All in the name of The War on Terror

A while ago John Bull 1 started a thread about upcomming rules and regulations that would be implied for all foreign travelers that come to US airports. Even the ones that are just passing trough to other locations.
These have been inforced since then and are a bit overkill.

This is the story of these regulation applied to my sister, returning to New Zealand. Although I told her to go over Singapore, her return schedule for work required her to use the San Francisco route.

My sister is a 1m60 110kg woman with an FF cupsize(this will be relevant lateron ...), an accademic. Wears glasses, reads 2 books a week, research is her life. I think you get the picture, not exactly a threat.

She had a connecting flight in San Francisco, with 7 hours safe time between flights. Normaly more then enough.

First she had to wait 4 hours in line for passport checking and stuff, the normal, usual procedure you have to go trough at every airport.

But then, when she ran trough the metal detector, the thing went of.
They asked if she was wearing any metal, so she looked and couldn't find anything except the metal zipper on her jacket. So she took it off, went trough the metal detector again and bam, it went of again ...

Next thing she knows, she's "invited" to join the security crew to the back, where they did a full search on here. And I mean FULL search, she felt so bloody violated because of that too.

Turns out the metal braces in her bra, that usualy get ignored by metal detectors because of their size, were a whee bit bigger then the usual one cause of her FF bust.

All this together with a rather hefty and deep interogation took just over 3 hours.
Just long enough to make her miss her flight.
Just long enough to make her loose 3 weeks of holiday for this new year.
Just long enough to make her be unable to come home to belgium this year for xmas because she'll only have 3 weeks holiday in total.
Just long enough to make her rather heartbroken about the fact that she won't see my other sisters twin boy, daughter and in march this year, her 4th kid untill xmas 2006. She won't see my grandmother again untill xmas 2006 and as things are going these days, there is a good chance my grandmother won't make xmas 2006.

The list goes on and on. All because they keep a 30 year old woman for over 7 hours at a US airport, while she's just waiting for a connecting flight to New Zealand, because she has big boobs.

Doesn't this sound a whee bit rediculous to ya'll??

That ismessed up.... I feel sorry for your sister she won't be able to see any of your family and they interogated her for three hours. wow.... Reminds me when they held my dad in an interogation room for like 4 hours when he was coming back from mexico because he birth certificate was lybian and it said he was born at the air force base my grandfather was stationed at at the time... Jeeez sometimes the security guards seem like complete idiots....

I was held up for over three hours last year when I flew into Charlotte NC.
When passing through immigration I was asked, as usual, what I do for a living, I replied that at that time I was unemployed. Wrong move... taken straight away to a waiting room for an interview, then back to the waiting room to wait for another interview.
I made the point that I make the same trip every year, as shown by the stamps in my passport. I even showed them my return ticket and the $600 I had in cash. They wanted to know who was paying for the trip, how could I afford it being unemployed etc...etc...
The guy at the second interview then said he would go to arrivals and speak to my sister-in-law, who was picking me up. I let him get to the door before pointing out that to do that he'd first have to know who was looking for!!! He went for a coffee and a chat with colleagues
American friends couldn't believe the hassle. They all made the point that the borders are so porous, illegals are swarming over unchecked daily, so why hassle a guy out for a 2 week vacation with cash and return ticket?

I did read a while back that at some point, the US government was thinking of extending the fingerprinting of foreign nationals to include visa applications, just to visit the country
Don't know if that is still planned but if so I won't be coming back. Don't want to spend over £60 for a visa, plus the application time (weeks) just to go visit.

I can't believe they made you stay there that long.... the security people seem to be checking the wrong people...

I know a woman who found herself in the same situation - a Canadian with permanent residence in the U.S. Returning to the U.S. from Canada - the metal detectors went off because of her bra hooks. She had to take her bra off. We're talking a senior citizen here.

Its all so ridiculous I find and so much overkill.

The day they want to tag or fingerprint me is the day I stop visiting the U.S. regardless of the amount of family and friends I have there. Its a matter of principle.

I have worked in the private security industry for years, mainly on the systems side. I noticed the airport had been upgraded with new X-ray and detection devices as well as biometric doors for access control.
The best bit was when I flew back 2 weeks later. The only carry on I had was my belt pack with my digital camera and camcorder cases attached.
The pack contained the following items, my travel docs, a book, a packet of mints, wallet and....... a 4" bladed Victorinox Swiss army knife that I had forgotten to transfer to my suitcase
I was checked with the wands, frisked and had to remove my belt and shoes while my belt pack went through the X-ray system, which had 2 people watching it. I discovered the knife when I went to get my book out a couple of hours after take-off.

