You can assume that security personnel are profiling your behavior at any moment in the airport, including by hidden cameras. The arbitrary search rules are designed to provoke you to see your reaction.

What if we ask this guy a question? What if we search his bag? What if we search his baby's bag? What if we single him out and put him in a room alone? What if we mock his smile? What if we accuse him of joking? Or of traveling with a stranger in line that he's never even met?

The next question following any of these questions is "How will he react. What will his face show. Will he gesture with his hands. Will he sweat. Will he raise his voice. Will he frown. Will he smile." Basically any response at may lead to an escalated response.

Folks, this isn't about finding contraband anymore. It's about prolonging encounters, and making those encounters unpleasant, to place the passenger (or crew member) in what amounts to a stress position. It's basically Gitmo-light.

The problem isn't really for people like you, who can sense the game, have read Kafka, and also know that somewhere in this system you have some rights. The problem is with the less sophisticated, including non-English speakers, or perhaps those with physical or mental ailments, who can only sense that they are being singled out. Freaking out, can, AND HAS, led to death by airport security.

And not only are they checking bags, they are taking information off laptops without warrant. See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/opinion/10thu3.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=laptops&st=nyt&oref=slogin

Why would the do that, if all they wanted to do was prevent weapons on the plane?

The butter knife probably cost Smith no demerits. Arguing about it, and writing about it here, has probably added a note to his file.

Then they took my toothpaste.

God help us if some nut tries to smuggle a bomb in his underpants.

This is why you don't ever surrender your rights. You will never have them given back to you once taken because politicians are too cautious to roll back our "safety measures."

Try ebay to replace that knife.

...is Blackwater. Not Halliburton, but it's evil child Blackwater. I'm not surprised at all by the TSA guards. Security Guards in this nation tend to be (or thought of as) high school dropouts with the volatility of explosives and the brains of retarded kids with an attitude.

Patrick, you couldn't be more on the money.

My front door is 23.3 miles from the door of the Terminal in Detroit (DTW). However I live just across the river from Detroit in Canada. It's not only the TSA that have gone crazy, but the land crossings are insane as well. It regularly takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to cross the border. Either at the mile long Windsor-Detroit Tunnel or the Ambassador Bridge. That experience, combined with the stupidity of the majority of the regulations imposed by the TSA have made using Detroit more of a pain than it is worth.

My next option is to drive 213 miles to the airport in Toronto. Believe it or not, it's honestly less of a hassle to drive the three and a half hours to Toronto than it is to drive the 23.3 miles to Detroit (which on any given day takes almost 2 hours anyway).

I love flying and for me the option of "just not flying anymore" isn't really an option. There's a whole world out there, and to stay at home and not travel doesn't sound like fun to me. I fly solely for pleasure and not for business, so for me it's all optional. The ability to get on a plane, and hours later get off somewhere completely different is far too alluring for me.

The biggest problem I have with the TSA/DHS is that there is a complete lack of consistent policies. What is ok with one agent, might not be for another.

What can take 5 minutes with one customs agent can take 20 with another.

Until the lunacy is consistent, I'll stick to Toronto for my European flights.

A new bill before Congress mandates that all passengers and flight personnel will have to fly completely naked, wearing ball gags and padded mittens on their hands and feet, and be shackled into their seats. They will be hooded and fitted with electrodes on their genitalia and tongues for their safety.

Senator Obama has reluctantly announced his support for this measure, but promises that as President he will use his new powers to electrocute all airline passengers at the push of a button sparingly, and with responsibility. "It's an unfortunate necessity in this terror-filled world", he said at a recent press conference, "but you can trust me."

A few radical left-wingers from the ACLU tried to protest at the conference, screaming something incomprehensible about some imaginary document called "the comstitution". They were quickly subdued by helpful Homeland Security officers and flown to an unspecified location to help the government in their investigation of world-wide Terror.

Obama supporters were quick to denounce the leftists as extremists who failed to understand that the important thing was to elect Obama as President no matter what.

So you've decided to complain about someone complaining. Of course Patrick Smith is complaining about an abuse of authority and you're complaining because you don't want to read about it. You even manage to be unoriginal in your own complaining.

How about you take your own advice and shut up. You might be fine with "bend over whenever the government speaks" but others among us would prefer to affect change and articles like this keep attention on the problem which is the beginnnig point for any change.

In Mexico City, the US government insists that EVERYONE be RE-inspected and their hand luggage gone through right before boarding a plane even though we've already gone through the security check. And then you have to go through security AGAIN in Houston or Dallas or wherever you are changing planes. Also, the US is the only country, if my information is correct, which does not allow people to carry their own duty-free items onto the plane. People are met at the door of the plane with what look like salespeople from the shops who hand them their stuff as they board. Mexican staff has been unfailingly courteous at all security checks I've ever gone through there, which makes it somewhat less annoying.