- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
When I was leaving a conference at Spokane Airport, flying out with exactly the same items that I flew in from Seattle with three days earlier, they freaked out on my toiletries and threw about $50 or so of products away or suggested that I check my bags if I wanted to keep it. That would have been a long walk. When they took the stuff, they rescanned my bag, but, separated contents so that I would not be able to see both my bag and the items left out of the bag. I had jewelry in the bag. I yelled at them to stop and informed them that I believe I have a right to have my belonging all where I can see them at one time. Actually, I don't know if that is true under TSA rules but I said it with enough authority that they went back, replaced the items before they rescanned my bag. The fellow who did this to me looked like a thug you might meet at an AA meeting after having spent a huge chunk of his life hanging out in dirt bag bottom shelf bars.
Honestly, I can't imagine how they could make such a big deal out of a couple of tubes of off the shelf brand shampoo, conditioner and a can of hairspray. I am a short woman who looks like she is somebody's grandmother. Yeah, they really are using our resources to catch terrorists.
I've been given the go over and had my briefcase and computer handled by people who had all the personality of the working end of a shovel. Whatever the theory is for who they decide to look at further, it doesn't make sense in my experience to harass passengers instead of actually developing some level of discernment about the actual source of danger. They sure don't make me feel safer.
