I understand that people are discussing the nature of the latest terrorist threat and its many implications, especially political. All that aside, I am in "a state" about the sudden imposition of new rules at the airport. Just today, I saw an AP photo of an older woman applying lipstick before being asked to pitch it in a bag. This, in the name of "having a safe trip."
How is this "no liquids" policy sustainable with millions who fly?
Over the last few years, we started with carrying government issued photo id's in order to board the planes, metal detectors we walk through, and then moved to walking around in our socks and, in my case, having to be hand searched by airport security EVERY TIME I FLY...
In one instance last year, when I was pulled out of line for a pat down, the security people discovered that something was setting off the "wand" they waved around me. I was asked to follow two female guards to a room where they basically patted me down but couldn't find what was setting off the machine. Realizing I was likely to miss the plane, I offered to take off my shirt - you know- to prove I didn't have any "weapons." Ultimately, they conceded that it was just the (underwire) bra! setting off their finely tuned security scanner. (I had suggested this before the pat down.) On the one hand, I didn't really care if I had to falsh a couple of lady-prison guards to get outta that room, but after the fact I was more than irritated because what they violated were my principles. We are now treated like suspects in some unknown plot until we prove that we are not part of plot. Didn't Kafka explain what this would be like?
So, if it seems that I rail against the airport employees, I want to say here that really I think they were trying to do their jobs and were unsure how to handle the situation. Most of the time the people are friendly, professional, and even make small talk about, y'know, the books they find in my carry-on.
Here's the point, though, most of our society accepts this as a normal part of life in these "post 9/11" days. And I can agree that we all want to feel 'safe' - whatever that means. Still, having lived for a few years in Leningrad, I was happy to return to US where we livED without the irrational fear of suspicious activity, foreigners, and infiltrators. Ten years later I marvel at the fact that I could think is okay for someone to search my bag and look at the books I read, albeit with a smile.
So have we arrived at exactly this Soviet model? I am still taken abakc when I hear the announcements on the NJT that I should report any suspicious thing or person to the authorities. You know, "be on the look out!" I see the rationale behind random bag searches at the subway, but I don't like it - even when it isn't me going through the search. Perhaps I've just adjusted my sense of what is acceptable in a civil society. At the same time, seeing this photo of a woman doing her patriotic duty by throwin out a lipstick leads me to believe that this is no "slippery-slope" fallacy. I don't see an end to what we rights we will give up as long as they come slowly over time. Where, if ever could we draw a line? Seriously, given that they are aware of the way heroin smugglers conceal their wares - and the people they use as mules, when will they begin to ask us all to submit to x-rays and body cavity searches before we board a plane, bus, or train? All in the name of national security.