I've been through 30 land, sea and air border crossings .... The only one that comes close to the American border crossing is Russia. Iran was worse than the US for obvious reasons. But seriously, just think about that for a moment. China is easier to get into than the US. I've not been harassed at a single border crossing other than Iran or Russia as much as I have coming back into the United States. Land of the free? Or land of Fear?So the nice people at ICE are as friendly as the customs goons at Sheremetyevo Airport, which, from all accounts that I've read, isn't terribly much different from the way things were in the 1980s. Good job, ICE! Way to help promote tourism!
Over to the TSA: As I understand the Rapey-scanner protocol, they are supposed to do it once and, if you fail, they do a pat-down.
I've seen otherwise. The last flight I took, they had some guy in the Pervo-viewer who was seriously overweight. He didn't pass, because he forgot to take this or that out of his pockets. I gather that none of the members of the TSA grope detail wanted to touch that guy, because they kept scanning and re-scanning him until he either passed or they had cooked him like a pot roast. That backed the line up, of course, so the TSA folks just routed a whole stream of people, including me, through the old metal detector.
Dont'cha know ?
ReplyDeleteOnly hard bodies are to be groped.
Duh...
Makes me remember comming back from Canada back in the late 70s early 80s.
ReplyDeleteAll Canada wanted to know was I bringing in something to sell and purpose. Returning to USA after a mere 3days I"d have to show ID, what I had with me and always accusatory. Once I bought a model airplane kit (made in ohio clearly on the box) and they were in all of a tizzy because I was bringing something in.
it was bad then, they have gotten worse now.
Eck!