Flight 800 and our Civil Liberties

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 12:11 AM -0700 11/19/97, Bill Stewart wrote:

>One of the parts that's irked me most about this (as distinct from
>outrage at the loss of civil liberties) is that the thugs won't even
>come out and say "The Government Requires You To Have Papers To Travel",
>since they can't do that, at least without PR problems.
>Instead they bully the airlines into requiring more obedience to
>avoid arbitrary $10,000 FUD penalties than a direct law could require.
>And the airline employees keep telling me "it's always been this way"
>a couple of weeks after each change of the rules.

"We have _always_ been at war with Eastasia."

I've also noticed that the drones who work for the airlines have even less
common sense and humor than before. Any hint of a nonstandard answer
results in a stern look and perhaps a trip to Security.

I was picking up a boarding pass for a flight from San Diego to San Jose,
and truthfully answered "Yes" to the usually perfunctory "Have any of your
bags been out of your sight?"

The drone gave me a stern look, as if I were admitting to being a
terrorist, and immediately marched me toward the Security station. (I
almost chose to remain behind, but that just would've resulted in armed men
escorting me into a small room for some amount of interrogation, and no
ticket back to San Jose.)

The drone asked me, as we were walking, to explain further. I pointed to
the restrooms and said, "The stalls are too small for my bags, so I hung
one of the bags on the hooks provided."

She said, "Well,  I don't think that's what we mean by a bag leaving your
sight. But you're supposed to take the bag into the stall with you."

"Look, lady, maybe the women's restrooms are laid out differently, but the
men's restrooms have stalls that are barely wide enough to get into, let
alone carry a piece of carryon luggage into as well."

She was clearly puzzled and befuddled by a passenger-unit actually telling
the obvious truth that some large fraction of passengers just lie about....

She conferred with the security droids for several minutes, as I was told
to stand off in an empty area of the terminal. I just stood there calmly.

She told me to follow her back to the boarding area. She handed me a
boarding pass without another word being said.

I suppose a negative remark was placed in my permanent file.

--Tim May

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