Call Me Ahmed: Why Airport Security Makes Less And Less Sense

Nothing is more counterintuitive than the airline business. In my experience, I don't know of any other business that manages to stay in business by consistently abusing its best customers. So I suppose it's not surprising that airline/airport security has followed suit.

Just about every time I fly, I am taken out of the security line for additional screening. Everything I own is inspected, and I am frisked, wanded and scanned. I have also been told by the TSA that I am not on the "no-fly" list.... Instead, based on their behavior, I am tempted to create a "why fly?" list.

Consider this: I fly 400,000 miles a year. I haven't checked a bag domestically since three years before 9/11. (I FedEx my bags,) Like many frequent flyers, I make my reservations less than 24 hours before I travel, and in many cases, I fly on one-way tickets, because my itinerary changes so often. Under current profiling protocols, my first name might as well be Ahmed.

It's unfortunate enough that anyone named Ahmed will be stopped. Yet I apparently fit the profile, too. But let's look at that profile: no bags, one-way ticket, reservations made within 24 hours of scheduled flight.... This doesn't describe a terrorist, but a high-yield, frequent-flyer business traveler.

Recently, I was discussing this issue on the air from a remote broadcast in Minneapolis. "There's no intelligence and intuition being applied to airport security," I said. "When I finish this segment, I will go to the airport to fly to New York to be on the Today Show tomorrow. I will have no bags, I have a one-way ticket to La Guardia and my office just made my reservation about two hours ago. And I will be immediately taken out of line as fitting the profile."

And of course, that's exactly what happened. I raced to the airport, got my boarding pass. I showed my driver's license and boarding pass to the rent-a-cop at the beginning of the security line and was told, "You have been selected for secondary screening." This time, when I started to laugh, I noticed some of the other TSA screeners were laughing, too. What did they find so funny? They had just watched my segment on TV! "I'm sorry," one of them shrugged. "We think it's silly, too, but we have to do this," he said as he led me to the side. "We don't have a choice."

[[BREAK]]

But we do have a choice. It's called common sense. Before 9/11, airport security was nothing more than an attempt to provide a psychological deterrent against truly emotionally disturbed people -- folks who wanted to hijack a plane....anywhere.

After 9/11, airport and airline security is nothing more than an attempt to make people who don't fly very often feel better. But those of us who do fly often know better.

Consider this: More than five years after 9/11, while the TSA is still strip-searching nuns looking for tweezers, none of the cargo -- carried directly below the passenger compartment in the baggage holds of commercial aircraft -- is inspected. Neither is the mail carried on almost all passenger flights.

Then there's the Federal Air Marshal program. These men and women are supposed to fly incognito. Really? They always preboard the flight. Duh. They always sit in the same aisle seats, wear their Dockers and Pendleton shirts and fanny packs, read their Tom Clancy novels and try to...blend. And worse, there are not enough of them. If we want real airline security, let's put a marshal in uniform in the jump seat next to the cockpit door facing the passengers.

It's basic common sense that terrorists don't follow the path of most resistance, but they aim for the path of least resistance. Sadly, we continue to fight the last war instead of anticipating and preparing for the next one. Less than 10 percent of all containers entering U.S. ports are actually inspected (and with that figure I am being generous). Take the case of the Port of Los Angeles -- the largest in America. More than 40 percent of everything that enters this country comes through Los Angeles.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security gave city officials a $40 million grant to beef up port security in L.A. Sound like a lot of money? To put things in perspective, that's the exact same amount we spend every day on airport security screeners! And the overwhelming majority of those containers is still not being inspected.

For the moment, it doesn't look like common sense will prevail. But my short-term solution will at least make my traveling life less abusive:

I continue to ship my bags ahead of time. It saves me more than two hours of my life -- and aggravation -- every time I fly. When I travel, I've become a contrarian. I don't go to the departures level at the airport when I leave. It's a zoo. I go to the empty arrivals area (who is arriving at 6:30 in the morning? No one). I then take the escalator or stairs up to departures. I save at least 10 minutes in traffic, and head right for the security line. When I arrive, I don't go to the baggage claim area -- it's a bigger zoo. Instead, I have my car pick me up at the departures level. No one is there. And off I go to my hotel. And when I get there, where are my bags? In my room. I've saved time, energy and schlepping.

One more thing I just might do: change my first name to Ahmed. At least this way, I'm almost guaranteed the adjacent seat will be empty on my flight. After all, in our world of profiling, who wants to sit next to a guy named Ahmed Greenberg?