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From: 34AEJ7D@CMUVM.BITNET (Bill Gorman)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: AIRPORT SECURITY (again)
Message-ID: <17833@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 27 Feb 91 04:40:34 GMT
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Reply-To: 34AEJ7D@CMUVM.BITNET (Bill Gorman)
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Index Number: 13685

set diatribe mode ON.

Carla:

You are on the right track, but for the wrong reasons in your comments about
airport security. Security, real, actual, honest-to-God security in the
air as a result of these searches, etc., is an illusion. The problem
is that the abled flying public has established a system of security checks
which THEY can pass through relatively easily. Think not? Tell me the last
time you saw a wheelchair accessible airliner; not terminal, not jetway,
but AIRLINER.

You haven't, and you won't until the airlines are forced to change their
ways by legislation. They know that. Look how they screamed and squirmed
to get a loophole created for themselves in tht ADA. The whole system,
their security setup in particular, is designed by and for the abled.

Not so the disABLED; blind or otherwise. As an example: I have been MI
for many years (as well as VI) and I fly a LOT for business - definitely NOT
for pleasure, Gawd no! I have NEVER gone through a security counter where
the personnel (bear in mind that the usual security people at an airport
are part-timers, retirees, etc., contracted to the airline/airport by one
or another rent-a-cop company) knew how to determine if a person was wearing
a brace, prosthesis, or whatever. In many cases, they do not even know how
to properly use the hand-held metal detectors. I have seen them on more than
one occasion trying to scan someone in a wheelchair, right up against all
that nice metal in the chair. This is always done out in plain sight of the
other passengers, and IT IS DONE FOR THEIR BENEFIT, NOT FOR ANY QUESTION
OF SAFETY. They are saying to you, the flying public, "See, we're making sure
this nasty ol' cripple, whom we all know is probably diseased and crazy,
doesn't try to harm our pretty airliner or any of the plastic-perfect people
in it."

No, I am not being bitter or "angry" here. I am trying to characterize the
attitude, sometimes clearly expressed, of airport security personnel toward
the disABLED.

You say the answer to all this is to "train" the airport security geeks.
No, I disagree. The situation will change when, and only when, IMHO, there
is legislation holding the airports, the gate security people,
the rent-a-cop outfits they work for and the corporate officers thereof,
responsible for providing proper, UNIFORM, security screening for everyone
in as non-invasive a manner as possible, including training for proper handling
of all the special situations that will be encountered. Legislation that
includes stiff penalties for violation of these requirements, and
relatively easy complaint handling procedures for anyone not accorded proper
treatment.

We're not talking arguing who can sit in what row onboard the plane now.
Oh, no. We're talking who, in the disABLED community, can even make it through
all of the artificial barriers placed before them to even go ON the
damn airliner.

IMHO, we of the disABLED community are our own worst enemies here. To
get changes made, we have to make our needs known. To do that, we have to
make ourselves visible, we have to give up some of the carefully cultivated
"I'm OK, you're OK" camouflage we have developed over the years. That is
NOT easy for any of us. But don't get me started on that.

End diatribe.

W. K. (Bill) Gorman