It's strange. I don't really come up with the ideas for my columns on my own. After hearing about the story regarding terrorism in London, I went off on a rant about security and my friends pushed for me to write this.
Reading Tuesday's article in The Daily News about the terror alert being raised in London and how it's affecting students made me think about the security measures taken in the United States.
Frankly, I don't know how we haven't had a collective mental breakdown as a nation.
This is a country that went from allowing four-inch long blades on planes before 9/11 to patting down elderly women in wheelchairs and being afraid to say the word "bomb" within 100 yards of an airport.
I understand we want to be safe. The problem I have is that it doesn't seem to work.
I have traveled on planes quite a bit since 9/11 and the rule of thumb is to get to the airport about two hours before your flight to allow time to get through security. The problem is that security keeps getting longer and longer. The last time I went through airport security I emptied my pockets, took off my shoes, put my bags through the X-ray machine, went through the metal detector, went through a bomb detecting device and was patted down. All of this left me feeling no safer than before, considering there were about 150 people in line who hadn't been frisked.
Even after that experience, I still had some trust in what the government was putting us through to travel. After all, not everyone who works for the government can be stupid. This idea took a severe beating when I photographed President Barack Obama in Kokomo for the paper.
The reporter and I arrived about an hour early. I was expecting security of the highest order. What I got was a little shocking.
I was given my nametag then told to put my camera bag on the ground and step away. A dog was brought over to sniff it while I was "wanded" by a security guard. Thirty to 45 seconds later, I was cleared and allowed to set up my equipment. When Obama arrived, I was so close I could have hit him with a rock and I'm awful at throwing things.
My whole point is that we've basically lost our minds when it comes to security. What took 30 seconds to see the president takes two hours for a 90-minute flight.
If you still need to be patted down after going through all that security at the airport then the machines must not work that well, otherwise they wouldn't need to pat you down.
I'm not here to talk politics. I'm just saying, as a group, we've all lost our minds.
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