Ask the pilot writes about security. It’s all good I thought, but particularly this:
If the rules themselves aren’t crazy enough, the physical setup of the screening stations is atrocious. After all this time, they remain a jury-rigged assemblage of noise, clutter and disorganization. A couple of particulars: Why are the X-ray platforms at waist level, requiring people to lift their heavy bags on and off? How difficult would it be to have an incline on the front end, and a carousel of sorts on the back end, allowing passengers to collect their belongings in an orderly fashion. The typical pickup point — a cluster of flailing arms and the dangerous slinging of heavy bags — reminds me of the mosh pits of the early 1980s (we called it “slam dancing” in those days, but you get the idea).
At this point, the whole apparatus of concourse security is little more than a stage presentation, a theater of the absurd, choreographed to the cowardly notion that confiscating shampoo bottles and forcing airline captains to remove their footwear actually makes us safer. How we got here is an interesting study in reactionary politics, fear-mongering, and a disconcerting willingness of the American public to accept almost anything in the name of “security.” We have come to equate intrusiveness and inconvenience with safety.