An Open Letter to the Transportation Safety Administration
It was Monday, the day after the fourth anniversary of 9/11 and I’m flying weekly now and will be for the forseeable future. I’m currently reading Tom Clancy’s The Teeth of the Tiger about terrorist threats to the US. Do I feel safer today flying than I did four years ago? No. In fact, if anything I think that my safety is more at risk today than it was this time last year or the year before.
The reason that I don’t feel safer has nothing to do with terrorist. It has everything to do with your typical traveler. Traveling is becoming much more stressful each year. With that stress comes frustrations, annoyances and rage. The rage is what I fear, not the terrorist. I place the blame for a lot of this stress directly on the shoulders of the TSA. Not only are the searches becoming more and more invasive but the screeners are becoming more an more beligerent. Simple questions can’t be asked without it being taken as a challenge to the screeners authority.
Maybe it’s just the Atlanta Airport on Monday mornings because I have been through there at other times and the TSA employees were polite and friendly but that has changed over the last few months. Also flying in and out of Tucson a last year the TSA people were cracking jokes with people in line and this was during the holidays. I’m not sure what it is that is changing these people but it isn’t good.
Homeland Security | Larry D. Burton | 13 September 2005 |
