Degrading, pointless, and stupid

On my way back to California from Washington DC's Dulles International Airport, I ran afoul of the Transportation Security Agency. It was far and away my worst travel experience - while I have previously been angered and inconvenienced by America's slowly-decaying and over-capacity aviation system and the security theater practiced within it, I had not been subject to the full absurd force of that system.

Long story short: I was stopped, repeatedly searched and interrogated by the TSA, and finally told that I could not fly without FedExing my baggage home and buying new clothing. Evidently I had come in contact with "explosive materials" at some unknown place in the course of my east coast visit. (Or, more likely, I'd come into contact with one of the long list of substances that will produce a false positive - from nitrate fertilizer to glycerol soap to organic honey.) Nothing else about me was even vaguely problematic or suspicious, but because I could not explain the residue, they did not allow me to fly.

Before telling the whole story, I'd like to point out how utterly implausible it would be for me to be actually doing anything harmful or terroristic. If I had actually been making bombs, or been around people making bombs, I would have taken some basic steps to decontaminate my luggage and clothing. Furthermore, I would certainly not have opted out of a backscatter x-ray scan, as doing so triggers an automatic explosives test. Nobody is that stupid - and if they were, they would be too dumb to successfully implement a plot.

Okay, the story.

After lunch with a friend, I took the Washington DC metro and a bus to Dulles airport. I was running slightly behind time (only an hour and a half before the flight), which made me somewhat nervous, but after getting my ticket and seeing the short line for TSA screening, I figured that I was home free. No such luck.

I went through the usual rigamarole and then opted out of the backscatter x-ray, which I am not comfortable with for health and privacy reasons. I had done the exact same thing the previous week on my flight from Oakland to New York, and had no reason to expect any problems. This is where everything started turning to custard.

After the pat-down, the blue-shirted TSA officer ran a swab over his gloved hands and plugged it into an explosives-detecting machine, just as had been done in Oakland. The machine beeped and spat out a bit of (blank) paper, so I assumed that it had just malfunctioned. I prepared for a second pat-down, but didn't see any problem. And then the second swab revealed a positive test for "explosive materials" on a second machine.

They informed me that they were going to have to keep me there for further testing. I asked the officers what types of testing would be required, and how long they would take, and was told in response that they could not tell me. After a ten- or fifteen-minute wait, two TSA officers in black polo shirts showed up - they were the explosives experts. They patted me down and swabbed me again, and oversaw the unpacking, examination, and testing of every bit of luggage and clothing I had on me. (I had only carry-on baggage.) They informed me - when they saw fit to tell me anything - that everything was testing positive.

At this point, I should say that I spent most of my time here - three hours or more - without my shoes or jacket. (It was a cold night in DC, and I was standing on a tile floor.) At no point did any of the officers ask if I was comfortable, if I needed a coat, blanket, or slippers, or offer me anything to eat or drink. They did not make even a cursory effort to ensure that I wasn't physically uncomfortable.

In between rounds of testing and baggage examination, officers intermittently questioned me about my employment, my travel plans, and about any possible exposure to explosives. They did not conduct any sort of systematic interview or interrogation - instead, they just asked seemingly random questions without telling me what information they were after.

I ended up getting the same questions from a number of different people, including blue-shirted and black-shirted TSA agents, DC police officers, and (at the very end) two on-site FBI agents. I gave a consistent (and honest) set of answers: I had formerly worked for the NZ government, and I was on my way to start a job as an economics consultant. I was in the US to visit friends and family, and had been visiting friends in NY, Philadelphia and DC over the previous six days. I had not tested positive for explosives in Oakland, but I thought that I might have been contaminated either in the Russian and Turkish Baths in Manhattan (a lot of steam, possibly carrying glycerol-based lotions or scents) or when I'd been in an apartment where some people were smoking a joint. Later on, my dad speculated that the bag could have been contaminated by some fertilizer in the back of his car. All of these possible explanations were discounted by the TSA agents, and I honestly told them that I couldn't account for every environment I'd been in.

About half an hour after the explosives testers showed up, several well-dressed men in suits showed up - apparently TSA agents slightly further up the chain. At no point in this process did any agent introduce himself (they were all male except for one of the FBI agents) to me or explain their role in the process - I was left to figure that out by myself. After a while, I asked one of the suited agents what the procedure was from here, and whether I would be able to make my flight. (At this point, roughly 40 minutes remained until boarding.) He told me that he could not answer either of those questions - they were matters for people higher up the chain to decide. I also attempted to ask what they needed to know in order to clear me for flight or deny me from flying. He also refused to answer this question.

The suited men conferred with the other agents, and then had me and my belongings moved into a private screening room, where I was patted down and tested yet again in the presence of one of them. I was then left in the room without further explanation. A while later, a number of police officers showed up, and repeated the intermittent questioning that TSA officers had previously done. They would typically ask a question, go away, and then come back at random times with another question. My ID documents - US passport, NZ and California driver's licenses - were scrutinized. The police officers photographed me "for their report". (What report? Going to whom? They wouldn't answer.)

After this, the suited TSA agents got on the phone with unspecified higher-ups - allegedly, someone who could render a decision. While they were on the phone, my flight's departure time passed by, and then some. Nobody had explained to me what would happen if I was cleared to fly - would I be able to reschedule my flight? - or if I were denied clearance - would I have to buy a new ticket? could I try again tomorrow? - although there were some vague reassurances that I could rebook. (You may have noticed a consistent pattern here - i.e. they consistently refused to communicate important information to me, and did not explain anything about the process.)

