Equality, Security Have Their Price

You may have read or heard the AP story over the weekend about an 85-year-old woman who claims to have been injured in a "strip-search" by the TSA at JFK in New York. And you may have been outraged; at first blush I was, at least, dubious of the TSA's action.

But I'm no stranger to confrontation when it comes to that much-despised agency. It was Thanksgiving at DFW and, well, I got put into the "little pen" for being a rabble-rouser. I've mellowed out a great deal since, but at the time, I had been subjected to a cancellation, was traveling with two toddlers, and was fresh off a long family visit. 'Nuff said.

But I read into this lady's story a bit further. Yes, she is in a wheelchair, weighs less than 110 pounds, and is "hunched over" in her words. She also has a defibrillator implanted in her chest. She asked to be patted down so as to avoid the scanners and the TSA complied.

I looked up the TSA guidelines for such patient/travelers and found that while the machines aren't known to cause mechanical problems with the devices, the devices can cause the machines to go off: They are intended to find metal after all. Even a handheld wand can be triggered by a defibrillator or pacemaker. The story doesn't elucidate, but perhaps such an event occurred or maybe her wheelchair and walker made it necessary to have her undergo a more detailed examination by authorities. There is no recording of the private procedure, just her word against the female agent and the agency, but the woman claims to have sustained a bump which caused her to bleed profusely. (She's also on blood thinners, common practice amongst heart patients.) All we know is that the exam lasted eleven minutes, causing the lady to miss her flight.

And there is the next place I come up against it. Her flight to Florida for the winter was scheduled to take off at 1 p.m. on Saturday and she arrived at the ticket counter at 12:20 p.m. Now that might be okay at a very small airport--though I would never chance it--but JFK is a hub and one really shouldn't put oneself in the position for an eleven minute delay (plus any "in dispute" medical attention) to interrupt one's plans. After all as the flier you know your situation, the rest of us do not. Those requiring assistance or those who will need to ask for personalized attention should take it upon themselves to facilitate this by getting to the airport a bit earlier than this lady deemed necessary. In the story, her son complains and says he wants "someone fired". Really? Someone just doing their job--and a stressful one at that--should be fired for Christmas because you cannot walk your mom to security?

I'm not trying to throw stones here. As I say, I made an ass of myself once with the TSA and my husband is in the industry. I know better and I know of what I speak. And I do not know the family's situation, just that family situations are often difficult and I empathize. But asking for some security agent's head is just too much for me to fathom, especially these days.

I know I'm speaking out of turn, I may very well be wrong. But I think, if nothing else, perhaps such instances as this can remind us to be personally responsible when we are in public. So many fellow travelers are counting on us in an airport just as they are on a dark night on a two-lane road. There's a pact, an expectation of each other.

And what would have happened to that TSA agent had that woman somehow been a threat which went ignored? You know good and well we'd all have screamed to high heaven. How can these people win when we put them in such untenable situations daily? Ask yourself if you'd want to put up with the likes of you under duress? I know I'm glad I wasn't the TSA agent that Thanksgiving Day in Dallas.

These folks have an unenviable job. They do not get to choose with whom they come into contact, nor the rate at which they must dispatch them. They only know that everyone is in a great big hurry. And as any old cashier--this one included--will tell you, working the Express Lane is the worst front-end grocery job there is.

I'm sorry that this lady had a bad experience. I do feel empathy for her condition and her travail. But I'm also sorry that the TSA agent had a bad experience as well. We task people with expectation of perfection--just ask any air traffic controller about that, for an extreme example--then want to cut them off at the knees whenever they try to do just that: Keep us perfectly safe.

"Do I look like a terrorist?" the elderly lady asked. Well what does a terrorist look like? As the Prophet Humphrey Bogart said in the original--a worthwhile watch for sure this holiday season--"We're No Angels", "If crime showed on a man's face nobody would have mirrors."

So the next time you travel try to take out as much of the stress as you can by following the common sense guidelines the TSA and FAA set forth. And if you can, find a little empathy for those who are not vacationing or visiting: The workers who stand guard between you and the next news story.