[fr]
Furax: je découvre qu'au Royaume-Uni aussi, il faut passer par un de ces scanners-qui-vous-déshabillent. Et je découvre ça coincée comme un rat dans une cage en verre dont la seule sortie passe par un de ces scanners. Et contrairement aux USA, pas d'autre option: c'est ça ou je ne vole pas.
[en]
I am furious and outraged like I have rarely been.
You’ve heard about the full-body scanners they’ve been using in the US, right? And the “enhanced pat-downs” you go through if you opt out of the scanners? Thought that was bad?
I did.
You probably already know — if you know me a bit — that all the security theatre around flying angers me no end. Somebody tries to smuggle explosives on plane in their shoes? Let’s make everyone take off their shoes. Liquid explosives? Great, let’s put restrictions on liquids in carry-on luggage. Explosive underwear? Even better, let’s ask everyone to get naked. You know.
I won’t get into the details of why this is a complete pile of horseshit, others like Bruce Schneier have done it (and are still doing it) way better than me.
Now, if you’ve been flying to or from the US, chances are that you’ve wondered what you thought about them. Do they invade your privacy? your intimacy? are the “enhanced” pat-downs you can choose instead something you’re willing to subject yourself to? are they as safe as we’re told?
And, like us all when we travel and have to jump through hoops, you’ve probably reached some kind of agreement with yourself about the price you were willing to pay (in terms of hassle or loss of freedom or invasion of privacy or possible unproven health risks) to benefit from the comforts of air travel.
Or, maybe, if you don’t have any intention of flying to the US in the near future, you’ve put off that particular decision until you really have to make it.
I know I did.
Actually, I have taken the US off my list of “places I’m going to fly to” — unless I have a very good reason to change my mind.
Yes, because of the bloody scanners.
I’d actually pretty much made up my mind that before going through the “enhanced security theatre”, I would rather get to the US by road, flying first to Canada. Or something like that. But having no immediate plans to go to the US, I didn’t give it that much thought.
Now, back to why I’m writing this in Manchester airport departure lounge, having used up a pack of hankies because I feel so outraged that I don’t know what to do with myself and can’t stop crying. (Writing is helping, though, so now I just look like a mess but I’m not dripping a puddle on the floor anymore.)
I’m on my way back home, having visited my grandparents as I regularly do. I know the security theatre drill: liquids separate, take out the laptop, make sure I don’t pack too many cables, finish my water before going through security, remove extra and potentially beeping clothing before going through the metal detectors, and prepare to be quickly frisked because the darn things are so sensitive that anything can set them off. (Except in Geneva airport, where I can safely go through with clothing that will beep anywhere else.)
Well, not this time.
This time I went through the detector, which beeped, and I ended up trapped like a rat in a glass room — only way out through a full-body scanner.
I wasn’t prepared for this.
I didn’t even know they were used outside the US, or for travelers going to tame places like Switzerland from the UK.
I had no clue I should also have been thinking about whether I wanted to continue going to the UK by air (actually: coming back from the UK), or if I preferred to switch to the Eurostar.
I called out to the guy who was making the people before me go through, expressed my surprise at finding the scanner there, and asked what the other option was. He told me there was no other option, that once I had been selected for search, it was that — or don’t fly.
I exclaimed that I hadn’t had time to think about this, and he told me to “take my time” — but that was before I’d realized they were not giving me any other options.
He quickly called his superior who stepped into the box with me and started telling me it was safe, necessary, would be quickly over, etc. I tried explaining why I didn’t want to go through but we were clearly in a “dialogue de sourds”, and I started getting pretty upset (understand: crying from anger — I tend to do that, it’s really annoying).
I don’t know how long I stayed stuck there (at least 10 minutes I’d say), but it was pretty clear that I had no other option but to go through — unless I wanted to give up on my flight (yeah, sure).
I gave in, told the guy I was furious, refused his offer to give me documentation, picked up my stuff (my shiny new MacBook Air had been lying in an open tray in front of everybody during all that time) and sat down to continue having my meltdown on my own.
So, what went so wrong here?
Clearly, the fact that I discovered the existence of full-body scanners in Manchester Airport while I was trapped like a rat in a glass cage and pretty much forced to go through one.
That put me in the unenviable situation of having only a few minutes to make a difficult “ethical” decision that I’d been putting off because I wasn’t expecting to have to face this kind of situation: do I cave in to security theatre and fly, or do I refuse, and pay the price by not being able to board my flight?
I hadn’t even decided, with the US scenario, if I preferred to go through the scanner or submit to an invasive pat-down.
Also, although the two security staff I interacted with were very kind and polite, it would probably have helped if the guy in the box had actually been able to hear what I had to say and sympathize (maybe that’s too strong a word).
Instead, he insisted on telling me I was wrong, that this was necessary, that it was for my safety, that it wasn’t dangerous and would only take a few seconds, that he could give me all sorts of documentation to explain this to me.
For somebody who has read a lot on the topic of airport security (even if I haven’t written that much about it, except for rants like this one when things get too frustrating), it really didn’t help to have him talk to me as if I was just a scared uninformed passenger. I mean, he even told me that they hadn’t had any problems coming out of Manchester (regarding security), and so that they must be doing something right. I hope all of my readers can spot the flawed logic there. It doesn’t mean anything.
