A Lovers’ Quarrel with Airport Profiling

SSSS is the code that is put on the lower right hand corner of your boarding pass at US airports if your profile suggests that you are a suicidal person bent on taking down the plane in a blaze of glory. To be sure, there is an S, SS and an SSS rating too, depending on what risk level Department of Homeland Security associates with you. But it is only the SSSS coding that kicks in special measures that culminate in you holding your pants with both hands to prevent it from sliding down. This begs some story telling...

You wake up early one morning and as you are lying on your back desperately trying to re-enter that cute little dream you were thrown out of...thanks to that rude alarm clock, you realize that today you have to head to Boston’s Logan airport to catch a flight to DC. You feel a rush of excitement. You jump out of your bed with an extra spring in your steps. You enter the bathroom...which soon rings with the sound of water and oooohhh and aaahhhhh as the shower makes its first contact with your warm body. You come out of the bathroom wrapped in towel...whistling and singing. On your way to your closet you even make an impromptu tango move. Its going to be a great day. While you are getting dressed, it occurs to you that you might run into her in DC as well. She would be wearing the perfume that stays with you for days (she is such a tease!). And so to be on an even match, you put a bottle of cologne in your bag too. You are now all fresh, all dressed, all packed, and all ready to head to the airport.

You are at the airport. You have checked in your luggage and airline agent prints your boarding pass. While handing you the pass, she puts her finger next to the SSSS code and jokes cheerfully “Oh, seems like its your lucky day today”. You look at the lower right hand corner of the pass, and indeed that dreaded code is there. “I get lucky every time I fly”, you say sarcastically. Yes, you have been getting SSSS coded for the past 3 years on each one of your trips. At first you thought perhaps it was a case of random checking. But when the probability of you randomly getting SSSS code stayed stuck at 100%, you realized that laws of probability were severely being violated. So you began protesting and making calls to airlines. You even enrolled in their frequent flier clubs, but there was nothing they could do to remove your name from the list of would-be suicide bombers. Yes, on occasions you have drawn extra scrutiny at international airports for that large bulge in your pants. But every time, as the security agents found out after each pat down, that bulge turned out to be nothing more than God’s endowment, rather than any malicious intent on the part of your human self.

With your boarding pass in hand, you now head to the security line where you are greeted by a bitter middle aged Transport Security guy whose facial expressions betray his miserable life. He looks like someone who could use a generous dose of Viagra to bring some excitement into his limp life. He asks to see your boarding pass. As if the bold lettered SSSS prominently displayed on the pass was not enough of an indication of your ulterior nefarious motives, he takes out his pen and circles that SSSS code. And then just to be sure, he also draws an arrow pointed to that circle. Now only a blind or a stupid person can miss the fact that you are the holder of a boarding card with SSSS code on it. Deep down you wonder what this guy’s resume would read : "All day long I circle SSSS code on potential terrorists’ boarding passes. I follow that by proceeding to draw an arrow that points to that circle"

Since you have been utterly marked as an SSSS kinda guy, you are taken out of the hand luggage screening line and moved to a separate channel. Here you put your luggage through a special scanning machine. You are asked to take off your belt and shoes and part with mobile phone and other accessories you might be carrying in your pocket. You are asked to stand in a screening door where quick bursts of air coming out of various nozzles hit you from head to toe – apparently scanning you for prohibited material. You stand there while holding your pants. Once the all clear bell rings, you step out of that door. Now your luggage is placed next to you and another security guy proceeds to perform tests for traces of explosives on your backpack. He brushes a piece of cotton cloth on all sides of your backpack. He then walks over to where that cotton piece is placed in a machine to check for traces. While awaiting results for explosive tests, you wonder if your backpack could have picked any residue that could be used for explosives (On your last camping trip, did it brush against kerosene lamps...and more importantly, could kerosene traces be considered dangerous?). Security agent comes back...no explosive residue. Relief! With that successfully behind, you begin to get a surge of emotions mixed with a healthy dose of anger and vindication. "See! I am just like the rest of gullible good Americans pre-occupied with Christmas shopping, football, and Oprah Winfrey and completely oblivious to politics and wars", you feel like shouting.

But there is one more indignity that awaits...the hand search of your luggage. With other passengers breezing through the nearby line, your whole existence is taken out of your backpack and placed on a metal table. Shaving razor, tooth brush, cologne, condoms, and that pink covered personal diary that you began using only because it was gifted by someone as a joke but you use it only in private and would hate to be caught dead with it – and that too under the curious eyes of passersby on an airport. And then the officer pulls out the latest glossy Playboy issue from the bottom of your backpack and you find yourself saying "Officer I can explain this. It gets kinda lonely in the air and...". Officer skims through the magazine, stopping for a moment at center fold, raising one eyebrow, perhaps applauding your good taste, and then puts it back in the bag.

You are now given all clear. You take your belt and shoes. The act of putting your belt back on and tying your shoe laces gives you this eerie and creepy feeling as if you were just bedded against your wishes. And then as you walk away and become one with the throngs of people rushing around airport, you try to forget all this. You look forward to the pretzels that a flight attendant, usually a middle aged unionized divorcee with layers of cosmetics on her face, will shortly be handing down once the plane takes off.

Strangely enough, you are no longer whistling and singing anymore...