World View | The Home of the Brave

From the self-contained, recession-proof micro-economy of Atlanta’s airport security, to Suze Orman rebranding herself as a security guru, our intrepid expat CISO returns to the United States for a visit and discovers an economy driven by fear

February 04, 2008 — CSO — This past month I got the opportunity to return to the United States to visit my family. My welcoming committee when I left the plane consisted of a U.S. Customs agent and a German shepherd. The dog went around the baggage claim area sniffing everyone’s hand luggage and the occasional crotch looking for something suspicious. The dog went wild when it saw me.

“Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to be back in the United States?” the Customs officer asked suspiciously.

“It’s a banana actually,” I said, “or rather it was. I ate it on the flight over. See?” I turned my pockets inside out so that the dog and the officer could inspect them. The dog sniffed till he was content that it really was an empty pocket. I got away with a finger wagging from the officer about bringing illegal fruits and vegetables into the country. If not for the hunger on a long flight, I would have been busted.

As soon as the luggage came out of the baggage claim, the airport security team confiscated everyone’s bags. We were told that they were being X-rayed and that we could retrieve them from yet another baggage claim area in a different section of the airport. Before we could do that, however, everyone was sent through a metal detector and a security check. Evidently, the security check we went through in the Netherlands wasn’t sufficient. I guess they figured that there was always the possibility, however slight, that I might have learned how to construct an explosive device out of plastic cutlery, lavatory hand-soap and toilet paper on the flight over.

The entire security process added perhaps another hour onto what was already a long and exhausting journey. But, hey, anything in support of a good cause. In this case, the cause appeared to be full employment for airport security staff. Take the 15 or so staff manning the baggage X-ray machines and metal detectors, multiply that by four for the additional weekday shifts and weekend work, factor in their loaded costs for benefits, the costs of the additional security equipment and, hey, before you know you’ve actually got a self-contained, recession proof micro-economy going on within the Atlanta airport. Peachy keen, that.

Whew! After getting home and attending to the usual back-slapping and how’s-it-goin-buddy chit chat, I thought it would be nice to engage in a fav