Sunday, April 24, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
JOHN L. SMITH: TSA thwarts terrorist armed with a pink plastic purse and teddy bear
Last week, I was ordered to stand aside at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix and watch as an intrepid member of the crack Transportation Security Administration frisked my 9-year-old daughter, Amelia.
Amelia is a good reader and excels at math, but to my knowledge her third-grade curriculum hasn't included a single day of terrorist training. But, as they like to say around Washington these days, you can't be too careful.
She complied with the security matron's requests, and from the sidelines I assured her everything would be OK, but inside I seethed.
Forget for a moment that she was recovering from brain tumor surgery and we were flying to Las Vegas to my mother's hospital bedside. What infuriated me was the fact this was the second time in as many flights that the TSA's gum ball brain trust had singled out Amelia for such treatment.
On a previous flight, my wife, Tricia, also was frisked. That time, the security expert's metal detector was set off by something on Amelia that seemed terribly suspicious.
"What's that?" the TSA ace asked.
Was it a bomb strapped to the body of a child who'd undergone major surgery?
Those terrorists will stop at nothing to impede our freedom.
No, it was the metal chest catheter she'd had surgically implanted to help facilitate blood draws and chemotherapy.
When my angry wife carefully -- carefully, so as not to be arrested for screaming -- explained the situation, the security folks were then more polite and gave Amelia a toy -- after they searched her little carry-on bag for weapons of mass destruction.
Last week it was my turn to witness the little tyranny against a little person.
Off came her shoes, out stretched her arms.
My favorite part was when the security queen took the bomb-detecting swab and with great ceremony emptied Amelia's pink plastic purse of its contents -- Walkman with earphones, ChapStick and small pink teddy bear -- and wiped the inside of the carry-on bag. Holding the swab at arm's length with a specially designed wand, the guard walked it back to the area set aside for analyzing such things.
Curses, foiled again. After a short delay, my daughter managed to run the TSA gantlet and continue on her way.
Oddly, I wasn't searched. It was the first time in five trips that I'd been designated as something less than a flight risk. Because in recent months I've often traveled on short notice, I initially believed it was simply the style of ticket purchase that kicked me into the suspect file.
I was wrong.
"Your name is on the watch list," the friendly Southwest representative explained, asking for my date of birth. She held my driver's license, which lists my date of birth, but I decided not to quibble and complied with her request.
On the watch list?
What? The watch list for poor wardrobe choice?
It's the name, she said. It's a common name, a possible alias.
If I'd used an assumed name that wasn't so common, would I have received airline approval?
The TSA began as an overreaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the failure to act by the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies. There was ample information that men with ties to al-Qaida and other radical Islamic fundamentalist groups had come to the United States with a plan to commit acts of large-scale terrorism.
Instead of moving decisively based on information from veteran agents, the authorities acted like bureaucracies and failed to do their jobs.
That's the big story.
This is a little one.
Now a word from the Transportation Security Administration Web site:
"The ultimate goal of TSA service is to create an atmosphere that aligns with our passengers' need to be secure while ensuring the freedom of movement for people. In doing so our employees will assure customer confidence and ultimately establish a standard for passenger satisfaction."
By repeatedly searching children, swabbing their purses for bombs and squeezing their teddy bears for foreign objects?
Is this the America you want?
Remember, fellow travelers, it's the petty tyrannies against the little people that make us all less free.
John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.
