Terror Scares: Craig Murray Book Confiscated by Airport Security
Bearing in mind Quarsan's earlier post about the 2006 Stupid Security awards, this story alluded to in the comments of that post beggars belief:
Being a little tired from an overdose of house-moving and tidying, I forgot to remove a cream from my hand luggage, the sight of which made the security staff put me in the extra-thorough check line. Everything was carefully inspected, including my camera, laptop - and my books.
The first one, a German novel, seemed alright. But the second, Murder in Samarkand, Craig Murray’s account of his time as the UK ambassador to Uzbekistan aroused some suspicion:
“Is that about terrorism?”, asked the lady that examined my onboard luggage. “Humm, well, it contains mentions of that, but it’s about your former ambassador to Uzbekistan and more about diplomacy”, I replied politely. “Does it have al-Qaida in it?” I looked a bit confused. “What?” - “Well, I have to check this with my manager, the rest of your stuff is fine, though.”
Bollocks. There go my
Bollocks. There go my holiday reading plans. I'd better get something else, maybe they'll let me take Enid Blyton's "The Bunnies have a Picnic"...
You might as well take "The
You might as well take "The Bunnies have a picnic" - you probably wont be able to take "Winnie the Poo".
Blyton??? Good God no! Don't
Blyton??? Good God no! Don't you realize she was sexist, classist, racist... and, worst of all, MIDDLE CLASS?
So I became caught up in the
So I became caught up in the terrorism scare about a week ago at Heathrow airport. Having walked casually around the security screens at Singapore airport undetected, unsearched, I arrived in London. Thank goodness I had not been carrying any dangerous hand cream or toiletries on the plane, as the security at Singapore airport would have been very embarassed.
The next stage of my journey was the transfer lounge from Heathrow to Manchester airport. "Shall we make him take his shoes off?" One of the security men asked another. "I don't know, looks like everyone else is doing so" replied the other. So eventually the most unorganised security staff I had ever encountered made me take shoes, belt etc off and pushed me through the metal detector machine with eager, anticipating eyes. I then had to explain that although my travel sickness bag had a metal lining, it was infact not a gun. After hinting them to put my bag through the X-ray machine, I was off on my way, without my belt because it was 'a dangerous item'.
I then got speaking to some Muslim men and women who had come on the same flight as me from Singapore and were also off to Manchester. They said they had all been 'picked at random' to do additional security checks, and had even had their toothpaste and toothbrush examined to make sure no explosives were hidden.
Ofcourse we joked about the 'no knitting needles' sign next to the plane, as we could hardly imagine the world's hardened terrorists hijacking a plan with knitting needles... We were then approached by security personnel informing us that we would be fined £5000 if we joked about terrorism again in an airport.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COMMON SENSE!!! The security at Singapore airport was appauling, and the security at Heathrow didn't know what to do with me, my family and friends and our 'dangerous belts'. Surely a quick metal detector test and X-ray bag search machine would suffice?
Has anybody else had similar experiences? What will the other implications of airport travel security will there be in the future? Surely it cannot get any more ridiculous?