34AEJ7D@CMUVM.BITNET (Bill Gorman) (04/19/91)
Index Number: 15037
Warning: Screaming, ranting and raving next 20 pages. Your tax dollars
at work. :^)
I sent a comment or two about this subject some time ago, but Bill's
system barfed so I will resend a summary.
Basically, airport security personnel (ASP) are primarily poorly trained
part-timers contracted from some rent-a-cop company by the airlines.
They are not interested in customer service (it ain't their airline)
unless people like the disABLED community make enough noise buzzing around
the ears of airline management to get orders cut and sent down to ASP level.
Trouble is, the general attitude in the airaline industry regarding the
disABLED is that we are unwanted and unwelcome (OK, so there are
occasional exceptions). While blind flyers may have the least trouble,
and thus express the most satisfaction, of any disABLED group, that
may well be because they a) require less special services than other
types of disABILITY and b) tend, in many cases, to be less conspicuous.
Now let's not be diverted into a war between various types of
disABILITY here - that is not my point.
In a nutshell, my point is that the entire security system used at airports
was designed by and for the TAB comunity without the slightest
thought or concern for the disABLED community. Example: passengers
requiring canes or crutches to walk are routine harassed to hand over their
canes or crutches, EVEN THOSE OBVIOUSLY MADE ENTIRELY OF WOOD) and then
get through the security gate. How, pray tell? Persons with prosthetic
devices are regularly subjected to long, loud-mouthed, insulting and
embarassing demands that they open their clothing to permit ASPs to see a
belt buckle or strap rivet that sets off a hand detector. Yet these
are the same ASPs who, half the time, cannot properly adjust their
hand detectors to pick up the massive amounts of metal contained in the
main structure of artificial limbs and braces. I fly a lot. I see
and/or experience this crap every time out.
Now no talk of all this being in the name of "passenger safety", or
"national security" or "the public good" or any of that schtick. As I
already mentioned, at least half of the searches fail to detect obvious
metal objects. How safe is that? Other posters on this echo have already
pointed out that ASPs are so poorly trained that they cannot tell a PC
from a pear tree, much less determine if it is working as it should
and even then, it is perfectly possible to conceal weapons, drugs or
explosives in a functioning PC. Even if they learn about PCs, does anybody
want to guess how berserk they would go over a diabetic's blood sugar
monitoring computer? Or an external heart monitor? Or a TENS device?
Or some of the really heavy duty personal support equipment? Asking
a disABLED passenger to fly without life support gear is unrealistic
at best, and should be illegal.
All of these visible ASP posturings are mostly for show. They didn't
stop the downing of PanAm 103, for example, even when the airlines were
*forewarned* of the danger. They will not stop future tragedies.
Heathrow and other airports are full of ASPs with SMGs. So what?
Terrorists will only switch to such tactics as shoulder-launch SAMs
if they *really* want to bring your plane down. There are any
number of more available, simpler, unstoppable ways to down a civilian
airliner. But all this is somewhat beside the point. What matters is
that the airline/airport authorities try to use the "safety" code word
as a smoke screen to avoid coping with the problem that their entire
system violates the rights of the disABLED, from ineffective security
measures that discriminate against the disABLED to the physical design
of airports that involve incredible jaunts between gates, negotiating
stairs, or threading one's way amongst several planes on the tarmac until
the correct one is found (yes, I can give specific examples of each and
every one of these situations). Safety is used in the same manner as
"law and order" was used not many years ago by law enforcement as a code
word for the suppression of the Black community. Don't kid yourselves,
we as members of the disABLED community are looked upon as outsiders
by most TABs; regarded as sinister, suspect, unsavory and probably
contageous. Think not? Look at the rise in rhetoric favoring euthanasia
with THEIR code word for ridding society of the disABLED - "quality of life".
Or how many people post here who are ostracized by the TABs because they
cannot speak as clearly as the TABs? The ASP situation at airports
is just another reflection of this attitude.
I think it can be changed. I *hope* it can be changed. It will
take effort. It will require legislation. It may well require
litigation. Change it must.
So now you're thinking "Geez, doesn;t this guy ever shut up!"
No. :^)
W. K. (Bill) Gorman