Today I flew from Los Angeles International airport to Minnesota. After checking in at the airport, I headed to
the security check point. Joining the
queue, I watched as other passengers thrust their carry-on luggage onto the
conveyor belt and placed their watches and wallets onto trays they could
collect on the other side of the scanner.
There were two queues of people waiting to go through. To my surprise, as I reached the front of my
queue I was taken to one side and frisked, as was the guy opposite me in the
other queue. I was made to hand over my
backpack. To begin with, I wasn’t sure
what the security woman was going to do with it. Surely if there were sharp or dangerous
objects in my bag, they’d be detected as they went through the
scanner. She removed my camera from 
my
bag and carefully removed it from its zip-up case. She then wiped the view finder screen with a
small square-shaped piece of fabric.
Next, she placed the fabric in a steel machine that had ‘BOMB DETECTION’
engraved on it. The process did not end
there. Several more objects from my bag
were removed, wiped with fabric squares, and then inserted into the bomb
detector also. I could have been
agitated, but I knew it wasn’t personal.
Of course ample security measures were in place at airports. Here marks the line where potential
terrorists can be detected. Though not
all passengers were searched the way the young chap and I were – I believe we
were chosen at random – people could not be assumed innocent. History had proven this theory, and now it
was up to security (among other officials) to prevent such an occurrence
happening again. 
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