Airlines: Security Check

Government, Laws Gone Too Far, Uncategorized

Since the horror that was 9/11, and the failed attempt of the shoe bomber, all of us have wondered at the inane security rules imposed upon air travelers within and to the United States. The stories of the ineptitude of the TSA are legion.

First lighters were banned, and then recently unbanned. Uh, why does anybody need a lighter on an airplane anyway? Shoe bomb or not, isn’t the point of a lighter to make fire? Why should anybody be allowed to make fire on an airplane. So that was one good decision, followed by one bad decision. Is the Zippo lobby on Capitol Hill really that powerful?

Last month, a man smuggled a live monkey aboard a commercial flight under his hat! I have to take off my shoes, but the TSA doesn’t think to check out a monkey-smelling hat?

I’ve heard of people with nearly empty liquid and gel product bottles told they had to discard the item because the bottle itself was over regulation size. I’ve actually witnessed a handicapped old woman made to vacate her wheelchair (without assistance!) so she could be body-wanded from head to toe and have her wheelchair completely inspected. I personally had to take my baby out of her infant carrier, disassemble her stroller and put them (the carrier and stroller, not the baby) through the x-ray machine (actually, I’m not so sure that last one is unreasonable; it’s a pain in the traveler’s butt, but I wouldn’t put it past a terrorist to get a baby and rig the carrier/stroller to sneak through an explosive device).

But what in all of Creation could the reason be for making people empty their baby bottles of water? It’s a simple equation: baby, water, dry powdered formula in a can… Sure, a terrorist could use the cover of a baby to smuggle some sort of clear explosive liquid through security disguised as water. BUT, if the bottle has formula in it, then it’s perfectly fine to bring it through security.

Are there no pale beige explosive liquids? Are there no inert beige powders that can be mixed with a clear explosive liquid in a baby bottle so as to foil the TSA’s rules?

And then, as a TSA agent in Florida was pouring out the measured bottles of water I had prepared for my infant, she gave me the clue as to why you can’t take water through security: She told me I could simply buy bottled water at one of the fine shops or eateries near my gate.

Well, I guess the bottled water lobby must be very powerful, as is the need for the airport to generate greater revenue. Yes, the liquid ban has less to do with security and more to do with wanting to sell more overpriced bottles of water at the airport shops!

Thank God those places don’t sell baby formula! That stuff is expensive enough as it is without an airport shop markup. But they do sell haircare items and mouthwash and beverages.

Unfortunately for the infant-laden couple in front of us, those shops don’t sell baby bottle liners. The under-trained, just followed orders TSA agent threw out the liners from those poor people’s bottles when she poured out the water. Their newborn would have to drink his formula without the benefit of a bottle liner, which the parents use to reduce stomach gas and pain for their tummy-troubled tot.

The response of the Department of Homeland Security agent who reported to the scene to take the couple’s complaint? He threatened to arrest the upset husband who was quickly losing his temper because his newborn son was waking up crying for food, food that would now most likely leave him crying all the way through the flight with stomach pains… that is, after his parents stood in line to buy an expensive bottle of water (which would be cold, which upsets baby tummies even more).

Ah, the unfriendly skies. If you ask me, one look at the TSA makes you think that the terrorists have already won.

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