With my honeymoon coming up, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m dreading going through security at the airport. We’re flying from Washington Dulles to Tokyo, Narita, someplace I’ve never been before. But in my (admittedly limited) travels around the world, I’ve noticed a major difference in security procedures in various airports and countries. Most are not near as onerous as those practiced by the TSA.

In Paris’ Charles De Gaulle (CDG), security consists of putting your bag through a metal detector, walking through and going on your way. No taking off your shoes, no limit on liquids, etc. It’s only when you get to the “american bound” gates that you have to go through additional security that checks for liquids. It’s the same in Frankfurt’s airport. Everyone except US bound passengers are given less scrutiny.
Ireland (Dublin) was closer to the US practices, but it was a US bound plane.

I went to India once with a friend for her wedding, and leaving Chennai/Madras was quite interesting. We arrived 3 hrs before our flight and barely made the flight (despite the fact that when we arrived, the ticket counters were not open). Our carryons went through a scanner, and then the men and women were split for pat down searches. The men’s were done in the open by Indian military (they were in military uniforms, not sure if they were city, state or Indian military), but the women went in to a small room with a female airport employee and a female military member for patting down. The plane I was on was bound for Frankfurt, not directly to the US, but we had no problems with carrying liquids or wearing shoes.

Most of these countries are just as safe as the US when it comes to airline flights. After all, how many actual terrorist attacks have happened on/with planes? Far more flights take off and land every day with no incident.

The TSA budget is enormous. But any visible actions certainly don’t make me feel any safer, maybe they help my mother feel safer, but not most people who are involved with security. As Bruce Schneier says, it’s security theater. Show me where my money is going to actually protect me rather than make me feel better.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm by Laura Raderman and is filed under rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.