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Airport shenanigans
Sep. 28th, 2006 01:42 pmWhen I visited the USSR in 1976, officials were keen on visitors not leaving with certain items. It was an odd game. You could buy only official souvenirs sold in tourist stores. these were often far too expensive for a recent high school graduate on a budget (and cheaply made).
The official stores did not have what we wanted anyway. We somehow found places that sold us the Red Army belts and Soviet flags to smuggle out and adorn our college dorm rooms. What was most puzzling was the policy on значкий - the little enamelled pins people were constantly exchanging as gifts. They most often commemorated places or events, like Leningrad or the launch of Sputnik. We had brought a few American flag pins and Oregon pins to trade, but quickly ran out. It didn't matter. People were constantly giving us little pins all the time we were there. It was sweet.
And it was illegal to take them out of the country. I never quite got my head around why these cute little pins were so evil. But we played the game and duly smuggled them.
Except that I forgot to hide mine. I had been pinning mine to my hat, and it was a hot, sunny day. I had intended to stuff my hat far down into my brimming backpack before going through security. But, being as absent-minded as I am today, I simply forgot it was on my head.
I approached the uniformed security guard, my backpack full of contraband, my значкий openly on my head. He took one look at me, pointed at my hat and laughed. He waggled his finger and admonished me in Russian for having violated the law (I gave him a nice "deer in the headlights" stare that I reserve for times when I'm scared I'm going to get thrown into a Gulag). He looked at my passport, didn't check my backpack and waved me through, giggling to his comrades about the silly American girl who didn't know enough to smuggle her значкий out properly.
Contrast this with a piece found on slashdot from samzenpus. A guy gets cheeky and writes "Kim Hawley is an idiot" on the outside of the plastic bag he used for his toothpaste and hair gel (Kim "Kip" Hawley is the head of the TSA). He was detained. Police were called. He was told his First Amendment rights did not apply in line at the airport.
Notwithstanding it was a stupid stunt. But it illustrates the point that we live in a nation trapped in the thrall of terrorism. We are terrorized. A note on a plastic bag calling an official an idiot is not a terrorist threat! Any plot, no matter how ludicrous, is taken seriously. A few months ago, there was an alert because of evidence obtained under torture of a plot to dismantle bridges with torches. Any rational person would realize that you can't dismantle a bridge with a torch! No one is even stopping long enough to use the space between their ears before pressing the panic button.
Al Qaeda does not have to plant a single bomb to make us jump. We are doing Bin Laden's work for him. We are undermining our own economy and sacrificing any international goodwill we once had in a fight that our recently declassified National Intelligence Estimate says has made things worse.
It appears one of the worst casualties in the war on terror has been our national sense of humor.
The official stores did not have what we wanted anyway. We somehow found places that sold us the Red Army belts and Soviet flags to smuggle out and adorn our college dorm rooms. What was most puzzling was the policy on значкий - the little enamelled pins people were constantly exchanging as gifts. They most often commemorated places or events, like Leningrad or the launch of Sputnik. We had brought a few American flag pins and Oregon pins to trade, but quickly ran out. It didn't matter. People were constantly giving us little pins all the time we were there. It was sweet.
And it was illegal to take them out of the country. I never quite got my head around why these cute little pins were so evil. But we played the game and duly smuggled them.
Except that I forgot to hide mine. I had been pinning mine to my hat, and it was a hot, sunny day. I had intended to stuff my hat far down into my brimming backpack before going through security. But, being as absent-minded as I am today, I simply forgot it was on my head.
I approached the uniformed security guard, my backpack full of contraband, my значкий openly on my head. He took one look at me, pointed at my hat and laughed. He waggled his finger and admonished me in Russian for having violated the law (I gave him a nice "deer in the headlights" stare that I reserve for times when I'm scared I'm going to get thrown into a Gulag). He looked at my passport, didn't check my backpack and waved me through, giggling to his comrades about the silly American girl who didn't know enough to smuggle her значкий out properly.
Contrast this with a piece found on slashdot from samzenpus. A guy gets cheeky and writes "Kim Hawley is an idiot" on the outside of the plastic bag he used for his toothpaste and hair gel (Kim "Kip" Hawley is the head of the TSA). He was detained. Police were called. He was told his First Amendment rights did not apply in line at the airport.
Notwithstanding it was a stupid stunt. But it illustrates the point that we live in a nation trapped in the thrall of terrorism. We are terrorized. A note on a plastic bag calling an official an idiot is not a terrorist threat! Any plot, no matter how ludicrous, is taken seriously. A few months ago, there was an alert because of evidence obtained under torture of a plot to dismantle bridges with torches. Any rational person would realize that you can't dismantle a bridge with a torch! No one is even stopping long enough to use the space between their ears before pressing the panic button.
Al Qaeda does not have to plant a single bomb to make us jump. We are doing Bin Laden's work for him. We are undermining our own economy and sacrificing any international goodwill we once had in a fight that our recently declassified National Intelligence Estimate says has made things worse.
It appears one of the worst casualties in the war on terror has been our national sense of humor.