Wishful thinking probably, but I think that faced with somebody who would have said “I agree, all this security is probably overkill, I’m unfortunately as stuck with regulations here as you are, and I’m really sorry you didn’t know about this beforehand” — it would have helped more than pressuring me by saying that if I wanted to fly I had to go through and that I was making a fuss for nothing.
Time to buy some of that scanner-proof underwear, methinks.
Similar Posts:
- Airport Security
- Berlin, Belgrade: Two Contrasting Airport Experiences
- Lift11: Hasan Elahi, Giving away your privacy to escape the US terrorist watch list
- Being My Own Travel Agent With Kayak
- Lausanne to Portland
- Headache: Picking a Date for an Event
- Client Phone Calls: House Rules
- From Airport to Airport
- TEDx Geneva: Xavier Rosset — 300 days alone on an island
- From All to Nothing Doesn’t Do it
Digital Crumble
UK Trip Report
The nice thing about having a laptop is that you can fire it up on the airplane and type in peace, without being distracted by IRC, instant messaging, e-mail and stats checking, or simple bloghopping. With iTunes in the background playing Bombay Dreams, my only concern is that the plane will start descending towards Geneva shortly.
My trip to the UK was short, and last-minute. I heard some people from #joiito were going to meet up in London on Sunday, I checked my easyjet flights, called Aleika–
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be landing shortly in Geneva. Please return to your seats, make sure your seatbelt is fastened and your seat is in the upright position, and switch off any electronic equipment.”
There goes the laptop, and I now find myself with a post which will be hard to date. Anyway. (Warning: this is a “cheese sandwich” post to some extent, so if you’re bored already, don’t bother reading it.)
Where was I? Yes, last-minute trip. I found a friend to house-and-cat-sit for me, which was nice, and spent the first couple of days at Aleika’s. We did our usual “girls at the movies” thing: get dressed up a bit, leave home late, grab some food which doesn’t come fast enough (well, it took long enough to arrive that I drank my pint of cider almost entirely before the meal, and can now testify that it’s all it takes to make my head spin quite a lot), jump into a cab and run to the theatre (slightly inebriated), only to find that the timings on the internet were incorrect, and we have another half-hour to wait before gleefully drooling all over Hugh Jackman in Van Helsing (OK, I got a bit carried away here, but you get the picture).
I got to spend nearly a whole day alone with Akirno, which was really nice. I didn’t get to see him much on my last visits. He’s grown so much! And he talks so much! (Yes, I know, that’s what I say each time I come back from Birmingham.) He’s a real sweetie. I love him very much.
Unfortunately, I caught a cold (over the top of my first one!) waiting for the bus after Van Helsing, so all my pre-London shopping was done in a rather feverish state. Looking at the bright side of things, it means I didn’t spend as much as I might have, which is a good thing, as my suitcase was already quite full enough (and my bank account empty enough, but that’s another story).
Driving to London went fine. We found a parking space right next to the Apollo Victoria Theatre. (Remember: Sunday matinée shows are a good idea if you’re going to London to see a musical or a play.) Bombay Dreams was really fun, specially as I know most of the songs Rahman re-used for the musical.
Still dressed up (I chose the pink dress), I headed for the #joiito meet-up. Despite this nagging feeling of being somewhat overdressed, and my cold, I had a very nice evening.
As always, though, I had to cope with the frustration of group meet-ups: not enough time to talk with everybody, not enough time to get into interesting conversations with those I talk to. Or maybe I’m just more of a one-to-one person? Anyway, standing invitation for any of you who would want to visit the beautiful town of Lausanne or practice French in the area — just drop me a line, or better (since e-mail is soon to be a dead form of communication, thanks to spam), catch me on IRC.
So, who was there? Well, as I’m nearing the ages of senility, I’m probably forgetting a lot of people, so please bear with me if you’re not mentioned, and let me know if it bothers you too much.
First of all, imajes, my kind host, who was so busy taking me through his iTunes collection on the train back that he missed his home stop. (Can it get worse than that?) Suw prevented me from being the only woman present (I can’t thank you enough for that). Joi was so utterly bored by my presence next to him that he left early to go back to his hotel and sleep — imagine that! (Actually, it seems jetlag also had something to do with it…)
I chatted quite a bit on the way there with imsickofmaps, and on the way back with snowchyld. Hugh managed to mess up my first blogcard somewhat (or whatever those things are called), so I am now the lucky owner of two of them. Gerard aka insert-coin took a nice bunch of photographs and has already put them online. I stole Suw’s camera to take a few photographs, but she’s not home yet, and those I took with my phone are stuck in there until I lay my hands on a Windows PC (thanks, Microsoft).
Apart from bumping my head on a couple of low doorways and leaving my coat there, I brought two things back (not literally) from james’ flat: VoodooPad, which I have not adopted as my official scrap-book application, and a book which made me discover a blog (how often has that happened to you?): Never Threaten to Eat Your Co-Workers: Best of Blogs, a collection of great weblog posts. I read a few pages, and it looked really neat. It’s on my wishlist now.
I think this post is long enough, for a short trip!
Similar Posts: