High school vice-principal Amy Strand, a nursing mother mother of four, was told that that she couldn’t clear the TSA checkpoint at Lihue Airport in Kauai with her breast pump unless she went into the women’s bathroom and pumped her breasts out into the bottles. The TSA operative told her that the pump wasn’t allowed through with empty bottles. There were no electrical outlets in the stalls in the restroom, so she had to stand over the sink and pump there. The TSA later apologized.
I can understand having one’s carry-on bags searched. I can sort of understand taking your shoes off and parading through a security checkpoint in your socks. I can even almost understand the silliness over the three fluid ounce limit for liquids. But no matter how you try to rationalize the state of airport security protocols, it seems that Homeland (in)Security has taken another turn for the ridiculous.
For the past 10+ years, American travelers have meekly acquiesced to being subjected to all manner of indignities in order to be granted the supreme privilege of boarding an airplane where can look forward to being treated like livestock. We’ve been forced to remove our shoes, empty our pockets, and allow TSA goons to violate our privacy in whatever manner they happen to deem appropriate, all in the name of “security.” I’ll grant you that the vast majority of TSA agents are conscientious, well-meaning public servants merely doing their job in a silly, misguided system. I’ll also grant you that some manner of security protocol is undeniably necessary in our post-9.11, civilian-airplanes-as-potential-weapons world. That said, it seems clear that our current (in)security system is far more about making travelers FEEL safe than actually protecting us from terrorism.
Amy Strand is but the latest victim of a system far more appropriate for embarrassing and demeaning travelers than it is for protecting their safety and well-being. How empty breast milk bottles can be considered a threat but full ones aren’t is something that defies rational understanding. Then again, there’s little rational about the way the TSA undertakes the satisfaction of its mission.
We’re spending millions- probably billions- of dollars on a(n) (in)security system that can only be described as “security theater of the absurd.” Amazing what sorts of indignities we’re willing to endure in order to travel, isn’t it?
