DH and I were discussing recently the pros and cons of the TSA’s methods of handling airport security. I agree with him that Israeli security seems much, much better – with less inconvenience to travellers, but not at the expense of safety. I really wish more North American airports handled things this way.
All I had to google was the phrase “How does Israel handle airport security”. Dozens of hits returned, and the URL bar readily predicted my phrase because it’s a popular search query.
I appreciate the need for effective security measures, but also, I must admit that TSA’s handling of disabled passengers, in our experience, has been sorely lacking. Canadian airport security is much the same, but with a slightly less painful track record, as I’ll explain.
My husband and I both travel through airports using assisted wheelchair transport. This means that when you check in, you can ask for wheelchairs (and people to push them at warp speed!) to help transport you through security and up to the door of the aircraft. They usually sling carry-on luggage over the backs of the wheelchairs. Then, at the end of your journey, or on transfers, in a sort of relay race, they stay with you until your luggage is stowed in a car or taxi at your final destination. It minimizes us having to expend precious energy walking.
Both he and I use metal crutches or canes to walk. I cannot walk without one because my balance is so poor. I simply fall over. I’ve been using a cane for over 13 years and only go without it inside our home, where I am comfortable grabbing onto whatever I need to – and that’s on a good day!
However, when we arrived at the security checkpoint at an American airport during our travels last year, we encountered some 40-watts:
TSA Officer: “Can you walk? We need you to walk through the metal detector.”
DH: “Not without my crutch. I have fibromyalgia and need it for support because of my hip.”
TSA: “OK, but can you walk?”
DH, (getting annoyed internally but maintaining a calm composure outwardly – we deal with idiots like this a lot): “I need it in order to walk.”
The exchange goes on for a few more minutes, with a distinct lack of comprehension on the part of the TSA.
[The process is repeated for me. “No, I can’t walk through the scanner without my cane.”]
Once, when I was ordered to get up out of the wheelchair and walk through the metal detector, without warning, the TSA agent grabbed my cane out from under me [it will set off the detector], so that I crashed to the floor.
Eventually, they call for a male and a female assistant to pat us down, respectively.
Pat-down person: “Do you hurt anywhere? Anywhere sensitive to touch?”
DH: Yes. [points to various parts of his body. Fibromyalgia means that much of the time, he hurts everywhere.]
[The pat-down process is performed.]
DH: “OWWWW!”
Pat-down person: “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”
More than once, for both of us, this has resulted in the pat-down person making contact with a body part that causes pain. Not all of them are bad, but some of them could take a leaf from the Israelis. They don’t grope you – they watch you.
The backscatter X-ray requires that people walk through it and stand still when being scanned; this is impossible for either DH or me. So, we do the pat down, get shoes swabbed and have a manual wand run over various bits. Some of the time, it has gone smoothly, and others not.
For example, I have great difficulty taking my shoes on and off. Once or twice when they’ve been swabbed, they’ve been submitted to further examination because there is a trace substance on them that sets off alarms, which requires removing them. As long as the TSA people can do it painlessly without my husband having to help them, things have gone smoothly and we haven’t been subjected to extra attention.
Problem occurred when a TSA agent tried to take off my shoes. Being gentle doesn’t really enter into their minds at the expense of efficiency. DH had been cleared and they decided to wheel his chair about 20 feet away while they tried to jam my shoes back on my feet. When DH attempted to get out of his chair to come and just do it for them (we have a good routine down that gets it done pretty quickly, even on bad days when I’m tense), all hell broke loose. And yeah – being tense was definitely a factor here.
Apparently when a disabled person gets up out of a wheelchair to walk, it’s seen in a sort of Christian Pentecostal faith-healing tent mass revival thing:
“It’s a miracle!”
Or, alternatively, panic:
“Wait, don’t get up. Why are you moving?”
Having studied psychology, I have a deep appreciation for the Israelis. Behavioural observation – closely, unobtrusively, done by people who are trained to do it – just makes good sense. It’s not “bad profiling” in the sense that the article describes its detractors as saying – the negative sense of it having to do with making pre-judgments about people based on certain characteristics that their inclusion in a larger group with presumed shared characteristics. Freaking out at airport security because a teenager is wearing a t-shirt with Arabic written on it is way over the top.
Originally, I was under the impression that extensive pat-downs were a no-no in Israel perhaps because of the laws (traditions? again, simply good sense!) in Orthodox Judaism (and Islam as well) about how it’s impolite and let’s face it, improper to go groping anyone no matter if they are religious, atheist or agnostic. It violates people’s dignity, to say nothing of little kids who have to submit to a stranger’s hands all over them by a person in uniform. (Telling the child, “Oh, it’s OK because he’s got a uniform.” is a mistake. There goes the kid’s ability to implicitly trust people who are supposed to protect them, and who we are taught are the “good guys”: police, firemen, etc.). I can only hope that when people apply for jobs as TSA agents, the background checks are thorough enough to weed out anyone with frotteurism, pedophilic or ephebophilic offenses. The trouble with sexual offenders like that is that they are very good at concealing their actions in public.
Frotteurism specifically involves lack of consent from the person being assaulted, and the perverse satisfaction and sexual gratification that the offender gets may be heightened by the knowledge that he is secure in getting away with it. Often, it can occur so quickly that the person being assaulted is unaware of what happened until after the perv has finished and moved on. They are belatedly aware that they’ve been assaulted, but there’s not a damned thing they can do about it. Disabled people are at a higher risk of being assaulted in this way, under the guise of “helpful assistance”.
So, what it boils down to in TSA is a sort of twisted consent to public groping. The passenger has no choice but to submit.
But if they don’t, this kind of thing happens.
Therefore, Israel, I salute your airport practices – you’re real mensches.
