I don’t care what anyone says about the need for increased safety in airports and in the sky ... there’s no reason why traveling to visit family should feel like a trip to jail. But that’s exactly what’s happening with airport security in the United States.
There’s a difference between feeling secure and feeling violated, and with even more security measures being enforced at airports, flying is starting to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many Americans.
After 9-11, it made sense for airlines to be a little more careful with screening passengers and luggage - terrorists just killed thousands of people at the World Trade Center. Now, however, the government is being way too excessive with airline security measures. While I understand the use of metal detectors and X-ray machines to check carry-on luggage, I think having people succumb to things such as lie detector tests, is going a bit too far. Doesn’t the saying go, “innocent until proven guilty”? Seems that due to the increase in terrorism against our country, even law-abiding citizens are now guilty until proven innocent ... at least when it comes to air travel.
The way I see things, if a terrorist is in the country already, the only people to blame are the security guards at the airport. They’re the ones who should be punished; everyone else shouldn’t have to suffer because of their failure to do their jobs. Take the most recent terrorist attempt on an airplane. According to reports, the man responsible for the Christmas Day attempt did not check any baggage before he bought a one-way ticket from Amsterdam to Detroit ... with cash. Since he was obviously not a contestant on “The Amazing Race,” that should have set off all kinds of red flags. Clearly, airport security employees need to be trained a whole lot better.
And then we have the U. S. government - need I say more? Though so-called intelligence officials had learned of a situation developing in relation to the terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, they failed to “connect the dots.” That failure to make the connection allowed for his name to be omitted from the FBI’s no-fly list and for him to attempt to kill the passengers aboard the plane. While that’s just one thing about this issue that irks me, the other is the United States’ response to the terror attack. How is increasing security within our nation supposed to prevent prospective terrorists from entering the country from Amsterdam or Tokyo or Paris?
Instead of finding the most expensive solution that will likely benefit us the least, I have my own theory ... connections. Make it mandatory that every flight coming into the United States must fly out of a choice few cities in every region. That way, every plane headed to the states from South America, for example, would need to connect in Caracas or Rio de Janiero before continuing on. The same goes for flights from Europe. Connections through London or Madrid, where more U. S. security would be set up, would allow for extra scanning of passengers. That would be one way to save our country some money in lieu of adding unnecessary devices to every airport here. Hell, it would also create some much-needed U. S. jobs. Two birds, one stone.
Jennie Oemig
Editor
Arcadia News-Leader
