MORNING AIRPORT SECURITY ROUND-UP
Well isn't it funny how quickly we go from complaining about not enough airport security to too much?

The Detroit News carries a story about Congressman John Dingell being searched in his underwear at Washington's National Airport after his metal hip set off alarms. The story has a wonderful lead quote from the 75-year-old congressman from Michigan: "They felt me up and down like a prize steer. ... I was very nice but I probably showed I was displeased."

There was a teen forced to remove her headscarf, which was described by her father as a religious violation akin to having to remove your pants in public.

CNN.com also has a story about other people who have had brushes with security, including Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, ex-vice president Dan Quayle and columnist Dave Barry, who described his experience as "near-proctological."

And of course we're all familiar with the Secret Service agent kicked off the American Airlines flight.

This morning, I was watching CNBC and they interviewed a guy who had something to do with security at Israel's El Al airline and he was very condescending toward U.S. airlines being too cheap to match Israel's high airline security standards. But as he was talking, he didn't mention the government subsidies El Al receives. And he referred to the interviews his airline conducts with passengers to decide if they might be a threat. But what I've wondered - but don't know the answer to - is to what extent El Al's questioning methods would result in massive discrimination lawsuits if U.S. airlines tried the same policy. Just look at the grief American Airlines is getting over booting the Secret Service guy.

In related news, the Georgia guy who ran past Atlanta airport security guards in November finally has been fined $3,300 for causing the closure of the airport.

CNN also has an awesome graphic showing the airport security violations at the nation's 25 biggest airports.

And in case you missed it, Midway Airport in Chicago had another knife and box cutter incident.
- posted by Amy @ 1/09/2002 11:37:00 AM