I am constantly amazed at how my fellow airline travelers, normally reasonably nice and good human beings, can turn into crazy people the minute they walk through the doors of any airport in America. Many turn rude, hostile and increasingly pre-occupied with self the closer they get to the gate. I hope I am not “one of them,” but I have come to completely understand.
The entire process of security screening is demeaning. Yes, I know all about TSA pre-checks and the clear card, but despite the so-called time savers, something – or someone – always seems to slow the process down. It’s usually TSA. TSA would have us believe they have saved us from something, but I maintain the technology is so antiquated and silly that it turns relatively nice people into angry and rude people. Remember those machines that supposedly didn’t reveal anything? Well, they did.
However, we endure it. We keep our mouths shut as we throw away our water bottles, coffee, remove our shoes, belts, jackets, sweaters, phones, wallets, keys and dignity because we hope against hope that these procedures will save us from a catastrophe like, oh I don’t know, like someone sneaking a loaded gun onto a plane.
A year or two ago, while waiting to go through screening, I saw a flight crew saunter through security as though they owned the place. I couldn’t put my feelings together over seeing that scene, but just today I am able to put it into perspective.
Smuggling Guns
On this date (December 23, 2014) a story broke from NBC News entitled: “Delta Worker Allegedly Helped Smuggle Guns on Planes” by Miranda Leitsinger and Pete Williams. According to the article:
“A Delta baggage handler was arrested Monday for allegedly smuggling firearms — some loaded — into the Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta, where he handed them off to an accomplice who flew to New York, federal law enforcement officials said. The man, Eugene Harvey, was charged with ‘entering an airport area in violation of security requirements.’ Harvey, also a ramp agent, allegedly shuttled the firearms into the airport — avoiding detection since airport workers don’t go through TSA screening, according to an affidavit filed by a senior federal air marshal, George Randell Taylor.”
Now I understand what was bothering me a few years back: the concept of them – and us. The “inside” and “outside” of it all.
I know of a very elderly woman, in her mid-90s to be exact, who was recently given the “once over,” as she was wheeled through security. This woman riveted fighter planes in WWII, worked hard all of her life, raised a family, buried a husband of 50 years, paid her taxes, voted in each and every election. She was checked by no less than three of TSA’s finest. However, she is no different than the overwhelming majority of travelers who simply bite their tongues as they go through the security process.
But some guy who loaded baggage and who bypassed the entire process, carrying 18 handguns (some loaded!), was not checked at all.
It does me no good to know Eugene Harvey was caught.
“Video footage from the Atlanta airport showed Harvey allegedly delivering the weapons to a man, Mark Quentin Henry, who would then carry them with him on flights to New York. Those guns were believed to have been handed over to a third co-conspirator who sold the weapons to a New York undercover officer.”
The guns were exchanged in a concourse bathroom with the weapons where Henry then picked them up.
I wonder how many of “them” were getting away with all kinds of behaviors, while “we” were getting X-rayed, prodded and probed. I wonder if there are 20 or 50 Mark Henry’s who have made a living from relaxed standards.
Unethical Familiarity Breeds More Contempt
As someone who lectures and teaches on the subject of ethics, I often point out that poor choices often occur when there is the opportunity to take advantage of a situation when there is no oversight, checks, or measures to ensure that situations like smuggling cannot occur.
It is not a stretch for all of us to wonder why, given the tragedy of events on 9/11, that closer scrutiny was not paid to those who worked on, and around the aircraft. It would almost seem that those who load our baggage and our meals and who clean the cabins have been allowed to function in a world where there is little accountability. No wonder the lapses in security “down there” allowed loopholes, spaces and extreme familiarity that could create opportunities for unethical behavior.
No one is expecting baggage handlers or cleaners to go through a security screening and an X-ray every time one of them walks out to an aircraft, but there needs to be a much better system of checks to make certain a crime of this nature does not happen again.
From an ethical point of view, I don’t really “fear” my fellow passengers, as nasty and as fidgety as they can be, I fear those who dwell in the loopholes and oversights of bad choices, such as smuggling loaded guns onto an aircraft.
Ultimately, “we” are doing everything that is asked of us; “they” are just not doing enough.
