Flying has lost its glamour with post 9/11 security rules

By Bettina Grachtrup

Many airplane passengers have almost gotten used to the long lines and thorough searches.
Gone is the glamour of world travel, or even of jetting around at home.
Tighter airport security in the past decade has forced creams and liquids in hand luggage to be carried in small, transparent plastic bags.
Little bottles can hold no more than 100 milliliters.
The rule went into effect almost five years ago, in reaction to attempted attacks on planes using liquid explosives.
Under the new rules, passengers must toss water bottles and some mothers with infants have been forced to sip from milk bottles containing formula or mother’s milk.
Years ago, someone who was concerned with his privacy would have grown uneasy, and may have protested over such invasive searches.
Yet in the face of terrorist threats from Islamic fundamentalists, resistance has been quashed.
One by one, governments have put in place anti-terrorist mechanisms. That includes banks, airlines and other private companies now providing intelligence on suspicious activities.
Many countries have in recent years started issuing biometric passports, with a chip that holds the digital photo, fingerprints and other details on the holder. Other ID documents are now also being made this way.
Police may place undercover sky marshals on planes, and body scanners may took a close look underneath your clothes for explosives.
A simple metal underwire in a brassiere or a wet adult diaper can trigger a thorough body search for explosives.
Countries like the United States, Canada and Australia already have in place systems to screen passengers’ personal data and check them against ‘no-fly’ lists of suspected terrorists.
In Germany, the religious privilege that Islamic fundamentalists could once invoke as a cover has been scrapped.
Until the changes, public prosecutors had little control over the supporters of foreign fundamentalists.
Now federal authorities can carry out comprehensive investigations in the face of suspicions of terrorism, and also search personal computers.
Civil rights and data protection activists are concerned about growing security and its effects on the rights of regular citizens.
However, in the face of the terrorist threat that still persists in many countries, the new measures are hard to counter, security experts say.
- DPA