Can we talk SAFETY for a minute?

…just one minute … please? To make one important clarification beforehand, I should like to make it very, very clear that this is not at all an anti-American, anti-government rant, but rather a “what the *&%#^ are we doing” rant. Sadly enough, for some time now, it seems that constant talk of “threats”, “terrorism” and “necessary protection” has fully become part of mainstream media brainwash mantra, thereby instilling a ‘culture of fear’ and readily convincing a large portion of the US population that constant vigilance is a necessary evil – even if it means giving up certain personal privacies.

Let’s start with the infamous Transportation Security Administration. I’ll save the new radio-active dust scanners for another time - luggage revisions when traveling? Don’t get me started. I clearly remember the first time that I was lucky enough to find the little “Notice of Baggage Inspection – Smart Security Saves Time” slip in my bag… “To protect (again, always protecting) you and your fellow passengers … some bags are opened and physically inspected”. Oops. Guess they forgot to mention that some bags are also opened and all contents dumped on the filthy ground then shoved back in again. Yup. That’s how my Vegas lucky streak began – with a suitcase full of dirty clothes and a once-nice hairdryer that looked as though it had been regurgitated by the garbage disposal.

I could go on and on with anecdotes of the way in which my baggage has been wonderfully treated by TSA, but perhaps I’ll restrain. Come back to Barcelona after spending Christmas in the States. Open my very full suitcase (which, of course, had been appropriately locked with a TSA approved lock) and, low and behold what do I find, but a small treasure chest of MENS clothes that I found their way into my bag! To some this may seem of little importance, however I was – and remain to this day – infuriated. Yes, in this case it was nothing more than stray clothes that found their way in (poor guy who arrived at his destination without much more than his birthday suit!), but if clothes can make it in, so can about anything else … including prohibited items, like, say, drugs?? When I check my baggage, I sign that everything in the bag is mine – packed by me, in my full, supervised possession since then and that I take full responsibility. So let’s just imagine, for example, that one were to pass though a customs checkpoint, reconfirm that you are the rightful owner of everything in the bag (after all, it was locked) … only to have customs open the bag in front of you, pull out some prohibited item you never knew existed and haul you off to jail. Still sound silly to complain about mystery gifts? I wrote to TSA to complain … got a standard cut and paste reply about what to do if my luggage was lost.

OK, let’s forget TSA for a minute. Last week I about screamed when I saw a big ad on a local city bus requesting that people report litter violators. Perhaps I would not have been so appalled if the message were set to a different photo – a very-close-up of a man’s eyes and the phone held to his face? A picture says a thousand words and this one spoke of nothing other than the promotion of “neighborly vigilance” … reminiscent of both the Orwellian 1984 and the historic “neighborly vigilance” that ruined so many innocent lives in communities dominated by dictatorships.

En fin, all this talk of ‘protecting’, ‘terrorism’, and ‘vigilance’ is making me sick … and scared. Just where are we headed? Towards a society dominated, manipulated and controlled by a culture of fear that breeds on insecurities and the blatant lack of trust? You know, it’s funny, for all its many ‘security’ measures, the US is currently the place where I feel least safe walking down the street at night ….