Security Screening, Safety and Spinal Tap

Well, the Thanksgiving holiday season has come and gone, and one of the biggest stories stemming from the weekend was the invasive security checks at airports. People viewed the fondling and groping to be a bit excessive (especially if it did not lead to impending membership into the Mile High Club). And, of course, there were the all-to-anatomically correct X-ray pictures that not only indicate if passengers are carrying weapons, but they “deliver” more packages than UPS during the holidays. Just imagine Nigel Tufnel’s reaction if the whole terminal, not to mention the other members of Spinal Tap could see his cucumber…yet I digress.

Despite my thinly-veiled sarcasm, these stories truly made me reflect on how much our country has changed in the past nine years. I was on one of the first few flights that was allowed to leave Chicago after 9-11. I was flying from Midway to DC, and even though I have probably flown hundreds of times since that day, I will never forget that flight and the many others I took within a few months of 9-11. We all remember the dogs in the airports, the first time we saw the locked door to the cockpit, and who could forget that no one could leave their seats 30 minutes after takeoff or 30 minutes before landing into our nation’s capital?

But, what I remember most are the conversations passengers had with each other on their flights. Regardless of whether or not a US Marshal was on board, people discussed, half kidding, who would “deal with” any threat, if heaven forbid, there was one on the flight. People would smile at these comments, but the concerns (and the needs to look out for each other) were mutual.

While I would love to believe that we lost those feelings of camaraderie only recently, I don’t believe that to be the case. Our willingness to look out for each other has waned considerably since 9-11.

But, let’s think again about the grand complaint…privacy vs. safety. I am certainly not for safety at the expense of all personal freedom, but I do find it interesting that we can’t seem to figure out how to keep those darn X-ray results private enough for passengers, yet referees go to a curtain so no one in a football stadium can see the video replay the ref sees before potentially overturning a call. This one just does not seem to be a hard call for me. Doctors, nurses, X-ray technicians all work under a veil of privacy. I’d think we could develop a system so that our TSA professionals could do the same, without broadcasting the results to the bulk of O’Hare airport.