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The Underwire Threat
(March 15, 2002) As a person that flies often enough to know where the smoking lounges are in at least 15 airports, I am all too readily aware of the new 'heightened' security at the airports. Like most folks, I have pretty much just sucked it in and taken the hassle of the lines and all in exchange for some hope of decent security on our air carriers. And, like most folks, I am understanding of the need for it at this time. However like all things, the heightened security measures have a real problem happening that remains fairly unmentioned.
Since the airlines returned to the skies after 9/11, one of the new measures is the 'random' and 'targeted' extra searches that some passengers are subjected to. While the airlines will tell you that the computer makes these choices, I have seen it myself often enough to know better.
Put plainly, based on my own experience and from what I have been hearing, women seem to be singled out for these searches far more than would seem to make sense. In fact, most of the stories that I hear are from women, telling me of embarrassing searches and in some cases, rather personal searches. This has to make me wonder.
Let's see - 19 men, all from a culture that virtually enslaves and denigrates women, all of Arab ethnicity, perpetrate the single worst attack ever on the US mainland, and the security folks decide to search women at the airport. In a lot of these instances, way too many for me, these searches involve a frisking (for those who have never been frisked, let me just say that the main difference between frisking and petting is dinner and a movie), the opening of a blouse, the removal of shoes, and, perhaps one of my favorites, the underwire bra check.
I looked it up and exactly no crimes have ever been committed with an underwire bra. Yet I hear this one the most. The machine beeps and then the wand beeps when passed near the underwire. Well, duh. But a lot of women are being asked to prove that it is just a bra. And the store receipt is not cutting it.
I am not suggesting that only Arab males be searched, nor am I suggesting that women be given a free pass, but I think a little history is in order here. Up until three weeks ago, there had not been a female terrorist from any of the militant Islamic sects. None. Remember, in that society, women are property. Three weeks ago, a Palestinian group deployed the first-ever female suicide bomber. Two more have followed. Worth watching, but the searches predate the female bombers. We know that literally everyone involved in Al Qaeda and the Taliban is male. We know that all of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack were male. Seems that there is a logical profile here.
And before anyone rushes to yell about profiling, let me make a point. When all black males driving Mercedes Benzes are automatically pulled over, that is racial profiling and a very bad thing. It is wrong and against our beliefs as Americans. On the other hand, when you have a war, the enemy tends to fit a profile. In this war, the profile is quite specific and involves more than gender or ethnicity. There are specifics about reservations, methods of payment, flight and aircraft types, multiple bookings and so on. There is a watch list from the FBI and the list (although probably somewhat unreliable) of expired visas from INS. It is more than just physical appearance.
Yet, with all of that information, somehow, women are searched more often. And something is just very wrong with that. All of the intelligence and evidence indicates a relatively specific type of individual as a threat. While I am hesitant to put it in these terms, the only way I can see this is either a gross malfeasance by the security folks, or, worse, reverse profiling.
Given these oh-so-sensitive-to-feelings times, it is entirely possible that in order to avoid the appearance of profiling one group (Arab males) another group is set up to be profiled (non-Arab females). Either way, women are being pulled aside for these searches more often than men, and that needs to be looked at.
We need to let Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta know about this so they can bring a halt to the unnecessary embarrassment and, to an extent, harassment of women at our nation's airports and set the security folks back on track. Since they are all federalized now, action can be taken quickly. Oh, and please take a paragraph of your letter to explain the underwire bra thing.
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Reach Tom Ridge at: Tom Ridge |
Reach Norman Mineta at: Secretary Norman Mineta |
Even an administration as good as this one will now and then
have a miscue. As citizens, it is our duty to tell them about
it so they can fix it.
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