Leave My Shoes Alone (revisisted). [View All]

[Protagoras]

Just got back from a multi-leg cross country flight and have to do it again next month and I'm annoyed to say that it just keeps getting more absurd. I wrote this over a year ago and kept thinking it has to change...people have to wake up...someone has to say NO...now I find that my wife who is a much more frequent traveler than I am has become COMPLACENT about it...never thought I'd see it but she and all the other folks in the line now do it automatically...we can indeed get conditioned to accept any idiocy if they march us thru the rat maze long enough. But since I said it once I figured why not say it again. I'd like to note that I didn't see any actual searches of people...no questions asked...no one pulled out of line. But I saw every single person in NYC, Boston, and Dallas forced to remove their shoes (and hats). And we wonder why Fox News is successful? Because we are trained sheep (and sadly I was too resistant to destroying our trip and embarassing my wife to be anything other than a pissed off sheep myself). But something has to change...so far it hasn't.

*Repost from 2005*

I flew again this week. As I did so I was suprised that the security which, up till last October had just been retarded and obnoxious had become (according to the security guard who I questioned) Downright insanely intrusive.

Apparently, as of last fall, every passenger going thru security must now remove their shoes. Not as part of a periodic check...but as part of any entrance for every person.

Every person? This got me to thinking, and wondering....

We've had 1...yes...1 attempted and FAILED attempt to use a shoe as a weapon on a plane in the history of flight as far as I can tell...any data to the contrary would be appreciated.

Anyway so as I pondered this...1 event, by 1 nutberger, that failed ...has now been used as a reason (excuse) to require millions of people to hope around like barefoot clowns. It's been used to inconvenience and annoy countless people...in fact...how many people and how much inconvenience are we talking about?

Well according to Delta's site, they flew 109,999,636 people in 2004. Delta serves some overseas sites...but Delta is only one of many US airlines. So lets say somewhere between 100 and 300 million people in the next year? Average it out to 200 million shoeless people...200 million people in business suits, 200 million grannies with canes, 200 million people with athelets foot running around in the airport...

All because 1/ONE/UNO guy frantically trying to apply his bic lighter to a shoe has been used to induce panic in the entire population of this big country.

Can you ask about the Cost/Benefit? Can you say Risk assessment?

What are the odds we'll be struck by lightening, an asteroid, or die from a bee sting? What is the liklihood that I'll have a bundle of iron pipes fall off the back of a truck tomorrow and crush me in my car on the freeway? What are the odds that I'll have a freak bathtub drowning incident?

Well I'm not worried about any of those...and I don't take off my shoes for any of those things...nor do I routinely and publically inconvenience myself for these things. I do, however, appear to be required to worry about my shoe blowing up during flight.

This is absurd.

Moreover, as I reflect on it, I think it's nefarious. Yes a nutberger could use a shoe (or any other semi-solid object) to carry some plastik (sp?) explosive on an airplane. Apparently it isn't detected by the alarm system...

So if that's the case, what's to prevent myself from (please take no offense) stuffing it up my rectum? They haven't yet institued automatic cavity checks but if I'm a suicidal bomber I don't see why this would be a barrier to my insane plans (note I am not either suicidal nor a bomber, I'm just an annoyed American who's sick to death of intrusions to my person).

Seems to me we have a perfect example of the frog in the pot here. The intent is NOT to protect us. Face it, there are about 1000 things I could do that would be as or more effective than constructing a shoe bomb...but which would be far easier to carry out (no I won't even think of them or list them because that's probably a threat to someone)...So why would we begin the mighty de-shoeing crusade in every airport, forcing people to hop around like fools while security people are forced to endure the foul stench of gym socks for hours on end, every day, in every airport, without an end?

Simplest reason in my mind? Well it's either

A) to give us a very expensive and time consuming ILLUSION that they are doing SOMETHING...

or

B) A cynical attempt to get us used to doing anything, no matter how inane and rediculous they tell us to do because it has the label of "SECURITY" stamped on it. The warmup for the bigger events to follow.

My bet...it's both A & B. They pacify us with the thought that they are somehow really getting TOUGH (let someone try and mess with an airplane after forgetting to re-tie their shoes in security) AND they get the very convenient (and I believe forseen) side effect of proving to themselves that yes...we...the American public will pretty much follow any order they give like the good sheep they hope us to be.

Where do we go from here? I don't rightly know at the moment. I'm avoiding flying as much as possible, writing my letters on DU and to the Editor, and even to my rep...but I'm a small peep in a giant din of political machinery. I suppose I could just dismiss it...it's only a minor thing after all...and so is the RFID chip in my national ID card...I'm sure that having my library books tracked and having to show my papers to cross state lines will be too.

Perhaps I'll get used to it all...I probably just woke up too soon, and noticed the water heating up. But honestly, I'm not feeling like being poached...and I feel like we've only seen the first shoe start to drop here...and I don't look forward to seeing what will happen when the second one descends.

Random thoughts from a disgruntled flyer,

Prot.