Welcome to My World

With my friend safely home from her trip to Atlanta, Georgia to participate in the 2008 International Science & Engineering Fair (congratulations to her for winning her seat there, btw! More on that in a subsequent post this weekend ), I am free to rant about the bat-shit insane idiots working for the Transportation Security Administration. Like the “You can’t take pictures here!” crowd demonstrating that sanity has left the security industry behind in public spaces, I am more convinced than ever before that the entire concept of the TSA is fundamentally broken, flawed, and unworkable.

My friend’s luggage, you see, was flagged by the TSA on her flight to Atlanta, and her luggage was detained, screened, and thoroughly searched. She made it to Atlanta. Her luggage didn’t meet her there. It went on to New York (the plane’s next stop) for a thorough examination, then came back to Atlanta where it was eventually delivered to her late that night. So while some unnamed yokels at the TSA in Atlanta and/or New York rummaged through her bags, flipped through her clothes and underwear and all her other possessions that came along on the trip, she spent her first day in Atlanta wearing stuff that didn’t fit her (donated to her by the airline, her friends, and by ISEF sponsors), worrying about whether she’d actually get her bag back (which contained a contact lens case, prescription medication, and other “important” stuff).

What caused them to flag it as “suspicious” you ask? A plastic carrying case designed for, and carrying, eight rechargeable AA batteries. They looked “suspicious” on an X-ray scan, and this was enough for some TSA dickwad to flag the luggage as suspicious, requiring additional screening. How did they accomplish this screening? They put it on the fucking airplane anyway to fly to Atlanta, then put it back in the air again to fly to New York to be examined. Then, having ruled it “safe,” they flew it back to Georgia.

That brings us to the rub of the matter: that pesky second word in the TSA’s name: “Security.” How the fuck was anyone’s security improved or anyone’s safety secured by keeping a suspicious item on the fucking plane? If it was so suspicious, why was it ever permitted aboard in the first place? And if it was only “noticed” in Atlanta, why the fuck did someone decide it was a good idea to put it back on that very same plane?

Of course, it escapes me how, precisely, a set of AA batteries, fully charged but stored within an inert plastic container (not actually connected to anything), constitutes any kind of threat whatsoever to any person in or around an airplane, to the airplane itself (or others around it), to an airport or any of its equipment, or to any living thing or functioning gadget of any kind anywhere in the fucking world. Truly, let’s think about this. There were a total of eight of the batteries. Four of them are newer than the others and are a different brand, but all eight batteries were clearly labeled as 1.2V AA rechargeable batteries. Batteries aren’t actually listed on the TSA’s list of “forbidden items,” and this wasn’t even a question of an exotic battery charger gumming up the works (read that link for another mind-frying adventure with the morons at the TSA, including pictures of the suspected “explosive device”), but they flagged the damned thing anyway.

This is what we get now masquerading as “safety” — you can walk right onto an airplane with a fucking newspaper (which can be used in at least two ways to kill a person, one immediately/instantly, the other involving a lot of effort and silly looks from the other passengers ), but if your luggage contains inert and disconnected batteries, it may not make it to your destination. How did this protect anyone? What could have happened had some unknown objects, mysteriously shaped like AA batteries, been permitted to go on unmolested to their destination. If they were dangerous, how does it make anyone safer to keep the damned things on the airplane?

All we have in the end is an inconvenienced traveler and a “security” administration that should be fucking embarrassed. The people directly responsible for rummaging through an 18 year old woman’s bright-purple luggage (filled with all the usual clothing garments you’d expect an 18 year old woman in her senior year of high school to take with her on school-sponsored trip) should be ashamed and embarrassed to admit they are supposedly “security” screeners. The agency that empowered these idiots should be ashamed that it has actually made this kind of sheer stupidity not only possible, but acceptable (naturally, the traveler has absolutely no recourse for this infraction, and there is no way to identify or contact the TSA personnel involved to directly question and educate them; i.e. you can’t actually fix this directly even by politely and helpfully clarifying what may have been nothing more than an uninformed guess and ignorant concern).

I avoid flying as much as possible; at most, I do it once a year to visit family when taking a bus or driving isn’t an option. I don’t avoid flying because I’m afraid of flying. I don’t avoid it because I’m “afraid of terrorists.” I avoid flying because I’m afraid of the fucking TSA. These people have way too much authority and can ruin a person’s life even if they’ve very obviously done nothing wrong whatsoever.