Well that was fun…
This time, on my return trip, I was given an extra special reward. The Moncton Airport was peaceful that Saturday morning after a large snowstorm. Even the guy collecting “airport taxes” was extremely pleasant. I checked in my luggage and proceeded to the security gate with a smile on my face, looking forward to finishing up “The Praxis: Dread Empire’s Fall” (Walter Jon Williams). I stepped up to the checkpoint, still smiling from my encounter with airport taxes guy, and the first of several of the security people was there to help me disentangle my laptop bag, camera bag, jacket and boarding passes. Going through the usual drill, I placed my equipment in the trays and watched them move down the conveyor belt. I was asked to step forward through the metal detector and did so, without a hitch.
My first warning should have been the large number of extremely bored security guards standing behind the conveyor belt. There were at least five of them, talking and carrying on like grand old times. But still, I was in a good mood and blithely grabbed my laptop bag as it came through.
“May I do a more thorough inspection of this?” the security person asked me. I briefly wondered what would happen if I said no, but replied with a cool, “be my guest” and watched her get the swab ready. My camera bag had almost made it through the conveyor and as it was about to be swept closer, one of the security persons halted the next person down the line and insisted on taking another look. I figured they were probably confused by any of a number of little pieces of electronics I have sitting in that bag. It went back through for a second pass.
My laptop trickled out of the conveyor belt and landed in front of me, sitting there covered in stickers. The trained security expert, whom I shall refer to hereafter as “#2″ began taking pieces out of my laptop bag and puzzling over them. Birthday cards, my Wacom graphics tablet and stylus. My Apple remote…
My camera bag finally made it through the conveyor and landed unceremoniously next to my laptop, which was still sitting there, “Bonecho” sticker glaring up at the world next to the red dinosaur proclaiming “HACK”. A third professional security analyst, whom I will name #3 stepped forward and asked if she might inspect my camera bag more closely. “Sure,” I said, this time betraying my growing annoyance. A queue was forming behind me. #3 diligantly got her swab ready and began poking at the interior of my bag, my camera, my book, …
Number 2 held up my Wacom stylus and demanded to know how to take it apart. “It doesn’t come apart,” I sobbed.
Number 3 inserted her swab into the gas chromatograph and began analyzing the results. Number 2 persisted, turning the stylus around in her hands, looking at the buttons, holding it up to the light. Another security specialist arrived on the scene and started conferring with #3. I will call her #1 for she wore the white shirt of authority.
“What is your name?” number one demanded. I told her. She wrote it down.
“What do you do?” number one asked me. I told her. She wrote that down.
“Are you taking any drugs?” I stammered that I was taking some allergy medication for my sinuses.
At this point, I started to get a little concerned. I mean, there are three security people here, all are no-doubt trained in self-defense and carrying all manner of weaponry and people are starting to fill up behind me. I asked what the problem was? Did they find something?
“We found traces of TNT on your camera,” number one explained seriously. I believe I laughed at this point. “Are you taking any heart medication? Have you handled fertilizer recently?” no, No… Well wait, my parents are kind of old, but I didn’t think they had any heart problems. Are they OK? Now I’ve started worrying about my parents’ health…
“Where do you work?” number one asks. I give her my home address, increasingly worried that I may never get to travel again.
“Look, there’s got to be some mistake… Swab it again. Get the machine recalibrated!” I cried. A fourth person arrives on scene. A small man with a law-enforcement moustache.
“What seems to be the trouble?” he asked with a bemused grin.
“We need this man searched,” number one explained officiously. Oh fuck. Thought I.
“Would you like a room for this?” the small man asked, somewhat nervously. The last thing I want is to be taken to a “small room to be searched” so I declined, preferring to keep my embarrassment as public as possible for the time-being. Numbers one, two and three were still poring over the contents of my various belongings. #2, still stuck on the graphics tablet and pen.
The small man began patting me down, searching me… but for what? He was fairly thorough, though to be honest, he could have searched my crotch a little more closely. I could have been hiding all kinds of stuff in there and they wouldn’t have known. He did hoist my pants and underwear though, so maybe he was checking the region visually.
“All clear!” the little man announced. The crowd relaxed visibly. I winked at the lady standing behind me who no doubt had a pretty good view of the proceedings. She looked away.
#2 asked me to take apart the stylus again. I took it from her and said, “It doesn’t come apart! It’s a stylus for a graphics tablet and this little grippy bit will come off, but it doesn’t conceal any thing. It’s a single piece of plastic!” I cleared my throat and handed it back to her, and this seemed to satisfy her.
“Are you taking any drugs?” #1 asked again. I told her I had some allergy pills.
#1 asked if I’d been to a farm recently. I said no, but after a moment’s reflection, offered that my friend whom I’d had lunch with has a farm and had recently been up there to see his mother. He had handled my camera as, you see, he likes cameras. Their Leader seemed satisfied by this and made a note on the page.
“Maybe that’s what it is then,” she said. The rest of the crew dispersed and began harassing the other travelers. I looked at the paper she had assembled and asked #1 what she was going to do with this. “Oh, we’ll keep it in that case over there,” she said. I told her that I was more concerned about what computer systems this was going to be entered in and how this would affect my attempts to get through US customs when I travelled next. She assured me that it would not be entered into any computers and that it would be shredded after 120 days.
“Oh, really?” I asked, skepticism dripping from my voice.
I packed up my gear and sat down in the main area, reflecting upon what had just happened. I don’t believe for a second that that form won’t go into a computer somewhere. These people are so highly technical that a simple thing like the stylus for a graphics tablet, which was sitting right there, was completely beyond them. I was asked to turn on my camera, which I did, but nobody actually checked that the main LCD screen functioned or that the camera itself and its big lens wasn’t filled with dynamite (which it wasn’t see picture, above for proof). My computer sat there the entire time, was not swabbed, was not opened and worst, was not turned on for any examination. It too could have been packed with explosives.
Lastly, my crotch was not felt up.
The entire exercise was completely futile. Finding trace amounts of TNT on a piece of equipment is awesome, but when household medicines and fertilizers in amounts small enough to be transferred nearly a week after handling them causes the machine to hit, you have to wonder just how useful that information is.
Did I ever find out where the substance that caused the hit came from, you might wonder, gentle, patient reader? While sitting there, my book in hand, phoning my parents to ask them about their ailing hearts, it dawned on me that while I was out to lunch three days earlier with my friend, he told me that he’d recently been playing with some fireworks with his son. He’d also gotten into some model rocketry because his boy seemed to like these things. What kid doesn’t?
I walked over to the security desk again, my equipment in tow and relayed this to Number 2. She smiled and nodded and agreed, that that seemed like a likely source of the hit. I asked her if they were going to update the page. She said she’d tell their supervisor (#1), but that she was on a break right now. No doubt exhausted after her near-brush with death, I surmised. I didn’t see her go back to the little cabinet to update the page.
So, thanks Dereck. You totally fucked me.
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