4/30/2006 09:26:00 AM | 
Posted by
JoeSettler
Certainly we see this when the US requires that we release captured terrorists or remove roadblocks for peace, and Israel then complies, but it actually affects Americans more directly at home.
Israelis know what to do about security, and usually they do it right. On the other hand, there is also this “yihiyeh b’seder” attitude which seems to prevent them from going that extra mile and taking some security matters very seriously for extended periods of time.
To me this explains how Palestinian kids walked into Bat Ayin and stole the guns from sleeping soldiers, why, too often, you see soldiers manning checkpoints not looking as attentive as they could be, and other security infractions that that I need not mention here.
I just had to fly in and out of the US and I witnessed a very disturbing scene at the Kennedy x-ray station.
What I found disturbing is I too have experienced my own version of this scene which leads me to believe that the US has absolutely no clue how to protect its citizens.
A young, religious, Israeli mother was carrying her sleeping baby in a sling. I asked her about it afterwards and she explained that it was because she knew she had to put the stroller into the x-ray machine, and this way she didn’t need to disturb the baby.
As we all stood there sans shoes, the security bureaucrat told her to take the baby completely out of the sling before she went through the metal detector. She didn’t want to as it would wake the baby and he would start screaming. She explained she would either beep or not, whether or not the baby was on her.
The security bureaucrat (not a native-born American, mind you) was insistent and threatened to have her strip searched if she didn’t comply. She didn’t actually understand the threat, but her husband did, and he took the baby out, which immediately began to scream and cry and they walked through.
There are three points that disturbed me (there are more, but 3 is enough for here).
- The guard threatened to strip search her, not because he thought she was a threat that required it, but rather as a threat to get her to comply to his bureaucratic instructions.
- This woman’s long flowing dress was far more conducive to hiding a weapon or explosives (which the metal detector can’t see anyway) than the baby sling was. If there really was any suspicion then he should have had her fully checked.
(If they were seriously concerned that the machine couldn’t detect metal between the mother and baby, then at least just have her loosen the sling and hold the baby a little out without overly disturbing it.) - He was incapable of making any decision on his own whether or not this rule made any sense, or how to modify it to fit the situation.
My own experience was when there was apparently a warning that laptops might be used to transport a bomb onto the plane.
So after having our laptops x-rayed we were told to bring it over to the table for a physical examination.
The examination consisted of opening the lid. That’s it! I asked the security bureaucrat, “You know I have a keyboard and screen here, you saw it on the x-ray. Don’t you want to turn it on to see if the battery and hard drive are real?”
He said no, those weren’t his instructions. I said, “But if they told you to check laptops, how else do you have half a chance to see if the components are real and not explosive mock-ups?”
Again he responded that those weren’t his instructions, next.
If I wasn’t flying El Al, I would have felt a certain amount of trepidation on that flight. (Just so you know Ben-Gurion security occasionally spot checks laptops, and they always make you turn it on if they have a suspicion).
After 9/11 there was a (true) story of a baby who was taken from his mother for a more serious security examination – because the baby (not the mother) was the next one to be checked in their numbered sequence. As I recall (perhaps not correctly), the mother was detained for protesting.
These US “guards” are incapable of properly fulfilling their task. They receive instructions and mindlessly fulfill them, no matter how idiotic, inappropriate, or incomplete they may be. They don’t add, they don’t subtract, and they certainly don’t use any common sense.
How safe can it be to fly on a plane from the US (or be a soldier in Iraq) when the bureaucrats in the field are given inadequate and even stupid instructions by the bureaucrats in the office, and no leeway for common sense (if they have any at all)?
I just came across these related links:
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/01/20/more_tsa_fun_robotbr.html
http://www.rense.com/general28/airportscreenersorder.htm
http://daddytypes.com/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1511
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