I'd probably still be in Gitmo had it been found

See thats the thing about not being able to profile people. We cant single out a person that IMO would be a good canadite for a terrorist Arabic Muslim male 20-30. So we have to treat a belgium women or a Granny that had the metal detector go just the same as if it was a arabic male which set the metal detector off. You know we cant profile anyone because of race,sex or religon they all must be treat the same.

Welcome to the PC security world

Originally posted by AlwaysLearning
The day they want to tag or fingerprint me is the day I stop visiting the U.S. regardless of the amount of family and friends I have there. Its a matter of principle.

I agree 100%.

I love going down to the States to visit my friends and family, but I will not subject myself to that kind of treatment. They will have to come here if they want to see me. My sister was planning on getting married down there in the fall, but has decided not too, because of all the hassles involved.

They already had her fingerprints and stuff from the previous trips.
She went to NZ in October 2003 and returned to belgium the 2nd week of December 2004 and went trough the ropes on both occasions.

And for the ones of you that don't know yet, me and my 2 sisters have US and Belgian nationality.

Both were just passing trough flights, where the first one she only had 4 hours to check trough and was just in time for her plane.

I understand deep profiles on people that enter the US to stay there for a visit, but people passing trough, staying in the US for 4 to 10 hours for a connecting flight to get to a nation half way across the globe, djeez.

And worse is making them miss their flights, she had 7 hours and they still managed to make her miss her flight!!

The main problem for her to come home is that the 2 flights together, with the time differences, wait times and length of flight(NZ is exactly half way across the globe from belgium), take almost a week to go back and forth.

The projects she works on require her to work 7 days a week, last year averaging 16 hours a day. So you can understand that those 3 weeks holiday she has will need to be burned during the year, noone is able to work 16 hours a day 7 days a week for a year straight.

I'm sure she'll find a way to get home for xmas this year again though.
She already talked to collegue's of hers in Canada to do a cooperated project there which would give her a total flight time to get to belgium of just 1 day instead of a week(direct flights) and she'll also get an extra week of holiday inside the project.

I'd like to thank the Canadians for that!!

The list goes on and on. All because they keep a 30 year old woman for over 7 hours at a US airport, while she's just waiting for a connecting flight to New Zealand, because she has big boobs.

Uhm, what part of the reasons for her being investigated had anything to do with teh new security measures? She set off a metal detector. You think she should've been let thru?

[edit on 29-1-2005 by Nygdan]

Originally posted by Nygdan

The list goes on and on. All because they keep a 30 year old woman for over 7 hours at a US airport, while she's just waiting for a connecting flight to New Zealand, because she has big boobs.

Uhm, what part of the reasons for her being investigated had anything to do with teh new security measures? She set off a metal detector. You think she should've been let thru?

The lengthy interogation and full cavity search is part of the new measures and the reason for setting of the metal detector was found in the first 5 minutes with the strip search(removing her bra).

Finding out what sets of the metal detector is normal indeed. Making people miss a connecting flight to another country by interogating them for that long isn't normal and just plain rediculous.

I set off the detectors in Newark, NJ because of the amount of change I had in my pockets. That place is the antechamber to Hell, I can tell you that.

I didn't have any problems getting through immigration in the US last year but KayEm got a two hour interrogation in Birmingham, UK because she didn't have enough money to 'support herself' for her visit (in their opinion).

They'd probably allow Osama in though because he'd have a credit card :shk:

Imbeciles !!!

Originally posted by thematrix
The lengthy interogation and full cavity search is part of the new measures and the reason for setting of the metal detector was found in the first 5 minutes with the strip search(removing her bra).

Ah, now on that I agree. If a strip search reveals something that could've set of the metal detector, then return them to the detector and see if it goes off. Should be common sense. Making a person go thru a cavity search is extreme, it should only apply to extreme situations.

Does anyone know if the person being searched is allowed to refuse the search and have a lawyer brouht in? Seems like they might be able to?

"All in favor of the War on Terror"
... do us all a favor and kill yourselfs.