Two of my kids are scheduled to return home today after a trip to the East Coast.
Let me tell you about the first leg of their trip.
I dropped off my 15-year-old and 9-year-old daughters at the airport. The 15-year-old is an experienced traveler, so we felt confident she was mature enough to take care of her little sister and herself on the long flight.
After I left, they had to go through security.
First, like all the other passengers, they were instructed to remove their shoes. No problem.
They passed through the metal detectors without any problems. Then the 15-year-old was told to remove her belt. Then she was patted down. Then she was told to roll up her sleeves for an inspection. Then she was told to roll up her shirt to expose her stomach. Then she was told to unbutton her pants and roll them down below the beltline for another inspection.
All of her carry-on bags were thoroughly searched – her algebra books, her rulers, her personal items. You get the picture.
Meanwhile, her 9-year-old sister is watching all this in horror. I think it’s safe to say she was traumatized by the experience.
The government keeps telling us they want life to get back to normal. President Bush wants us to resume traveling, again, without fear. Yet, it seems to me, as the more the federal government gets involved in security at airports, the less common sense prevails.
Does anyone in their right mind think a 15-year-old girl with her 9-year-old sister in tow represent a hijacking threat? Apparently so in America in 2001.
When I spoke to the head of security at the airport after the incident, he told me he couldn’t imagine any good reason for asking a teen-age girl to unbutton her pants in public and roll her beltline down. Yet, he did say there are stiff new regulations from the Federal Aviation Agency that require that all passengers be treated alike and that any suspicions be addressed immediately on the scene.
In other words, he was rationalizing why security people should ask children to unzip their pants in airports.
I just can’t understand why people aren’t required to use their heads. In fact, it seems, they are asked not to use their heads.
I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. My colleague, Rebecca Hagelin, a WorldNetDaily columnist and our vice president of communications, had a similar experience at an airport – but it was her 9-year-old daughter who was frisked. My little one just had to witness the ordeal her big sister endured. That’s enough for me.
But there’s a bigger point to be made here.
For those who truly believe the federal government is the best entity to provide security at our airports, think about what I am saying. The federal government forced the private security firm at Dulles Airport to hire back foreign nationals from Syria and other Muslim countries because it determined that it was discriminatory to let them go – even when passengers were complaining about the high percentage of non-citizens patting down Americans at the airport. The federal government saw nothing wrong with 14 Syrian nationals being trained to fly commercial airliners in Texas. The federal government is paying lip service to airline safety. With all of its vast and far-flung intelligence operations, the federal government didn’t see Sept. 11 coming. Is this really who you want to entrust entirely with your life?
Political correctness dominates in Washington. It defines everything the bureaucracy does. Political correctness is the opposite of common sense. It requires that people stop making sound judgments and instead follow rules and regulations like sheep.
And that’s the mentality that leads to little girls being all but strip-searched in our nation’s airports. It doesn’t prevent terrorism. Instead it is itself a different kind of insidious terrorism.
The airport officials were very fortunate I was not there when this incident involving overzealous, non-thinking security personnel occurred. Very fortunate.
Do I blame the idiot at the gate? You bet I do. But I also blame the idiots in Washington laying down far-reaching, overly broad, one-size-fits-all, nonsensical rules and regulations. That’s what happens every time we allow Washington to protect us.
