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Thu, 21 Oct 2004
For the past four years, I have been touring around the country, to theatres and universities, with a one-man, one-robot show. It's been an incredible experience, and I've learned a lot, but some of what I've learned -- about airport security and air cargo -- is a bit unsettling.
Judy (the robot) is too big to fly with me as luggage, so she goes in her custom-made travelling compartment (some might call it a "crate") and flies air cargo. When she flies on airlines, she flies in the same airplanes you do.
After September 11, 2001, new rules were put in place, and in order for me to ship Judy air cargo, I had to become a "known shipper." I've passed this process three times now, for two major airlines and one air cargo company. This is what happens: an official of the airline comes to my house, and checks to make sure it exists. They ask me for a driver's license, to make sure I exist. Then we're done. They don't ask to see what I'm shipping, they don't ask what business I'm in, they don't ask for references.
This wouldn't be frightening if I knew that air cargo was being inspected, but it's not. My luggage that travels with me, containing cables, tools and computers, looks spectacular on an X-ray machine, and is routinely opened. I receive one of those little Transportation Security Agency courtesy slips, telling me that my luggage has been inpsected, every time I fly. I even invested in a new suitcase because the old one had to be tied shut, and the TSA guys, while I'm sure they're good at inspections, aren't so handy with knots. The new case is much easier to open, and it opens wider, making the inspections easier.
If my own luggage looks alarming on the X-ray machine, the robot itself would look much worse, should anyone bother to peek. Judy is 80 pounds of home-made electronics and oddly-shaped metal parts, built into a Salvation Army cabinet. She shares her crate with big coils of cable and little switch boxes I made to control her. I made it all in my basement, and it looks that way: duct tape, baling wire, scrap metal. It defies belief that anyone interested in airplane security has ever inspected that crate without my hearing about it or noticing it later.
In generous moments, I feel sure that my personal information must have been entered into some TSA database and I came out clean, and maybe that's why my shipments are deemed not worth inspection. I'm grateful, but it doesn't make me feel safer. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were clean, too.
So there you have our air safety rules: unlikely to prevent catastrophe, but they know who the shippers are. So they can blame them later? The TSA does officially acknowledge the risk, but three years after September 11, it hasn't made air cargo screening universal, and isn't planning to. Here are their words from their cargo security strategic plan released ten months ago:
TSA carefully evaluated the feasibility of physically screening 100 percent of all air cargo. Limitations of technology and infrastructure make such an undertaking impractical, from both a flow-of-commerce and resource point of view.
That is, we're not going to screen all the cargo, because it will cost too much, and it would be an inconvenience to businesses. Think about that the next time you get to the head of the long air security line and see a TSA official confiscate an elderly woman's tweezers.
I would like to live under a government that worked to address the real threats to our safety. But the evidence I see implies we live under a government interested only in the appearance of security. They don't inspect air cargo but they do make me stand in long lines and take away my nail scissors. They don't address the tremendous traffic in cargo container ships, but they do turn away Cat Stevens and muslim academics from Switzerland. They don't impose rules on chemical plant security, but they do demand access to my public library records.
President Bush's government seems to think the goal is merely to
inconvenience us enough to make us think that the real threats are
being addressed. For some reason, this doesn't make me feel safer.
Images of the robot can be seen at sgouros.com
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