guys examining the bags.
Going through security at Manchester a few years back, I’d put my belt in the plastic tray complete with its manufacturer-licensed Harley-Davidson metal belt buckle. It’s a roughly oval piece of metal with no sharp edges weighing less than 100g. It failed security. After half an hour I was called forward by a female security landwhale who demanded in her best NKVD voice, “What is this?”
Me: “It’s a belt buckle. A Harley belt buckle. I ride a Harley. It holds my belt together and my belt holds my jeans up.”
She turned it over in her hands suspiciously, scrutinising it from every angle, feeling for some hidden button that might cause a razor-sharp blade to spring out of what clearly looked to her like a bit of kit James Bond might wear. Eventually, disappointed, she started to lecture me about how motorcycles were dangerous, how I might fall off, how the casualty rates are so much higher for bikes than cars, etc. Funnily enough, at age 57, and having ridden bikes off-road since age 7, and on-road since age 17, none of that had ever occurred to me before, I told her, adding “but thanks for explaining it.” She gave me a nasty look but told me I could go.
Safely in possession of my belongings and with no further impediment between me and my family holiday, I thanked her for pointing out the perils of motorcycling, and added, “In return I should warn you that you are obviously grossly obese, which can cause a host of medical problems including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. In fact, being fat is much more of a danger to your life than being a biker is to mine.”
I got my flight.
Brilliant! Good on yer!
My comment failed to record – I’m convinced it’s all theatre and that ‘security’ while away the hours by in-house bets on what unusual looking items that show up on the x-ray actually are (they don’t bother to inspect the contents of such items despite insisting you open them). Single male travellers are clearly targeted for attention, so secretly tag along with others as though part of a party.
Absolutely love the Manchester airport story
Maybe it’s been stopped by THEM, but it used to be that from time to time the US federal government would test the system by sending people through it with dangerous stuff hidden in their luggage. The detection rate was little different from zero. In other words it’s all balls.
The last time I flew from France I was annoyed to find my hotel keys still in my pocket. I asked the security chap what to do. “Which hotel, monsieur?” I told him. “Leave them with me, monsieur, and I’ll hand them in on my way home this evening.” Vive la France.
That is a really interesting point about the testing of the TSA system in USA
It’s a well known fact that semtex, nitroglycerin and ricin etc. are perfectly safe when decanted into smaller bottles and containers (even if you have lots of these).
Not so long ago I passed through security at London’s Heathrow Airport. Not content with irradiating my bags and belongings in the scanner and carrying out a search that bordered on being more probing than my last prostate examination, the couldn’t-care-less, I’m-only-doing-my-job security staff then decided to pull ALL my belongings out of my bag, which happened to be mostly camera kit.
Clearly not photographers they asked me what each item was. I could have told them that my light meter was a light sabre and that the folding camera was a time machine and I swear they wouldn’t have known the difference: so what was the point? If I were a terrorist carrying a gun modified to look like a camera was I about to say, ‘fair cop guv, you’ve got me bang to rights, that’s a 9mm browning automatic modified to look like a Polaroid 110b converted to 4×5 format’. Clueless. And oh so utterly pointless.
Having said that, I thought I was pretty much aware of what I could or could not hand carry but these people (and I also use the word ‘people’ very loosely) are on the ball. Included in my camera kit was a little bubble spirit level, completely sealed and made of plastic, that sits in the flash hotshoe of the camera, but that’s not allowed because it contains FLUID.
It was promptly removed from my bag and the offending item placed into a clear plastic bag and given back to me, so if it had contained pure nitro-glycerine I can only conclude that the plastic bag would have contained the blast and saved the plane. Hooray. I felt so much safer.
Exactly why I abandoned air travel in 2016. Today if I need to travel, I do so only on this continent, and only in my own vehicle. It has been tremendously enriching to take back ownership and control of my life, to some small extent.