From: Ellen K. 

I recently traveled to Chicago and New Jersey.  The air travel security
level was raised to orange the day I left.   Leaving O'Hare for Newark I
was wearing a zip-front top, the screener asked me to remove my
"jacket".  I explained that it wasn't a jacket but the only piece
of outerwear on my upper body, so he directed me to another area where a
female screener would pat me down.  The female screener asked whether I had
ever been patted down before, I said no, she explained what she was going
to do and then did it.  I can't say either of them were anything but polite
and sincere about doing their job.  I would much rather the screeners err
on the side of overcaution than the opposite.

On Tue, 6 Feb 2007 09:44:32 -0500, "Rich Gauszka"
 wrote in message :

>
>"Don Hills"  wrote in message
>news:ukEyFtgaXCEH092yn{at}attglobal.net...
>> In article ,
>> "Phil Payne"  wrote:
>>>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/05/immigration_search/
>>>
>>>Another eye-watering reason not to visit the USA.  Could be an effective
>>>was
>>>to keep terrorists out.
>>>
>>>And everybody else.
>>
>> In the same vein:
>> http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3480/features/7909/search_and_seizure.html
>>
>> Like she says, avoid transiting the USA. I know you've long advocated
>> this.
>> I've also pointed out that our national airline is buying Boeing's new
>> dreamliners to expand their new route to London, via Hong Kong.
>>
>> --
>>
>
>The airport screeners in this country appear to abuse everyone equally
>including Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. The screeners are both
>ill-trained and ill-mannered
>
>http://www.snopes.com/military/medal.htm
>
> "They just kept passing it around there were eight or nine or ten of them
>who handled it before it was over," he said.
>"They had found it in my pocket at the airport, and they thought it was
>suspicious. It's shaped like a star, and they were looking at the metal
>edges of it, like it was a weapon. I asked for it back, but they kept
>handing it to each other and inspecting it. I was told to move to a separate
>area.
>
>"I told them - just turn it over. The engraving on the back explains
>everything. But they thought they must have something potentially dangerous
>here.
>
>"I told them exactly what it was - I said, 'That's my Congressional Medal of
>Honor.'"
>
>The man relating that story was retired Gen. Joe Foss, 86. His experience
>last month in Arizona at the international airport in Phoenix - may be the
>ultimate symbol of the out-of-kilter times we are going through. We are so
>afraid of terrorists in our midst that what happened to Foss is not only
>believable, but perhaps even inevitable:
>
>The Congressional Medal of Honor will be taken from its recipient because it
>looks vaguely ominous.
>
>And now, almost 60 years later, the Medal of Honor was being handed from one
>skeptical security screener to another in the Phoenix airport, while Foss,
>at 86, took his boots and belt off as ordered.
>
>---------
>
>We shouldn't fault airport security officers for not recognizing a Medal of
>Honor on sight; not many people get to see one in their lives. But a closer
>examination by security personnel would have shown them what it was, and at
>that point in the proceedings they fell down on the job. Rather than
>treating an obviously cooperative passenger courteously and allowing him to
>explain what the suspect item was, they shuffled the general back and forth
>and required him to remove his boots, belt, hat, and tie - several times
>each. The delay they subjected him to almost caused him to miss his flight.
>That is no way to treat any 86-year-old man, let alone a war hero and former
>governor.
>

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