I Fit the Profile
I've been through security
countless times at countless places, and I pride myself on wasting the least
amount of time. This requires that I be fully cooperative. I am also a private
pilot, and so I can affect a pretty good "yes, sir, yes, ma'am" style of snappy
camaraderie. When airport security is tightened, and everyone is being asked,
"May I look into this bag, please?" I reply happily, "You bet, sir! Let me open
it for you!"
On a
recent Friday, I picked up my prepaid, overnight round-trip tickets 20 minutes
before departure, without any check-in luggage. The ticketing agent told me
that my carry-ons would be searched, and that I needed to obtain a signature
from security on an attached label in order to board. I said, "Yes ma'am, no
problem." I thought, "Security must be really tight today."
With no lines at security, I got through in record time. My
bags got X-rayed, and my level of whatever those portals you walk through
measure was determined to be under the threshold. I must be the person with the
lowest metal content in the history of air travel. I do not even carry small
change. (I am practical.) So I asked the security people, "What about the
signature?" A supervisor appeared, quickly signed while avoiding my naively
friendly gaze, and handed me to Junior, who then proceeded--methodically, if
not neatly--to unpack everything I was carrying, and to toss my clothes,
toiletries, etc., into a dirty bin nearby.
Then it
hit me. It was not that security was especially tight: It was only me
they wanted. And that "May I?" polite foreplay had gone out the window. The
label my friendly hometown airline had affixed to my bags had unexpectedly made
me a marked man, someone selected for some unknown special treatment. The
routine was broken; the power had shifted; the violation had begun. I suddenly
felt as if in the grip of a giant vise, a terrible feeling I had last
experienced as a teen-ager before fleeing Communist Hungary.
When I recount this story to friends, this is
where they start to smile, as if a diagnosis of my condition had suddenly
become apparent. After all, if someone with post-traumatic stress disorder
jumped 2 feet in the air every time a door slammed shut, good friends would be
more concerned about the person's condition, not the door. In a like manner, my
friends may suspect I am suffering from some Hungarian Refugee Syndrome, which
makes me overly sensitive to perfectly reasonable intrusions by the state.
I try to
explain: The communism I had fled was hardly traumatic or violent. One aspect
of the horrible vise was the constant minor humiliations I had to suffer, such
as interaction with the block warden, the party overlord of a block of houses,
who had to give his assent to all matters tiny or grand, including travel. On
this Friday in the United States, I was being singled out for an unusual and
humiliating search. My personal goal was to fly to Los Angeles for a meeting
that was important to me. If I had refused the search--cried "NO!" as it
were--I assume they would have let me go home, but I would have been forbidden
to board the plane and would have missed my meeting. So I did what I had done
30 years ago: I chose to be humiliated just so I could reach my goal.
I've just had my FAA physical for my pilot's license. It is
a thorough search for diseases and disabilities. I knew what it would entail,
why they do it, and that everybody is treated the same way. I had no problem
with that.
The airport-security search
took about six minutes. Junior kept up an awkward canned patter, assuring me
that I would be a safer person for this and that he understood my anger. I
mumbled a lie about how I was not angry with him personally. First I attempted
to hang onto my dignity by being passive. However, as time stretched out, I
found myself cooperating to get it over with.
I
collected my clothes from the bin, my tie from the floor. I was free to go to
L.A.
The next day, I found the Note in the return-ticket
envelope. Of course, it had been there from the beginning, slipped in by the
ticket agent. But who reads those inserts next to the "Limitations on Baggage
Liability"? The salient paragraphs from the Note:
Why was
I chosen?
Passengers
are selected both randomly and through an objective systematic approach based
on direction from the FAA.
How can
I avoid this in the future?
Please understand that
Federal Regulations prohibit FAA personnel, XXXX Airlines, and all other air
carriers from sharing specific information regarding this program with the
public.
Who could
be against an "objective systematic approach" (except for the inventor of the
automatic buzzword generator that gives us terms like "synchronized synergistic
systems")? What does "based on" mean? Is the airline just following orders, or
is it adding its own fantasies? And as to what one can do to avoid this
treatment in the future (good question!), the pamphlet is clear: nothing.
The following Wednesday, I had to fly to L.A. again, this
time with an associate. I decided against carry-ons. I still felt like a total
paranoiac when I repacked the contents of my soft carry-on bag into a hard-case
bag to check in, and when I asked my associate to do the same. But I was
determined not to be humiliated again. And of course, we flew Another Airline.
At curbside check-in the agent noticed my one-way ticket. Uh-oh. "We'll have to
check it inside." Surprise!
"Both of you guys have been
tagged by the computer."
"What does this mean? Why?" I
asked innocently.
"It is a random selection by
the computer," came the reply.
"I do not believe it is
random," I opined with conviction.
"Sir, I assure you it is
completely random," said the agent quite sincerely, adding for reassurance,
"Why, half an hour ago [the computer] tagged a guy who could barely walk."
"But what does it mean to be
tagged?" we asked again.
"You have to identify your
carry-ons!" the agent ordered.
"We have none," we said
triumphantly.
"In that case you do not have
a problem."
My
associate was impressed by my prescience, and we both felt free and in control
as we walked off with our hands in our pockets, carrying only a few dollars,
the boarding card, and a driver's license. We had a great day. I felt much
better: I was not completely paranoid. I fit the profile. But a profile of
what? I could not even begin to imagine.
My associate was returning before me. Early
next morning there was a phone message from him. "I am calling you from the
gate. I've been tagged again and this time, they wanted to search my check-in
luggage. I was livid and made a big scene. They relented and bypassed the
computer." I am a shaggy-looking guy with a foreign accent. My associate is an
Air Force Reservist who has the bearing of "Iceman" in Top Gun . What
profile does he fit?
I returned to my hometown
later, using another form of transportation.
