It was about twelve years ago when I was traveling with a friend on a business trip. Every time we tried to board a flight, my friend would get searched. It got to the point where it was almost comical, except for him. They even pulled him out of the boarding queue once to rummage through his belongings. We joked about it later, looking at his boarding pass, trying to see if there was something different about it, but we couldn’t spot anything unusual. Turns out, they actually had marked his boarding pass. When I got my boarding pass, they told me I was “randomly selected” for a suitcase scan and directed me to a special machine for my checked luggage. Then, just before boarding, they stopped me, unpacked my carry-on piece by piece, slowly and meticulously, like I was some kind of threat. Another agent stood guard, making sure I didn’t reach for anything suspicious in my bag.
Since my wife, who is not white, was traveling with me and I was carrying a lot of her things in my carry-on, I’m pretty sure the TSA agents were a bit puzzled by some of the items. (Interestingly, my wife wasn’t stopped or searched at all.) Honestly, I didn’t really mind the extra attention, except by the time I repacked my bag and finally boarded, all the overhead bins were completely full.
This wasn’t the only time I received “special treatment” from TSA. On two other occasions:
Once, traveling with a baby who needed a very specific pre-mixed formula, not the powdered kind you mix with water. I had a whole suitcase packed with baby supplies and formula. They swabbed several of the bottles and ran them through a scanner while I waited. (My wife had already gone through security holding our son, so I was the one with all the baby gear but no baby.)
Another time, I was traveling with carry-on pets. You can’t put a live animal through the X-ray machine, and the metal cages set off the detectors. So, they escorted me to a back room where I had to hold my pets while they disassembled and searched each cage, one at a time. I actually had two pets in separate carry-on cages that trip, so it was a double procedure.
I have to admit, the TSA agents were always very serious and thorough in their job. More recently, flying out of Newark NJ, they fingerprinted me and swabbed my hands. It seemed like they were doing this to about 20% of the travelers. I’ve also gotten into the habit of always taking off my shoes and belt when going through security – sometimes they tell me I don’t need to, but by then, I’ve already done it.
They definitely have a tough job to do, and I appreciate their thoroughness when it’s necessary, even though the racial profiling incident back in 2002 felt excessive. It does make you wonder, amidst all these security measures, Can Obdii Reader Hold Luggage? While seemingly unrelated, the complexity of security checks sometimes feels like trying to diagnose a car problem – you are looking for hidden issues, just in different kinds of baggage. Perhaps understanding can OBDII reader hold luggage is as perplexing to some as understanding the nuances of airport security protocols are to others.
