Oversensitivity
[I wrote this last Friday, in the San Jose airport on the way up north; keep forgetting to post it.]
Ah, yes, San Jose, most dangerous airport in existence.
Or so it appears, given the extremely stringent security measures they have in place.
Today the metal detector was going off for approximately 3/4 of the people who went through it. I had removed my glasses (which has gotten me through without being searched the last four or so times I've flown), so the only piece of metal anywhere on my body was my belt buckle. Oh, wait, that's not true; also my earring.
The guy ahead of me was wearing glasses and was carrying his wallet, which apparently turned out to have something magnetic in it. Perhaps a credit card.
We were lined up three deep to be searched. Every time they let someone through the metal detector, they stopped the line behind the metal detector for about 1-2 minutes until they finished searching someone and a space opened up at the end of the line (after the metal detector) to be searched.
They also had about three times as many security people on duty as usual.
After I finished being searched (by a guy who wanted me to hold my belt buckle away from my body so it wouldn't set off his handheld detector -- I finally said "Would it help if I just removed my belt?" and he said, "Yes, if you'd like to do that, sir"), I went to pick up my PowerBook. Of course they had to do some special checking of it too. (I have a theory that anything that sits at the end of the conveyor belt for more than a few seconds has to be searched. If I'm efficient and pick everything up, there's no problem; if I'm slow, someone invariably comes by and says "Oh—we have to search that, sir.")
So I let the woman take the computer to the explosive-sniffing table, and I put my shoes on and gathered my things. And I got to the table and she said "Okay, now stand right there but don't put anything on the table while I do this."
Apparently she couldn't start checking the computer until I was standing across from her. Even as I was thinking what a stupid policy that was, I apologized for making her wait, and mentioned that I hadn't realized I was keeping her waiting. (I was sincere about that; I hate to do anything that slows the security process. These folks are just doing their jobs.) She smiled and said, "Oh, it's all right, I know it's confusing your first time."
I neglected to point out to her that I've had my computer checked for explosives a couple dozen times (going back to well before 9/11); it wouldn't have helped anything.