Stupidest Airport Security Stories

[Caliga]

Why would sandals be a requirement?

[HVC]

Asians hate shoes indoors

[Caliga]

But Tim is in charge.  He should be able to do whatever the fuck he wants.

[crazy canuck]

Incidentally, don't you just love random checks? Yeah, strip search a respectable elderly Caucasian lady going to visit her grandchildren on a local flight, but do not as much as touch a bearded imam who bought a one way transatlantic flight ticket. 

My guess is that the random elderly Caucasian ladies are screened to give the illusion of non-discriminatory screening, but anyone who looks like a bearded imam will also be "randomly" screened.

Thats what goes through my mind whenever I get pulled aside for a search.  If there is a profile out there that says I am in anyway a danger that profiler needs to be fired.

[Neil]

But Tim is in charge.  He should be able to do whatever the fuck he wants.

He's not though.  Asians run the school.

If Tim was white, you might have a point.

[Neil]

The opposite was in a dinky two bit flight from Galway to Dublin. Everybody, including the flight crew, had to take off their shoes and go through the full mumbo-jumbo.

Yeah, but it's Ireland.  If you have a planeload of Irish, the odds of having a terrorist on board are pretty close to 100%.

[alfred russel]

Thats what goes through my mind whenever I get pulled aside for a search.  If there is a profile out there that says I am in anyway a danger that profiler needs to be fired.

Recently at a US airport I approached an empty security screening station with one person behind me: he looked to be about a 30 something arabic person, he had a non US passport (not sure the country), and it looked like it was his first time through security in the US as he didn't know what to do. The security team went over to help him organize his things for screening (take off shoes, jacket, remove laptop, etc) and told him a couple times that everyone has to do this, they aren't singling him out.

I got pulled for the naked scanner, he didn't. My guess is that a lot of the screeners just want to get through their days without complaints or trouble. I assume I get picked for screening for two reasons: #1, I'm usually a solo male traveler, which probably is a risk, and #2, screeners assume I'm a docile guy and I'm not going to make their lives difficult if they pick me.