[IP] Five o'clock shadow? You're a marked man!
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Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 08:50:59 -0800
From: "Kevin Bankston @ EFF" <bankston@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [E-PRV] FW: Five o'clock shadow? You're a marked man!
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Salon on traveling under Orange Alert:
I like to travel. But I'm not looking forward to a future in which I need to
get to the airport five hours ahead of departure to be sure I won't miss a
flight, one in which I'm patted down from head to toe several times every
time I try to board a plane, one in which I am constantly explaining every
item in my luggage and every twist in my itinerary to hostile agents. I've
had the chance to think about airline security a great deal over the past
few days, and I'll tell you this: After being asked by one security guard to
drink from a water bottle in my carry-on to prove that it wasn't acid or
poison; after being interrogated by a U.S. customs agent who was suspicious
at the number of books I had in my luggage; after the long lines, the hand
inspections, the X-ray screenings, the near riots by enraged passengers, the
uncertainty and the anxiety -- after all that, traveling to a foreign land,
or even just across the state of California, doesn't seem quite so exotic or
alluring anymore.
-----Original Message-----
From: Salon.com
Posted At: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 12:50 AM
Posted To: Salon
Conversation: Five o'clock shadow? You're a marked man!
Subject: Five o'clock shadow? You're a marked man!
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/leon/2004/01/06/terror_travel/index.html
Five o'clock shadow? You're a marked man!
In times of terror alert, international travel turns into an endurance
marathon -- and a financial train wreck.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Andrew Leonard
Jan. 6, 2004 | On Sunday, Jan. 4, the check-in counter for Aeromexico
Airlines in the Mexico City International Airport opened at 4:30 a.m., fully
four and a half hours before a 9 a.m. flight to Los Angeles was scheduled to
take off. For even extremely cautious travelers, four-plus hours might seem
like adequate time to pick up a boarding pass and get one's bags checked.
But to the people who had missed their flights the day before at that same
airport, four and a half hours seemed to be cutting it dangerously close.
Over this past weekend, heightened security measures resulting from U.S.
Transportation Security Administration alerts about a particular Aeromexico
flight led to what may have been the most extreme security measures ever
carried out at the Mexico City International Airport. I know, because I was
there, and after waiting seven hours in line on Jan. 3, and missing two
flights to Los Angeles, I wasn't going to take any chances. I was in line at
3:30 in the morning.
Or, to be more precise, I was in line to get in line, because airline
personnel had blocked off the main check-in area and were admitting
travelers through the barricades in dribs and drabs. And already, at 3:30 in
the morning, the lines to get in line were 30 to 40 people long, and getting
longer at what seemed like a geometrically expanding rate. By 6 a.m., when I
did end up actually getting a boarding pass (after having had all my luggage
hand-inspected for the third time in 24 hours), multiple lines to get in
line stretched awesomely across the airport's concourse, summoning up images
from the evacuation of Saigon or scenes from "The Year of Living
Dangerously." Those who had arrived, say, a mere two hours before their
flight was due to take off were in for a rude awakening.
And checking one's bags in was just the first step. Then there were the
lines to get through security, and then the lines to get on the plane
itself. Lines to get in lines to get in lines to get in lines. Even at the
best of times, there's a certain Borgesian labyrinth feel to Mexico City
International. On this particular weekend, Borges was channeling Kafka.
The proximate cause of the chaos was the cancellation of two Aeromexico
flights to Los Angeles (and the turning back of a third, and the fighter-jet
escorting, reportedly, of a fourth) earlier in the week. The decision to
hand-inspect every piece of luggage -- and conduct rigorous security checks
of passengers just prior to boarding -- resulted in a cascade of missed
flights, missed connections, overbooked airplanes and bumped passengers. On
the morning of Jan. 4, passengers and airline personnel alike stumbled
around with looks of exhaustion and despair. As a passenger, all one had to
do was mention the words "Los Angeles" and everyone around you shied away in
horror (even more than they usually do).
If we take on faith that the TSA had reasonably good reasons for targeting
Aeromexico Flight 490 as a legitimate al-Qaida terrorist risk, then of
course no amount of security is too much, and a missed flight here or there
is little price to pay for averting thousands of deaths. I have no quarrel
with that. But if scenes like last weekend's keep recurring, the
consequences for airlines and the travel industry in general will be dire.
I like to travel. But I'm not looking forward to a future in which I need to
get to the airport five hours ahead of departure to be sure I won't miss a
flight, one in which I'm patted down from head to toe several times every
time I try to board a plane, one in which I am constantly explaining every
item in my luggage and every twist in my itinerary to hostile agents. I've
had the chance to think about airline security a great deal over the past
few days, and I'll tell you this: After being asked by one security guard to
drink from a water bottle in my carry-on to prove that it wasn't acid or
poison; after being interrogated by a U.S. customs agent who was suspicious
at the number of books I had in my luggage; after the long lines, the hand
inspections, the X-ray screenings, the near riots by enraged passengers, the
uncertainty and the anxiety -- after all that, traveling to a foreign land,
or even just across the state of California, doesn't seem quite so exotic or
alluring anymore.
If I were the CEO of an airline, I'd be worried.