At some point after this, they ran me through the backscatter x-ray machine - the very device that I'd been trying to avoid in the first place. After a bit of consultation, they turned me around and spent a quite long time patting down my back, and in particular my left shoulder-blade. I have no idea why.

The phone calls to higher-ups went on for almost two hours after I missed my flight. (I didn't have access to a phone or watch, so I'm not clear on the timing of all of this.) At the end of the process, the lead on-site agent told me that "because this incident happened in Washington DC, this had to go all the way up the chain - not quite to the President, but probably the level below that." I was not informed of the process.

After waiting for a considerable time without any information, I asked if I could get my phone - which was low on batteries - and call my parents. The TSA agent said he'd have to ask the police; the police said that it was the TSA's decision. They let me make the call. (Another thing you should have noticed by now: The people on-scene consistently either (a) did not know what they needed to do in this situation and what their roles and responsibilities were, or (b) were under instructions to not tell me.) I called them up; they were concerned and asked for a full explanation. I explained the situation, and my dad asked to speak to a TSA officer. They were willing to do that and they discussed the situation. (At this point, my dad put forth the "bag of fertilizer" explanation, but this did not seem to interest them.)

At long last, I was told that they could not clear me for flight: they "could not resolve" the explosives residue to their satisfaction. In other words, because I could not satisfactorily explain something that I had not been aware of, they couldn't let me fly. They told me that I would be able to rebook with Southwest - something that proved to be impossible as their counter had already been closed - and try again tomorrow. I then attempted to find out what I would need to do in order to fly the following day. After getting through the initial thicket of non-responses, I determined that the best thing to do would be to: (a) ship all of my luggage, except for my laptop and phone, via FedEx, and (b) buy a new set of clothing and thoroughly clean everything with rubbing alcohol. I had to do this in the middle of the night, without transportation and in some strange Virginian suburb.

I was unable to get any clear information about what the TSA would do with this incident report, or whether I would be put on some sort of a watch-list for future travel. All I was told was that I "would know I was on a watch-list if I was pulled aside for extra screening at the airport the next day." How reassuring. I also got some contact details and a half-page "comment form" that I could send to the TSA.

At that point, the two FBI agents showed up to interview me for their report. (What report? Going to whom? They wouldn't answer.) I was on the phone with my parents at the time, explaining the situation and trying to get re-booked, so my dad asked to speak to them first, which they agreed to. They asked the same basic questions that the TSA and police asked, and I gave the same (still-true) answers. They were fairly amiable, and ended up getting me a bottle of water and directing me towards a shuttle.

Up until this point, I had been extremely calm. (The TSA and FBI both commented on this.) I had played it cool, been reasonable, complied with requests, and asked politely about the process. But it was a massive strain. After the FBI agents left, I essentially broke down, and spent the next four hours alternating between crying, calling my parents, and following their instructions on how to post my luggage and buy new clothing. I could interact with people, and carry out a basic plan, but if I wasn't doing that I would break down again.

I've reported all of this in a relatively unemotional style, but I should be absolutely clear: This was a bewildering, frustrating, and ultimately humiliating process. While I found the agents on hand courteous and professional, the process itself was dehumanizing. I can laugh off a lot of trouble - and I have! - but this experience was extremely traumatic. Seeing all of my personal belongings disassembled - literally, in the case of my cell-charger - and getting repeatedly felt up by anonymous agents was shocking and disturbing, and I paid for repressing my feelings.

Ultimately, however, I was an innocent person being asked to explain something that I was not aware of. When I couldn't, the bureaucratic process penalized me. Regardless of the politeness of individual agents, it was a Kafkaesque, nightmarish process. I spent the afternoon cold, hungry, and with no idea of what was required of me. I never wanted to go through the process again.

Unfortunately, I did go through it again, the next day. I arrived three hours before my flight, got through security - complete with an apparently routine explosives test on my hands - and was all set to board and get the hell out of this bad dream. But as it turned out, there were TSA agents performing "last-minute" "random" checks at the gate. I was pulled aside and tested for explosives. In spite of my precautions, my computer and cell phone still triggered an alert.

I was assured, as I had been the previous night, that the TSA would respond quickly to ensure that I could make my flight. No hope of flying, in other words. They took their time to get to the gate, and rather than calling the agents from the previous night to get the story, repeated a number of basic tests and questions. I watched my flight leave without me, and started crying again. I was still crying when they pulled me aside to do yet another invasive pat-down. (I briefly considered stopping, but I decided that I didn't feel like it, and hoped that it would at least trouble their conscience a little bit. In any case, it's probably not the first time they've touched the genitals of an obviously distressed US citizen.)

As before, no explanations of anything procedural were offered, and I was cleared to fly after half an hour or forty minutes. Evidently I was no longer considered a threat - in spite of the fact that nothing had changed about me other than my clothes and most of my personal belongings. I told all of the agents on scene that I thought that their procedures were disgraceful and humiliating, and strongly implied that I thought they were pointless and ill-conceived. And then waited another four hours for my flight.

The connection in Chicago was delayed for a further two hours due to winds in San Francisco, and I eventually got home. Now, a day later, I'm finishing this while en route to Malaysia. When I started typing up this report, I was still mainly in shock. Now I've had a chance to process it a little bit, to start identifying the most egregious bits. To put it simply, I'm enraged and disgusted with my government. Almost nothing that was done to me actually made air travel any safer. The humiliation, frustration, and significant personal expense I incurred were largely pointless. Their chief effect was to give me a visceral taste of a phenomenon I was intellectually aware of. We've constructed an unreasonable and unaccountable security bureaucracy, and begun to apply it arbitrarily against ordinary citizens.

On the plus side, I now have a far deeper understanding of the term "Kafkaesque".