Saturday, May 19, 2007

Touch Me (Not)

I have nothing against close body contact. Hugging, kissing, you name it. It's a nice way to show your affection for another human being.

It is not so nice though when close body contact means being searched by security personnel at the airport.

I was going to take the plane from Riga to Stockholm, it's a flight that takes just some 40 minutes. If anybody wants to blow up any plane, I think this one would be the last option. And me? Did I have any of what those anti-terror warriors call signal elements? Hmm. Was it my blue jeans, my newly acquired Brainstorm t-shirt, or perhaps Gucci glasses? I have no clue. The fact is that after entering the security check area (and by the way, I was the only passenger there at the moment) and calmly walking through the metal detector, I was called aside to be searched. Hands up, and I had to experience finger gliding all over my body, at one point almost touching my balls. Disgusting.

I thought that confiscating my hair spray (it was bigger than 100ml, and the fact that the bottle was almost empty was ignored by the security personnel) on the way from Stockholm to Riga was enough. Apparently it wasn't.

So you see, there is a reason why I hate flying and prefer taking train or bus. Unfortunately, it's not always possible. Therefore now and then I am forced to enter an airport - which is undoubtedly a mystical place, since just by entering the building you automatically lose a part of your human dignity. Go there, stand behind the line, take off your belt, show your passport, drink your water here or we will take it from you, etc etc ad nauseum.

Am I mad? No, I just want to keep a bit of privacy and secrecy. The absence of secrecy is a totalitarian society. And I still have some hope that we are on the way towards something better, not falling back to repetition of yesterday's mistakes.

1 comment:

* Mindfully Wondering said...

So far have only seen this happening to others... the worse that happened to me so far was taking my shoes off... Actually I think that was the worse that happened to those security guards at the Newark Airport... You see... I had been using those shoes for a week LOL. And yes it is totalitarianism what they do! BACI