Just for the record, I will note that standing seven hours in line at an
airport, missing a couple of flights, spending a night (or two) at a hotel,
and having one's belongings pawed do not constitute some kind of tragedy
worthy of overmuch sympathy. Since I had a lot of time to think about the
experience of standing in lines over the weekend, I was able to cheer myself
up by noting that at least I wasn't some Soviet citizen of the 1970s waiting
half the day -- every day -- just to get a lump of stale bread or a bottle
of rotgut vodka.
Still, for Aeromexico, this week couldn't have been a good one for the
balance sheet. By at least one estimate, a canceled flight costs an airline
$250,000. But the cascading effect from so many passengers missing
connections because of the long delays had to make the red ink flow far
beyond a single flight's cancellation. I saw hundreds of people being
offered hotel rooms, food vouchers, first-class upgrades, free tickets to
other destinations -- all in a desperate attempt to prevent increasingly
unruly and angry mobs from completely losing control.
And those immediate costs pale against what is probably much more
significant: a rise in the general unwillingness of passengers to deal with
the hassle, period. Mexico City wasn't the only airport resembling an
anthill poked with a stick this past weekend. At Los Angeles International,
on Sunday, the scene was also out of control, even at normally
super-efficient terminals such as Southwest's. According to press reports,
security levels around the world were at their highest ever.
And maybe rightfully so. Maybe all that security prevented attacks that
would otherwise have happened. Looked at optimistically, maybe this past
weekend might have marked the high-water point for security concerns at
airports, and life will gradually transition back to something roughly
approaching normal.
But what if it doesn't? What if there is another terrorist attack involving
airlines, and the security measures in place this past weekend become the
norm? If they do, it's going to be pretty hard for airlines to make a decent
buck, and plenty of travelers may decide there are better ways to spend the
weekend than admiring airline decor and contemplating the Rashomonic aspects
of how six different airline personnel can tell six different stories about
why your flight is being delayed.
I could go on -- I could describe the paranoia that begins to seep in, once
you've been informed by another passenger that undercover TSA agents are
standing in line with you with the authority to cancel your flight if they
deem the security insufficient. Suddenly, a personality disorder akin to
that suffered by prisoners who fall in love with their torturers sweeps over
you. Please, search my bag more carefully, you start to think. No -- don't
skip that pocket -- someone might see you and cancel the flight!
But instead, as a public service to future travelers, I'll offer some tips
from my personal experience on ways to avoid setting off alarms at airports.
1) Do not have a ticket that has you originally leaving a given airport on a
Sunday, which you have changed mid-trip to leave on Saturday, but which then
became further altered when you missed your Saturday flight and now have to
catch a Sunday flight. This kind of ticket is considered something of a red
flag to airline personnel. It is not helpful. Especially when you are
demanding a first-class upgrade, unless you can somehow give the impression
that you are a TSA agent, in which case you can get very nice treatment.
2) Do not stay overnight in a Marriott hotel that for unexplained reasons
has no water flowing in its shower or sink at 3 a.m. Not being able to take
a shower after spending a whole day waiting in lines at an airport makes you
look like a terrorist. People who look like terrorists wait in longer lines,
and have their toiletries examined with closer attention. Having your
toiletries examined with overly close attention makes you want to be a
terrorist. This is also not helpful.
3) Do not be traveling with a cardboard box sealed closed with layers of
packing tape and stuffed with Mexican handicrafts wrapped in multiple layers
of newspaper. Security agents find such boxes to be presumptive indications
of guilt for something, and they tend to lose their sense of humor when
unwrapping the sixth little ceramic statue of a Zapotec warrior king. Also,
it is not helpful to inform said security agent that they are opening up a
box that has been opened up and searched three times already in the past 36
hours.
4) Do not somehow end up responsible for a traveling companion's luggage in
addition to yours. For reasons too complicated to explain here, I became
separated from my companion in the Mexico City airport, and she ended up
flying out of the country (possibly with a fighter jet escort, and only five
hours after the originally scheduled departure) without even realizing that
I was still standing in line with all the bags in the bowels of the airport.
When the security guard has already decided that the person standing in
front of him with a screwed-up itinerary, unshaven cheeks and greasy hair is
clearly up to no good, the last thing they want to hear is that you are
carrying someone else's luggage with you, and no, you are not exactly sure
what is in the fucking box. (Although by the end of the weekend, I did have
a pretty good idea what was in the box, as I cheekily informed the U.S.
customs agent. Who then proceeded to cast suspicion on my books.)
5) Do not have a Chinese dictionary in your carry-on. Only terrorists take
Chinese dictionaries to Mexico with them for a New Year's vacation.
As readers have probably figured out by now, by the end of the weekend I was
pretty much convinced that I was in fact a terrorist, and all the delays and
flight cancellations were a result of computers choking on my personal
profile. I'd like to apologize to everyone who was in the Mexico City
International Airport last weekend, because it might all have been my fault.
I'm sorry.
But if you think my jocularity is out of place in discussing security
measures designed to prevent attacks such as those on the World Trade
Center, then think again. In the world we're now living in, we are all being
treated as if each and every one of us is a terrorist until proven innocent.
This is hard enough for the travel industry to handle financially. How are
the rest of us going to cope with it psychologically, as the century winds
on?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Andrew Leonard is the editor of Salon's Technology & Business department.
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