Eight Feet Deep

Well, the good news is I’ve been cleared from the “No Fly” list.  I think.

I’m refer­ring to an Octo­ber inci­dent in which I was not allowed to print a board­ing pass prior to a flight to Mem­phis. The air­line folks said it was some­thing like the “No Fly” list in which a pas­sen­ger is screened for extra secu­rity by the Home­land Security’s Trans­porta­tion Secu­rity Admin­is­tra­tion (TSA).

Noth­ing hap­pened except I was incon­ve­nienced by hav­ing to check in at the Con­ti­nen­tal ticket counter. I didn’t go through any extra scrutiny by TSA in the actual screen­ing before the flight. No pat downs, no wands and thank­fully no cav­ity searches. Just take off your shoes. Pull your com­puter out. And, this was new, take out your CPAP machine, which I use for sleep apnea.

On my return flight to Texas, I had no prob­lem print­ing a board­ing pass.

Later, I found a link on the TSA Web site where one can receive infor­ma­tion on how to clear your name if you wind up on a watch list or have some­thing hap­pen which requires added secu­rity. It’s called TRIP, appro­pri­ately named, not because of the obvi­ous ref­er­ence to “trip” — as in tak­ing a trip by fly­ing. I think its name fits because the whole expe­ri­ence is a “trip.” Wow man. Far out. Groovy.

You can file your redress request online and you get a “Con­trol Num­ber.” This allows you to track your request, kind of like track­ing a pack­age on FedEx but much slower. The only time I tracked my case, it noted that my request had been decided and I would be replied to in writ­ing. That seemed like two months ago.

But lo and behold, I received a let­ter yes­ter­day from the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity. It stated:

“In response to your request, we con­ducted a review of any applic­a­ble records in con­sul­ta­tion with other Fed­eral agen­cies, as appro­pri­ate. Where it was deter­mined that a cor­rec­tion to records was war­ranted, these records were mod­i­fied to address any delay or denial of board­ing that you may have expe­ri­enced as a result of the watch list screen­ing process.”

So that sounds as if the DHS did some­thing con­cern­ing my expe­ri­ence, or maybe not. But the depart­ment did acknowl­edge what I “may have expe­ri­enced” was a result of the “watch list” process. Thus, one would think by that lan­guage that they had me on a “watch list.”  Why, I would be watched, I can”t imag­ine. I’m the dullest per­son this side of the Sabine River these days. I used to raise hell when I was younger, but I was never what one could call a rad­i­cal. Well, rel­a­tively speaking.

All”s well that ends well, though. Hope­fully. The National Secu­rity Agency or TSA itself will prob­a­bly read this and put me back on a watch list, for what­ever rea­son. Or even worse, I’ll be fly­ing some­where some day and all of a sud­den an air mar­shal will pluck me out of my seat, throw me down on the cabin floor and hand­cuff me. If that hap­pens, I might know the rea­son for it in such an instance, or at least part of the reason.

CBS News broke a story a cou­ple of nights ago about what appears to be ram­pant dis­crim­i­na­tion in the TSA’s air mar­shal pro­gram. There is a whole list of minori­ties and other groups the fly­ing cops like to tar­get for some type of has­sle or another. On that list are dis­abled veterans.

Now I’m not a dis­abled vet­eran. Well, I’m some­what dis­abled due to my med­ical prob­lems, from chronic pain at least. And I am a vet­eran. But I am not what is called a dis­abled vet­eran in the gov­ern­ment sense, also known as “service-connected.” That means the dis­abil­ity was a result of or hap­pened dur­ing mil­i­tary service.

I have been look­ing on the Web and have been unable to find why the air mar­shals are all up in the air, pun intended, when it comes to dis­abled vet­er­ans. The only pos­si­ble beef I could think of is that “qual­i­fied dis­abled vet­er­ans” receive a 10 per­cent advan­tage over peo­ple with no mil­i­tary ser­vice or service-connected dis­abil­ity when it comes to hir­ing for a fed­eral job such as air mar­shal. I don’t know if that is it or not.

How­ever, the CBS report indi­cated many of the air mar­shals who were said to be in a snit were for­mer Secret Ser­vice agents. That too is a fed­eral job. So I don’t know.

It will be inter­est­ing to see if DHS finds any­thing in their inves­ti­ga­tion and, if so, will do any­thing. In the mean­time, I am going to try and stay off the watch list, or bet­ter yet, stay off airliners.