Jim Carey: "OK Warrior, Stand Here, Take Off Your Shoes and Spread Your Legs"
Jim Carey: "OK Warrior, Stand Here, Take Off Your Shoes and Spread Your Legs"
About
the Author
Rear Admiral [Ret.] Jim Carey is Chairman of the NATIONAL DEFENSE COMMITTEE and NATIONAL DEFENSE PAC. His background includes duty in cruisers and amphibs, at Naval Beach Group, and in the Pentagon, and naval service from Seaman Recruit to Rear Admiral. He also served in the Reagan and George Bush Sr. Administrations. Further details at The National Defense Committee and The National Defense Political Action Committee.
No, you're not under arrest and you're not having your annual physical, you're in an American airport headed for your flight and going through airport security. You're A-J Squared Away, haircut high and tight, in obvious GREAT physical shape, and of course you have that steely-eyed square-jawed American Warrior presence. Next to you they're also checking out an 80-year old woman in a wheel chair and a pregnant woman with 2 young kids. And as you scan the line of other passengers streaming through the line without so much as a second glance, all of them looking to you like they have much more of a "terrorist look about them" than you and Grandma and the young Mom, you say to your military self "There's gotta be a better way."
Well Soldier, or Sailor, or Airman, or Marine, or Coastguardsman -- I agree with you, there's gotta be a better way, and in my view, there is.
What's the purpose of airport security? Obviously to stop terrorists carrying devices that they can use to take over or bring down the flight they're trying to board, right? And by some weird algorithm of selection, you and Grandma and the Mommy-to-Be were selected as the most likely to have that capability, otherwise why are you standing there with your shoes off and your arms spread out while some newly hired federal security person is running a detection wand over every square inch of your body (and Grandma's body and Mommy-to-Be's body) -- all of which takes time and effort and personnel and equipment and lots of money to pay for all of these "services," right? Surely if there were a way to determine who in our society met all the criteria for being zero threat to airline safety, given the multiple millions of people flying every year, we've got to be talking about several millions that wouldn't need to go through this process, and thus our tax dollars wouldn't have to be used to hire people to ensure that you, the military warrior, aren't an armed terrorist, right?
But how to do this?
I'd start with all in the military [ACDU, Guard, & Reserve] that hold a security clearance. They've already been cleared by the FBI and Defense Security structure as being zero threat to our national security. Add to them all the DOD civilians holding security clearances, and you're now into several millions of airline travelers. Add to those all the other U.S. Government employees and State government employees and civilian contractors and military veterans who hold clearances, etc., etc., and you are into many more millions. Surely these folks don't need someone to be hired to have them take their shoes off so they can be "wanded in public at airport security." They've already been checked out and cleared as totally loyal to America. We're talking multiple millions of people here that, thus identified, could go through "an expedited line" and thus avoid all this delay and cost. Just have them go through the metal detector and run their carry-on baggage through "the electronic sniffer" and let them be on their way. The bottom line will be millions of dollars saved by not unnecessarily "de-shoe-ing and wanding" those air travelers already in or working for our government and already trusted with our nation's highest national security secrets.
Now the detractors to this common-sense approach (there are always detractors to common-sense in government---- c'mon, each of us has worked with or for them, so you know there's one in every crowd) will say "Oh, you're just replacing the cost of checking everyone at the airport with the cost to identify all these feds with security clearances so they get to use the fast lane. Just one more special privilege for already overbearing feds."
"Not so," say I. Security clearances and accompanying background investigation updates are already done every five years, so that expense is already covered. Identification could be taken care of with a special ID Card, or for that matter could probably easily be handled through current technology on the existing military and federal ID Cards and making this airport security trust a part of the existing ID Card would engineer in even one more step to ensure added national transportation security.
Enter once more the detractors, who will say "There you go again, just because I'm a federal employee or in the military, this is just one more invasion of my privacy by being singled out." To which I reply -- fine, make it voluntary, so that those who prefer taking their shoes off in airports and getting wanded with Grandma can continue to do so. And, oh by the way, the last I checked, every one of us in the military and every federal employee has already bared our souls to "big brother" a hundred times, what with security clearance background investigations (ever had the FBI asking your former in-laws about your character?), and financial disclosure forms and annual tax filings and the thousand and one other forms that we all fill out every year, or in the case of veterans DID fill out for 20-30-40 years of military or federal service.
Now is this system perfect? I'm sure it's not -- it's hard for us to solve all our nation's air-security problems in one Military.com column. But surely this idea for this new system has merit. Surely it would save millions of taxpayer dollars. Surely there would be millions of military and federal employees and government contractors that would prefer an expedited procedure at the airport to shoeless wanding? And surely it wouldn't harm airline security and it would significantly ease the long lines at America's airports.
So for all who are ready to join me "in the shorter line", Transportation Security Agency, sign us up. You've already got 40 pounds of financial disclosure forms and security background checks that cover every facet of our lives so there's no need for us to open our kimono any further.
And for those of you that opt out of this brilliant idea, bend over now and loosen your shoelaces.
And for Grandma and Mommy-to-Be -- that's going to have to be another column. Unless common sense kicks in soon.
