The Subaru SVX World Network   SVX Network Forums
Live Chat!
SVX or Subaru Links
Old Lockers
Photo Post
How-To Documents
Message Archive
SVX Shop Search
IRC users:

Go Back   The Subaru SVX World Network > SVX Main Forums > Not Exactly SVX

Reply
 
Thread Tools Rate Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old 03-14-2006, 06:54 PM
Bipa
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Crossing the Border

Got any funny or interesting or peevish stories to tell? Post 'em here, regardless of what country's border you were crossing.

Here's an article that ran in today's Toronto Sun and got me thinking about some of my memorable crossings. By the way, I did have to take off my boots in Stuttgart and Frankfurt airports and later in Toronto and Frankfurt on the way back. My bra underwire also triggered an alarm

March 13, 2006

A very scary new world
WHEN SNOWBIRDS TRIGGER SECURITY ALARMS, ARE WE ANY SAFER -- OR ARE BORDER OFFICIALS OUT OF CONTROL?
By JOHN DOWNING

I no longer fume every time I try to travel somewhere and have to run the security gauntlet. I console myself -- despite the enormous cost to the public in time and endless hassle -- and consider how lucky we are because it could be worse.

Remember that it's been four years since that silly chap attempted to blow up his shoe -- and the flight to Paris too. As a result, we've all returned to the days of the sock hops in the gym and shuffle through airport electronic arches wondering if the holes in the bottom of our socks show.

What I worry about is that someone will try to run the gauntlet with threads of plastic explosive woven into his shorts. Then we'll have to arrive even earlier -- so dogs, which won't require much training, will have plenty of time to do an enthusiastic examination of our crotches.

Since I now have to partially undress at security just to prove that it's my suspenders triggering the alarm, I worry about just how far we'll have to go.

I have learned not to be vocally critical at security, since two acquaintances lost their jobs because of alleged comments they made to officials. I was in full voice one evening at the Ottawa airport when an MP shouted from the back of the line: "Watch your mouth, John, remember what happened to Alan Redway!" (The Mulroney cabinet minister, who's now a judge, quit in 1991 after being charged with joking about having a gun while going through security at the same airport.)

Yet what puzzles me are the changing rules about what's verboten. I once watched as a man who had his lighter confiscated walked to a booth within clear sight of the security gauntlet and bought another one.

Toronto psychiatrist and former Sun columnist Ralph Pohlman had a hook confiscated from his fishing hat. Now he and his wife have a far more startling story -- in which he and Lois were treated as if they were smuggling a nuclear device.

She had had a gallium scan -- a radioactive tracer was injected to check her hip -- and the hospital here warned it may trigger an airport alarm if she flew in the next few days.

Two weeks later, the Pohlmans were crossing the bridge into Detroit. As they inched forward in their line to the U.S. immigration gates between the rows of barriers, cameras and other devices (I've noticed that all this paraphernalia has increased in the last year), a security officer wandered along with a German shepherd sniffing away.

The calm was shattered when Lois drove up to the booth, lowered her window and presented Canadian passports. Whether there was an audible alarm or just flashing lights, the Pohlmans don't recall -- because they were shocked when five male and one female officer galloped up to surround their large van with hands on their weapons.

Their fear eased when one demanded, "Which one of you has seen their doctor recently?" Lois was escorted to a room where a machine measuring radioactivity was aimed at her and finally reported in a display "gallium." Ralph, meanwhile, was driving the van through two devices.

FIRM INSPECTION

They were allowed to proceed after10 minutes of polite but firm inspection where no one joked, copies were made of their passports, and no explanations offered.

It's obvious American security has moved to a new level when snowbirds who've just entered their 70s are lassoed by armed guards two weeks after one of them received a routine medical test.

If they've got detection so acute that it can detect a tiny trace of radioactivity in the left hip of a woman inside the cocoon of a Honda van, they should stop kidding around at airports and just have all of us and our luggage "sniffed." Then we can stop undressing and explaining.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 03-14-2006, 07:26 PM
NapaBavarian's Avatar
NapaBavarian NapaBavarian is offline
Good morning!
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Napa California
Posts: 4,445
Send a message via AIM to NapaBavarian Send a message via Yahoo to NapaBavarian
Keeps the honnest people out
__________________
.Karl.
Southwest members, click here to check in!CA,NV,AZ,UT,NM,OR,CO
Wanted...your busted SVX! Watch out Earl, I'm comin to getchya
Return of the Pissed Platypus! X2
My dream (other than a pearlie)
1.8 SVXi and a laguna blue spoiler...somewhere
I decided to quit drinking, but I didn't like it so I quit not drinking.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 08:37 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
© 2001-2015 SVX World Network
(208)-906-1122