i worked at Dulles airport both before and after 9/11, and i gotta say, it was like a complete makeover literally overnight. and not the good Queer Eye kind, either. i actually used to work for United Airlines. i was in Chicago visiting a friend when the planes hit the towers. but that’s a story for another time.
this is a story about how commercial flight stopped being a convenient, simple, often-affordable way to travel with a little style, and became the hellish nightmare it is now. flying used to be fun. flying used to be classy. used to be you took a flight because you could afford to pay a little extra to travel in style, more quickly, with less hassle than dragging yourself onto a Greyhound to sit beside Gungy Guy Who Really Needs a Tic-Tac for 18 hours. now flying is infinitely more of a hassle than any other way to travel, because you legitimately have to plan to add two or more hours to your trip just to get through security, and half of the things in your suitcase are probably going to be needlessly confiscated anyway. that snowglobe you got as a souvenir? yeah, kiss that goodbye. i’m serious. you can’t bring a snowglobe on an aircraft unless it’s in a checked bag, and if it’s in a checked bag, it’s almost definitely going to be shattered by the time you get it home. dangerous things, snowglobes.
when i got back to Dulles, my first shift back after the disaster, i was actually pulled away from my airline’s counter and told i had to go work the TSA lines. yes, you read that right. i–an airline employee completely and utterly untrained in security protocols–was being told to work the security lines and search people’s bags. because they had increased the need, but hadn’t increased the manpower. they had more than tripled the amount of security done, but had no one to actually do all the extra work, and so they literally borrow airline employees to be the hands they lacked.
and let me tell you, it was legitimately the most terrifying thing i have ever done in my life.
i have met inbound aircraft with glow sticks in blizzards. i have swept international bags with tools that change color when they detect explosives and watched the pads turn blood red. i have pried open Samsonites with crow bars only to find literal pounds of drugs. i have been physically threatened by angry people three times my size swearing at me in languages i don’t even know because they missed their flight and blame me for it. i have climbed through ventilation ducts to assist in checking machinery i am not qualified to check. i have been chased down terminal hallways by misconnected passengers and manhandled by entitled pilots who are angry they don’t get paid fifteen times as much as i do instead of fourteen times as much as i do… airline jobs are wild. you name it, i’ve probably had to face it down, and let me tell you, none of that shit was half as scary as knowing i did not know what i was looking for in someone’s luggage, and that if i missed something, i might be to blame for an entire aircraft full of people falling out of the sky on fire. i was fucking terrified, every second of every shift i had to do that, because i could not handle the idea of being responsible for a disaster because i hadn’t been properly trained what to look for.
and the worst part of it is? i learned a few months later that literally none of it is even useful. like literally none of it. the entire TSA? completely fucking useless. it’s theatrics.
this video? 10,000% accurate. i actually participated in a test of the TSA at Dulles while i worked there, about a year after 9/11 when the security guidelines had been solidified and tested and properly staffed. over the course of the day, a dozen or so of us were chosen randomly to help test the agents, along with a handful of vendors, and passengers who didn’t have significant time constraints. we were all given a “dangerous” item to try and get through security with, to see if we got stopped, and if the item was found. we were told to hide the item[s] however we preferred, on our person, or in luggage we had or were given for the exercise.
of the i believe 23 people who attempted to get through security, with anything from a pocket knife to a drill to several bags of (mock) explosive components to be mixed onboard, three of us were actually stopped and searched, and only one person was actually found to be carrying something “dangerous”. one woman hid an 8″ folding knife in her updo, and no one found it. one man divided his several bags of (mock) explosive components into several smaller bags he purchased right there at the airport, and mixed them among his personal toiletries, and no one questioned this. me? i had ten boxes of strike-anywhere matches and five real actual firecrackers concealed on my person. granted, they were small firecrackers, but anybody who’s ever blown up a mailbox knows exactly how much damage an M-80 can do. now imagine that in a giant metal tube traveling at 500mph, 29,000 feet in the air. now imagine five of them.
and the worst part is, you don’t even need a knife or explosives to wreak havoc on a damn plane. if you apply enough superglue to cotton or wool fabric, it will catch fire due to an exothermic reaction, and you can bring plenty of superglue on a plane with you, so long as it’s all less than 3oz each. i know how to bring a grown man to his knees using a ballpoint pen. thanks, aikido class! shit, you could sharpen the wire from your bra and stick it back in the cup and then later whip it out and stab somebody with it if you really wanted to. for that matter, thanks to 3D printers, do you know how easy it would be for literally anyone to print a bunch of plastic pieces and assemble a gun once they’re onboard? sure, they’d only be able to fire it once, most likely, and with probably no accuracy whatsoever, but who needs accuracy when you’re just trying to blow a hole in the fuselage?
anyone who has watched a few good heist movies or likes to write in their spare time can probably come up with two dozen completely mundane easy-to-get-thru-security-with ways to highjack a plane, tbh. not that i’m condoning such behavior, especially since there are almost always at least two air marshals on most flights these days, but the fact remains that the TSA does jack shit to stop a creative person who really wants to cause trouble.
stopping people from utilizing airports as the public buildings they were always meant to be has done exactly nothing to keep us safe, and has significantly devalued airports as an establishment. there are so many airports that actually used to bring in quite a bit of money thanks to the artwork they displayed, the intriguing architecture they employed, or even just having unique eateries. now? i mean who has time to stop and enjoy an art exhibit when their flight leaves in three hours and they’ll be spending two and a half of those hours waiting in line at security anyway?
“the terrorists can see our security. they can figure out how to get around it. so instead of trying to make airports impregnable, we should take the money we’re wasting on the TSA and spend it on things that work: intelligence, investigation, and emergency response.”
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