 Airport insecurity
My wife got
a knife through security -- twice
By Sankara Saranam
June 22, 2004
iranian.com
With the preliminary 9/11 staff reports coming in
and all the faults being pointed out, it may serve us well to look
again at airport security.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I traveled
from Albuquerque to Atlanta, from Atlanta to New York, and New
York back to Albuquerque. Before flying from Atlanta to New York,
my wife absentmindedly left a steak knife with a loaf of bread
in her backpack. Though her bag was scanned, she got through.
In New York, we marveled at the incident but decided
it was an aberration.
She then forgot to take the knife out. On our way back to Albuquerque,
her bag was again scanned at La Guardia airport and again the
knife went through. Mind you, we are talking about a long serrated
knife
with a point, not a butter knife.
At first, we believed that because she was carrying
our baby, she was let through. But that would mean a terrorist
would only need
to find parents who are willing to martyr their baby in order to
get a weapon onto a plane.
Additionally, airport security should
be wary of such tricks, and in fact my wife was stopped on other
trips though she was with our baby. We then thought that perhaps
the knife was at a strange angle, but it's unlikely that
it was at the same angle each time she casually placed her bag
on the conveyor belt.  The truth is we don't know how she got
the knife through twice. But we suspect that she isn't the
only one in the entire country that accomplished this feat. After
9/11, a few of
my well-meaning friends toyed with the idea of handing out knives
to all passengers to avoid future hijackings.
It's an interesting
idea, but so long as we are making so much effort to avoid the
single weapon that terrorists wield, perhaps it is time to redouble
our efforts at security, remind airport security to take the
routine elements out of their jobs and treat every day like its
their first
day at work, and upgrade the technology we rely on to scan carry-on
luggage. Author
Sankara Saranam holds a BA in religion from
Columbia University and an MA in Sanskrit and Classic
Eastern Texts from St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Following extensive travels in India and the Middle
East, he
founded the Pranayama Institute,
a nonprofit organization that offers no-cost instruction in hatha
and raja yoga techniques.
.................... Say
goodbye to spam!
*
*
|
Airport insecurity
