From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick)
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 15:17:33 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Airport security [no such thing]
In-Reply-To: <199701200614.WAA01733@toad.com>
Message-ID: <yH84y8m9LIhS085yn@netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


What started this thread off was Lucky Green's observation of the beerkegs
getting through the security checkpoints at the Oakland Airport.

Just yesterday I flew from Seattle's Sea-Tac Airport to Oakland, on 
Southwest Airlines.  My partner and I were (we thought) checking in just
in time to  be in the second boarding group. (Explanation of Southwest's
lo-tech allocation of seat choice elided).  An unacompanied woman was
the next person ahead of us in the line.

She presented the gate agent with *four* tickets and *four* IDs.  "Where
are these other people?" the agent asked.  "They're parking the car,"
said the traveler.  The agent gave her all four boarding passes; and my
companion and I were bumped to the third boarding group.

The woman in front of us was white and middle-class-looking, traveling
with what appeared to be her family.  One wonders what would have
happened were she a swarthy man wearing robes and a burnoose.  Or if she
were just wearing shabby clothes. 


-- 
Alan Bostick               | To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height
mailto:abostick@netcom.com | of elegance.
news:alt.grelb             |      Jean Genet
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick