"We Believe That The Threat Continues..."

It seems official. In an interview with the Financial Times, Kip Hawley, director of the TSA said that there is no timeline for removing the ban on liquids on aircraft, and that we can expect that it will ‘be in place for the indefinite future.’

Two weeks ago I bought a ticket on Delta, on an American airline, stopping in the continental US. As I waited for the travel agent to bring up my options, I sat on the edge of the fuchsia armchair. When I was told what my one best option was and while my head nodded, my stomach twisted.

A few weeks ago I had been in an itty bitty teeny tiny aircraft assuring the pilot that yes, the needle on the fuel meter was moving. I have calculated the risks of air travel and am not afraid of an aircraft, per se, although if you wanted to deal in hypothetical scenarios that might kill you, an aircraft is a good starter.

But what bothers me is not the trajectory of the plane, (although the sheer cost of the recent terror alerts and strain on the airline workers- Delta has recently been granted the right to cease it’s pilot pension program because it is under bankruptcy protection) but the trajectory of air travel, specifically the recent phenomenon of passengers taking it upon themselves to eject other passengers for being publicly unusual.

Take the very recent case of the Orthodox Rabbi on the Canada Jazz flight that was ejects because his (silent) praying and moving made them ‘uncomfortable’. This was only the latest in a series of incidents in which passengers, so long asked to be vigilant, ( if you see something, say something ) have now gone one step further and made their motto If You See Something, Do Something. Regardless of what that something is that you see.

Perhaps it is the legacy of United 93, five years later, that the thread of passenger empowerment has come through gut wrenching narrative, to TSA deputized air crew ( there are no less than 3 classes of people who are authorized to carry- and use- guns mid-flight) and the addition of newly trained ‘Israeli’- style behavioral profilers that has turned heightened vigilance into action, and customer service into paranoia- the airlines almost universally hold that no matter what, they ‘did the right thing,’ and Jazz, in particular states categorically that it ‘acted in the best interests of the majority of the passengers’.

But did it really? What on earth is so threatening about prayer? Did they suppose that he was really mixing a pair of mysterious but fateful liquids under his scarf, or trying to load a weapon that Canadian security is entirely sufficient to have screened out? Under that scarf lies the heart of the problem. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s what it could be. And if it makes passengers uncomfortable, no polite questioning, no assurance, nothing short of removal of a paying passenger who is entitled to the same ‘comforts’ will do.

Since I bought my ticket, the passenger situation is not improved, and the director of the TSA believes that the risk is not much diminished. I will remember this when I pack my bag, and whether or not I forget and wander thoughtlessly up to security with a half-finished juice bottle in my hand, it is an issue I will deal with, and a threat assessment I will remember. It will be in the minds of my fellow passengers too as they look around them. That’s why my stomach twisted.

For a while, I entertained doomsday scenarios, that one misunderstanding would soon lead to a an armed marital deciding whether to open fire in the pressurized cabin while an F-16 flying just off the tail is likewise deciding whether to open fire ON a pressurized cabin. It’s happened a few times, but it’s not that likely, not really. Only one man has been shot, no planes have been fired upon. (although the CBC did carry a soundbite of the single US airforce pilot who had received the call to shoot down any remaining airliners on 9/11 and who described how, being unarmed, he intended to clip it with his own plane instead)

This concern is doubtless unfounded, and knowing this, I ought to be able to take some worried glances in stride. What *should* not sit well, with me, or indeed anyone in a democratic society, is the proposition that any handful of us can ban any one of us because of in-flight jitters and call ‘it in our best interests.’