TSA Agent: “I don’t look at them as people”
Here’s a glimpse at the future of aviation security: Airline passenger Natalie Miller steps into a glass booth at a checkpoint. She raises her arms. Within moments, a screener asks what is in her back pocket.
Miller is puzzled because she dumped all of her possessions into a plastic bin before entering the booth. Or so she thought. When she reaches into her back pocket, she finds a credit card she left there.
“That’s pretty cool,” Miller says of the incident Thursday at Tulsa International Airport, shortly after the screener waved her through. “I thought the machines just detected metal.”
Not anymore. The 35-year reign of airport metal detectors began its slow descent this week in Tulsa, where for the first time some passengers are skipping metal detectors. People are instead being screened in a 9-foot-high portal with glass shields that rotate to produce vivid pictures of what is underneath passengers’ clothing.
As the TSA expands its test for airports in San Francisco, Miami, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque in coming weeks, it will be listening to passengers’ reactions.
Miller, 34, a sales representative from St. Louis, had no concerns. “It makes me feel a little safer,” she said, taking “maybe a few seconds longer – not a big deal.”
Tulsa Airport Director Jeff Mulder watched Wednesday when the body scanner was first used and saw little passenger objection or slowdown. “It looked like a relatively normal flow,” Mulder said.
But passenger Jim Lesterhold said the body scanner took twice as long as a metal detector takes. “If you were in a crowded airport, it would really slow things up,” said Lesterhold, 50, a Houston engineer.
[speaking of the images] “They are not pornographic at all,” Tulsa screener Debbie Shacklett said. “I don’t look at them as people. I look at them as a thing that could have something on it.”
Well… there you have it. The screening is “cool”, makes people feel safer, and is “not a big deal.” Not that it matters. The TSA agents don’t see the passengers as people anyway and therefore do as they please. “Steigen Sie in das Eisenbahnauto ein! In den Ofen!”
OK… I’m being hyperbolic but that statement is a bit startling. Treating people like things is exactly why we are in these situations.
