On the one-year anniversary, security checkpoints at Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport’s Lindbergh terminal looked-well staffed and efficient. Most ticket holders moved through with only a whiff of delay, even young men dressed entirely in black. And if a profiling pattern emerged at all, security staff appeared to select elderly white men for closer inspection at about double the rate of other demographics. They were ushered to the side where adjacent stations were installed to allow passenger flow to continue. Green-gloved screeners with metal-detector wands drew outlines around the men, requested unbuckling of belts and shoe removal and maintained a calming stream of barbershop patter. Surviving this trial, the old men shuffled in socks to a chair, recovered their shoes, and headed to the concourse, in no discernable way bent on jihad.
The nascent Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has taken pains to alert the flying public to new rules about what you can’t take with you on a plane. But in a state where folks take only ten weeks to forget how to drive on snow, the security process still produces a reliable stream of dangerous items orphaned at the checkpoints by people who head for the airport with corkscrews, scissors, lighter fluid, mace, lock-blade knives, and daggers. Believe it or not, one year after the main event, nice Minnesotans still occasionally show up with box cutters. All of the above were harvested in about three hours at a single checkpoint the other day. Asked to name the strangest thing he’s come across, Northwest employee Ken Lahti’s memory was fresh. “This morning I found a quart of acetone.”
The bulk of these items are surrendered voluntarily, says Acting Deputy Director for the TSA’s local field office, Becky Roering, a polished 30-something from Melrose, Minnesota who learned her chops as an air marshal. “Two months ago we put amnesty bins in front of the checkpoints for passengers to get rid of these prohibited items and save themselves some time in the screening process. We’re going to find it anyway, and here’s a chance to get rid of it before you get to the area,” said Roering. Other accommodations recently offered to passengers include a mail station at Traveler’s Assistance where you can mail your Swiss Army knife back home instead of tossing it.
The bins are well marked to avoid being mistaken for trash cans, but the compression of decision-making in this situation has yielded an odd slice of traveling life: Sandwiches, salt and pepper shakers, sewing kits, and marijuana have all found their way into the bins. Mace and pepper spray are common. One security staffer who declined to be named also declined to name the specific items in a collection of “sex toys” that had been discovered in the bins recently. Nor could he guess exactly how they might have been used to threaten the security of a flight.
Most of these orphans are the product of idiocy, not evil. Many end up here precisely because their owners are not in the habit of leaving home without them. Keepsakes or keychains tossed by habit into a briefcase can undergo a surprising transformation when they are brought near an airplane, where a humble pen-knife can receive a field promotion to a Legitimate Threat To The Free World. Marc Mannes, a research director for a local non-profit, lost his Swiss Army knife in just this way last year, not long after it was proved that you could take on the world’s only superpower with $20 worth of utility knives. “I just had it in my pocket with my change,” said Mannes. He wonders to this day if his confiscated treasure has found a new home.
It has not. Checkpoint jetsam is inventoried, but not saved. Northwest Airlines runs an incinerator on site, said Roering. “It’s all dumped in there and melted down.”
Leave a Reply