Airport Security
1. The text, Spread Your Legs and Smile, is about a frequent flier who has been working for the United Nations for the past 20 years. This flier has experienced the dramatic changes of security checks. Since 9/11 the airport security has become so strict with the routine of taking off ones shoes, putting them though the screening device and then lacing them up again. Not to mention the added insult of frisking and the bleeping wand that is shoved into one’s private places. If you do not do this with a smile on your face or if you complain, expect the worst. Today, the increase of airport security has resulted in a larger number of secondary screenings as well as a screening of a more diverse selection of travellers in order to apprehend terrorist. In one instance, a mother, who was feeding her baby breast milk in a bottle, had to drink it to prove it was not a lethal toxin. Even a handicapped boy who needed to fly with an oxygen tank had to justify to security that it was not a deadly poison gas he was breathing.

2. In the text, Spread Your Legs and Smile, the attitude toward U.S airport security is very negative. Many believe airport security has become too extreme. The author of this article, Shashi Tharoor, feels that security has gone from pleasant experience to an embarrassing nightmare involving the exposure of intimate items. Tharoor raises the question: could the proliferated pilferage among the frequent-flier circuit be linked to the regulation of no locked suitcases? On the other hand, in the text, Fear of Flying: An Israeli Look at U.S Air Safety, the attitude toward the increase in U.S airport security is more positive. The article’s author, Elisa Ben-Rafael, thinks the U.S airport security is lacking in comparison to the European and the Israelis’ security. She bases her opinion what she observed at the New York’s Kennedy International Airport as she waited to go through the X-ray machines located on the curb side. Here no security was present, and there was not an airport official to verify that the luggage belonged to passengers with a boarding pass as it passed through the X-ray machine. A terrorist would have no trouble checking in a bag containing explosives. Another failing of the U.S. airport security is illustrated through another one of Ben-Rafael’s unpleasant experiences at the same airport. She was sternly ordered to keep quiet, remove all her jewellery, spread her legs and arms and lift up her blouse and skirt. All this occurred in front of strangers.
These two texts agree on the unpleasant way of behaviour from the security staff whereas the text, Attendants question ground security, approaches the problem with the ground-crew security. Blake Morrison explains how outrageous it is still after 9/11 that there are thousands of airport mechanics, caterers and ramp workers who have access to airplanes and runways without going through a metal detector.

3. The opinion of the text is: “Frisking the flight crew in front of the passengers is downright foolish. It only makes the passengers feel unsafe.” I agree that frisking the flight crew will make passengers feel unsafe. However, it is more important that no person, flight crew included, constitutes a terrorist threat on a flight.

4. Letter to the Editor
Security vs. Freedom
Airport security is created to ensure that all airline travellers have a safe flight. The question is, however, how do passengers know that they are not the victims of a hijacking or a bombing from one of the flight-crew? Passengers have designated their complete trust as well as a position of importance to flight attendants. However, the thought that flight attendants actually hold the passengers’ lives in their hands is inconceivable. We as passengers can only trust the flight attendants to do their best to guarantee a safe flight. What more can they do for us then give us the instructions for an emergency landing? Why do we even instil so much trust in a complete stranger?

A few weeks ago, a terrorist attack occurred in Moscow. The blast from an explosive device erupted in the arrivals area of the Domodedovo airport. Now a new security issue arises. Is it enough just for the passengers boarding flights to go through metal detectors, or should every person who enters the airport terminal be checked?
Train stations and metros are at just as high of a risk of terrorist attacks as airports. Why are there no security checks at train stations or at the metro? What if security checks become required at train stations and the metro? What will happen to us then? What will become of our freedom of travel?