Feeling secure?

I had a hard time writing this blog. I have no desire to undermine national security, but since I am not impressed with our national security, I felt compelled to speak. So, in a compromise that makes me feel I am not hurting anyone, I won’t use names of airports or museums. This allows me to speak out but still be the patriotic American that would make Sean Hannity proud (sort of like the guy who cheats on his wife on Tuesday but goes to communion on Sunday… it is all good in the eyes of God, right?).

I don’t travel much, but it doesn’t take much to notice what is going on, should you care to look. At one airport, every freaking time, they come after us wanting to wipe down our backpack because our Sony video camera set off the sirens, but this same airport lets you walk through the metal detector wearing shoes. In comparison, another airport pays no attention to the video camera but makes everyone, including the six-year-old, take off shoes.

I asked the woman who was managing the stripping of the shoes (she has a badge that says she is security, but I was skeptical): Why are my shoes allowed in airport x without a second glance but not in this fine establishment? Her response: “We can’t let the terrorists know what we are doing, can we? So we do it differently at each airport, to keep them guessing.” Oh, yes, this is certainly fooling them. There is no way one could remember that four hours ago he had to take his shoes off but was not forced to here.

If I, Joe Infrequent Traveler, has figured out in my four trips a year which airport checks for what, I have a sneaking suspicion that the unit that paid for jumbo jet training is going to shell out a couple of thousand in round-trip tickets to look for any patterns that exist in airport security… and avoid them.

If you haven’t visited Washington D.C. post-911, you are missing quite the show in security. For one monument, you go through a metal detector that security said (unsolicited, as they were worried about pregnant woman walking through it) is stronger than the ones at the airport. Putting aside philosophical questions over what is more valuable to protect, a granite structure that can be rebuilt or people’s lives 30,000 feet in the air, I kept wondering why a terrorist would even bother to bring the bomb inside the monument and risk getting caught by security. I mean, I know nothing about bombs, but if you can blow up entire buildings, I would imagine placing a backpack at the base of the monument would do the trick.

In each of the museums and government buildings (even the pathetically outdated and overpriced National Aquarium where security outnumbered visitors), including the food courts, you have to go through security and metal detectors.

I walked into one of the Smithsonian museums just after it opened that morning, and security obviously didn’t get to its Starbucks coffee yet, because they were not very alert.

Guard 1 (to Guard 2): “Did you check that lady?”
Guard 2: “What lady?”
Guard 1 (pointing to a woman): “That lady!”
Guard 2: “No.”
Guard 1: “Go grab her. She said you did. Check her bag!”

Meanwhile, as Guard 1 checks my bag, he complains that they don’t have the sticks they use to poke the bags without sticking their hands in, as it is common for terrorists to use mouse-traps in camera bags, and they don’t want to get their fingers snapped. I look up and notice Guard 2 just let the woman go on without pursuit.

Solid effort by security.

In one building there is a very popular food court in the basement, which most tourists don’t know about but the people who work in the building and nearby certainly do. My family (myself, wife, 6-year-old son) went there twice, on two different days, for lunch.

In full disclosure, I should reveal that if one were to profile my family, we certainly would be marked by computer software and pulled aside… if that software were tracking people who have never been involved in terrorist activities in the history of earth. But since profiling is very wrong and can never be done in America (it is just wrong!), we were stopped by security on both occasions.

Day 1: In addition to the bag and metal detector, I had to show my driver’s license, a new twist to the D.C. security screenings. After providing it, they let my family through to eat at Subway and a pizza stand.

Day 2: Remembering yesterday, this time I had my driver’s license in hand as I approached the checkpoint. I show it, and we start to walk away, but not so fast. Today, they call out to my wife to come back. She needs to show ID as well. Fortunately, I had my wife’s ID on me, or we would not have been allowed in that day… at least at that entrance. I secretly wanted to walk out and around to the other entrance and test my theory, but I was too hungry. I mentioned to the security female that my wife didn’t need ID yesterday to eat at Subway, but she wasn’t impressed.

On both days, they didn’t bother to card my six-year-old for ID, when he easily was the most obvious threat in the entire lobby, due to his pretending to be a Jedi in Star Wars, jumping around and making explosion sounds repeatedly and loudly. Of course, the reason they did not card my son is they were profiling and admitting that 6-year-old blonde-hair blue-eyed Caucasian boys of American citizens rarely are terrorists (at least outside of Montana). Despite the fact profiling is wrong (very wrong!), it seemed to make sense in this case, be more efficient, yet still accurate, as indeed, my son did not cause any destruction. Why strip-search the lad if he is very unlikely to be a risk, bomb-sounding noises aside?

The bottom line is that security is fooling no one with its inconsistent ways, and the whole point of federalizing security is to provide a high-level of standard that will protect us. I have no problem taking my shoes off, getting strip-searched, or reciting patriotic songs by Celine Dion- if it helps catch the bad guys. But if it does help catch bad guys, then why isn’t every security checkpoint doing it? And if they aren’t doing it because it doesn’t really work, then stop wasting my time by making me do it, because I am obviously not a terrorist.

If I were trying to hurt America, I would not bomb a building in D.C. that the average American cannot identify in a picture, other than to say it was in the movie Independence Day and looks really old.

I would instead do something that would really bring pain and anguish to Americans, like create a computer virus that would rig the American Idol voting, legalize gay marriage, take NASCAR off the air, or force Americans to eat less than 3500 calories a day. That is how you bring a world power to its knees- hit them below the belt in their sensitive areas.