Homeland security, San Francisco Style

I was on a long international flight from Mongolia. I had been in airports or airplanes for 28 hours and was exhausted and sleepy as I waited at the International Airport in San Francisco, for my next “connection” to Los Angeles.

On the chairs behind me were two guys, holding hands and talking each other. The loud one was bragging to his friend about all the things he had learned about air flights and procedures in his current job. He was proud to be an air marshal, one of the guys that sits on planes and guards us against terrorists. I listened a while, and was so sleepy, decided that I needed a coffee. A wheel was broken on my luggage, and my knee was hurting, so I asked the “loud” one if he would watch my luggage, I was going across the hall to get a coffee and wake up.

He seemed to want to show off to his friend, and he with a slight lisp said: “Tsir. I don’t think that is a good idea.” I replied, “Well, then ok, forget it, thanks for the help and the advice” and I walked 10 feet across the hall for a coffee. I could tell that it embarrassed him that I ignored him in front of his friend. Frankly, I was so tired, and jet-lagged, I didn't care about offending the little blow hard's ego.

When I returned, there were 8 people in uniforms, all listening to his story. As near as I could gather, he was telling them all that in his opinion that I had suddenly become “a terrorist threat and was going to blow up the airport, the airplane, and him as well.”

So, for over an hour, I watched, as the San Francisco “Keystone Cops” of homeland security in the airport ran around in circles trying to figure out what to do. I, as a business executive, a former candidate for U.S. Congress, and international businessman with established credentials. For an hour they scolded me, filled out papers, explained why they were not going to arrest me, and told how dangerous it was to let anyone watch my luggage. (Even an air marshall with a lisp!) But you know, in that entire hour of posturing, and paperwork, and the exercise of letting the man with a slight lisp show his “righteous indignation” about terrorism, NO ONE EVER BOTHERED TO OPEN MY LUGGAGE. I telephoned a former college room mate, who is high in the FBI in the area, and he laughed, and said: “Hey, Ben, now you have pay back time!” He laughed, as only a good friend can, and let me know not to worry too much about it. I figured that my vote against Bush was being repaid.

United Airlines even got into the act and their man came out and said: “We have to cancel your ticket. You can’t fly because you are a security risk.” That seemed in conflict when he then said; “But it is ok for you to buy a ticket on American Airlines.” Hmmmmmmm. I was so much a risk that they kicked me off the flight, but then they ecouraged me to fly on American Airlines!??? More protocol.

At San Francisco International, the Home Land Security team was so intent on protocol, so intent of walking around and having something to do, that they forgot the entire point. They made such a big deal about airport security, potential bombs and all, but not one of those keystone Home Security cops, had the presence of mind to actually open my luggage and look for a bomb. They were too busy talking about protocol and paperwork.

Like so many aspects of this political time that we are in, the policies, the implementation, and the actual way it works, is focused on technical correctness, verses reality. Any one of those officers, if he had bothered to look, could see that the man who was pushing this, was showing off for his boyfriend, and getting a great charge out of it.

In the meantime, United Airline had a flight delay of nearly an hour. The taxpayers got the free entertainment of seeing 8 uniformed people run around, none actually seeming to know what to do, and a potential terrorist, held without arrest, but no one of the gun toting, uniformed officers ever bothering to open my luggage for the supposed "weapon of destruction". It all reminded me of George W. Bush's search in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Well, 4 days later, one of my business associates, had to fly through San Francisco, on the same flight. My associate was detained because she tried to interpret for a person who did not speak English, and suddenly "she" became a terrorist threat. Homeland Security at San Francisco airport decided to detain her for "private in depth interrogation". When the door was closed, some of the questions were not only inappropriate, they bordered on harassment. They held her for over an hour as well, interrogating, asking questions, and again, never bothered to check the luggage. Just harassment. At a point where you see two similar events, logic suggests that there may be a pattern of behavior at San Francisco International.

There are three things that I can say. As an American, I do not appreciate seeing guards, and officials, paid for by my tax dollars, acting like fools.

As an executive, I do not appreciate seeing employees harrassed, because they are women, beautiful, or because they are from another nation.

And as a man, I don't appreciate jerks, posturing as officials, using their badges to take away our civil liberties and our rights, expecially, in the name of Homeland Security.

In years past, when I traveled in iron curtain countries, or in little developing nations, I expected and experienced these types of behaviors on the part of soldiers and air port police. Never would I have dreamed, that it would become routine in the United States of America.

Well, the point, I suppose is. If you are traveling through the west coast, avoid San Francisco International, and especially avoid a young man who speaks with an effeminate "lisp". It wasn't the effiminate lisp that bothered me, it was that he was just a jerk, regardless of the lifestyle he followed. Kind of makes you wonder though, wonder what he would do if he ever DID see a real terrorist??? Lisp at him and say: "Now here you take my hand....."

My my. What a wonderful country we are to tolerate what we tolerate. We are a patient people. I remember what U.S. Congressman Ralph Hall told me a few months ago. "Ben, most of this Homeland Security stuff, is about politics, not about security for the American people. It will take years for us, as a nation, to unravel all the webs that have been spun upon the American people, in the name of Homeland Security." My reply to Ralph is, "Yes, and in the meantime, avoid that young man with a lisp in San Francisco International."