The day I was blown by the TSA: new security measures being deployed

If you ever saw the movie Total Recall, you've seen airport security as it will be. As The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, walks through a tunnel an X-ray machine projects his skeletal frame onto a wide screen in an nearby control room.

Returning to the USA last week from Mexico, our plane landed in San Francisco, where we would go through customs (and security). In Mexico, the security at the airport could best be described as perfunctory. Yeah, I set off the metal detector as I always do, but instead of the frisking, questions and patdown, I just got a quick pass with wand. No liquids out, no computer out, no shoes or belt or jacket off. It was almost like the old days.

In San Francisco, going through the gauntlet to get back to the US, I was placed in an entirely new (to me) machine. It's an extremely sleek and futuristic looking booth. I told my traveling partners it looked like something the Nazis might have dreamed up in 2000, if they'd been around. This booth smells you!

You step inside. The doors silently slide closed and the machine begins blowing air around you and directing jets of air at spots on your body. It stops, analyzes the air for explosive residue, and flashes a little green light to say you can proceed. I was blown by the TSA.


The Sentinel non-invasive walk-through scanner that can screen
more than 400 people per hour for explosives or for narcotics
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The absurdity of excesive air traveler scrutiny

The New York Times blog on air travel--Jet Lagged--had a great editorial (The Airport Security Follies), on December 28th, by Patrick Smith, a commercial pilot and the author of Salon's "ask the pilot." Read the full editorial here.

"Six years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, airport security remains a theater of the absurd. The changes put in place following the September 11th catastrophe have been drastic, and largely of two kinds: those
practical and effective, and those irrational, wasteful and pointless. The
first variety have taken place almost entirely behind the scenes. Explosives
scanning for checked luggage, for instance, was long overdue and is perhaps the most welcome addition.

"Unfortunately, at concourse checkpoints all across America, the madness of passenger screening continues in plain view. It began with pat-downs and the senseless confiscation of pointy objects. Then came the mandatory shoe removal, followed in the summer of 2006 by the prohibition of liquids and gels. We can only imagine what is next."
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