Airport Security

Things being a little slow on the work side first thing this morning, I was working my way through the BBC website for interesting news items when I happened upon an article about airport security. Apparently they are introducing these full body scanners at the majority of US airports and some people (a minority I hasten to add), are not too keen. Nothing to do with that they are terrorists or anything like that, more the privacy thing.


Now, I think most of us have seen pictures of what these scanners show, and let us say they don't leave a lot to the imagination, but if this is the price of saving us all from being blown apart at 40,000 feet, then if some airport worker wants to have a gawp at my tits, then so be it; that along with the taking your shoes off (would be nice if they could actually wash the floor once in a while), taking off you belt, getting your lap top out, no liquids etc etc!!


Now the article on the BBC website has had a fair amount of comment and most people are saying the same sort of thing; they don't mind the security if it keeps them alive, what they actually want is consistency - why have I got to take my shoes off and the bloke in front did not, and the behaviour of the security staff. Oh, and I am so with them on that!!!!


I find flying immensely boring, a necessary evil to be able to visit those members of the family who for various reason have decided to abandon the UK and live in far flung parts of the world. So apart from spending a significant portion of my annual salary in airline tickets and TAXES (we won't go there right now!), I have to get on a plane. I have never had a really bad flight, some could have been better than others, some staff are better than others, it is the being stuck in a small metal tube with little leg room, tiny seats and screaming children, but job done, I get there. But since 9/11 we appear to be giving free reign to these jobsworth dictators in the making that appear to make up the security staff the world over.


I was actually in the US for 9/11; my uncle came and woke us up at about 7am (we were in California) saying we had to get up and watch what was happening, and we then spent about the next few hours glued to the TV, seeing the second tower hit and both towers fall. We also experienced the strangeness of no planes (uncle lived not that far from LAX) and the fact that every US federal building (government) was shut for days - including the Hoover Dam which we had intended to visit. When we came to go home a few weeks later, security was a little more stringent, but nothing to the levels it has now reached, think they hadn't got themselves sorted at this point.


Anyway, I digress. I think most reasonable and sane people accept and understand the need for the additional security and restrictions, I do. But what I object to is how we are treated. In the UK, and the US I think for that matter, there is the presumption in law, innocent until proven guilty. Generally it is up to the state to prove that you are guilty, not you to prove that you are innocent (in a very simplistic way of looking at it). With airport security this appears to have been lost and the assumption is, you bought a plane ticket, you must be a terrorist in the making then. I work for the police, and if we treated the public the way that airport security treat them, we would all be on disciplinary, and probably out of a job.


I am going to generalise here, and I admit there are probably some airport security staff who this does not apply to (please come out from where ever you are hiding). I have to say that they are rude, humourless, treat you like some piece of dirty they have seen on the floor (there is lots, coz their floors are filthy as I can testify by the state of my socks when ever I have had to take my shoes off!!!!), are condescending and should you dare to object to being treated in such a disgusting manner then you either get special treatment (a more intimate search - in private if necessary) or the ultimate sanction..............you cannot get on the airplane!!!! You get jobsworths in all walks of life, I have worked with a few, yet the airport security business seems to attract these people. They have been given a little bit of power and god do they abuse it. Hitlers in the making...............and why?? I am sure that they would find that things would go far more smoothly if they were actually nice to people. It's the age old adage 'treat people who you would like to be treated yourself'. I have to deal with people who are difficult and not nice, you try the being nice and sympathetic......sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and then you have to use other tactics, but I always try to start off being nice. Maybe these guys should try it and see where it gets them................and we would all have a far more pleasant experience!!!!!!!!!!!