Stand Back! It’s a Breast Pump!

Posted on 03. Feb, 2009 by Kerry Banks in Living

My blood began to do a slow boil when I read earlier this month about how Vancouver-Mount Pleasant MLA Jenny Kwan was denied boarding at Vancouver’s airport enroute to Kamloops for a caucus meeting because her breast pump was deemed a security threat. Airport officials found it suspicious she had the pump but not her four-month-old baby, Renan. They told her to check the device into baggage, but the MLA said she could not risk storing her milk without it being chilled and feared she would miss her flight if she ran back to check the unit as luggage. “I could not understand how a breast pump with ice packs is potentially a weapon of mass destruction,” said Kwan. “I said to the woman, ‘Come on, what do you think I’m going to do with this?’ And she said rules are rules.” Of course, the only reason a nursing mother would need a breast pump is if she wasn’t travelling with her child, a fact evidently lost on the brain-dead Vancouver airport security forces.

This incident is just the latest in a series of incredibly dumb rulings by airport security personnel in B.C. A few months ago, Marnina Norys, a 39-year-old Torontonian, was pounced on by Kelowna Airport security for wearing a 1.75-inch sterling silver Colt .45 pendant on a chain around her neck. “That‘s a replica,” a security agent told the harried traveller as if she would understand that replica weapons, even miniaturized pieces of jewelry, are not allowed. Norys was stunned when guards labelled the trinket a firearm. The pendant posed no threat, she insisted, and could hardly be used to hijack an airplane. “It‘s what it represents,” said the agent. “That‘s censorship, not security,” an incredulous Norys replied before being ordered to put the necklace in her checked baggage.

When reporters, who were pursuing the story, quizzed a security agent with the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority about the case, he replied, “How do you know it wasn‘t a real gun? Who knows if there is a gun that small that can shoot bullets? You don‘t know that. They followed the rules.” Anyone who tries to get through airport security with a piece of jewelry that looks like a miniature knife, spear or any other weapon would be told the same thing, he said. Of course, if such a miniaturized gun capable of doing harm actually existed, then no airport in the world would be safe. But even the most technologically retarded among us know that isn’t the case. “You‘d think they‘d have better things to do than harass a middle-aged woman over a quirky piece of jewellery,” said Norys, noting that the pen she took through security could have done more damage than her necklace.

I’ve had my own bewildering encounters with overly zealous Canadian airport security personnel. Enroute from Toronto to Vancouver I was forced time to check a plastic baseball bat that I had bought for my daughter because it was considered a potential weapon. A couple of years ago at Penticton’s airport, which like Kamloops, appears to consider itself the world’s leading bastion against terrorist threats, I was forced to undergo the most rigorous security screening of my life before boarding a 7:00 a.m. to Vancouver. Not only was I given a complete body pat-down, the security guard forced me to bend over while she examined the soles of my shoes and then ran her hands through my hair. God knows what lethal piece of weaponry I have might concealed in my thinning locks.

That morning all male passengers were also ordered to undo their belts and stand with their hands raised. I can distinctly recall seeing the trembling senior citizen in front of me struggling to stop his trousers from falling down to his ankles while complying with the order. “Hands away from your belt?” the security guard barked at him.

A friend of mine was told to surrender a ball of knitting yard at Penticton’s airport because it “could be used to strangle someone.” This type of stupidity is not restricted to Canadian airports. In 2006, a six-year-old girl triggered a security scare at a Cape Town airport with a pink Bugs Bunny water pistol packed full of sweets. Kelly Vinnicombe was bought the toy in the departure lounge by her mother Sarah, who packed it in her bag. But, as they went through the X-ray security machine, guards hauled them to one side. Ms. Vinnicombe was told the toy was technically a “weapon” and would have to be registered at the firearms desk. Her two daughters were reduced to tears as they spent an hour battling to be allowed to keep the toy she had just bought–just metres away in an airport shop—before it was tagged and packed in a separate part of the plane. The family was finally reunited with its deadly cargo at Heathrow Airport after an 11-hour flight. A Cape Town airport spokeswoman insisted: ‘It’s is better to be safe than sorry.”

I fear that this type of blind adherence to regulations without an iota of common sense or civility, is becoming epidemic in our society. How else to explain why I was recently asked to produce a piece of photo I.D. to buy a beer at the Vancouver airport while waiting to pick up my daughter from a late-arriving flight. The sheepish-looking bartender explained it was a company rule, despite the fact that I haven’t been within spitting distance of the minimum legal drinking age in more than three decades. Since I was carrying no I.D., I had to order a ginger ale. Making matters worse, the barkeep returned a few minutes later to tell me that I could have a beer.

Last year, a 78-year-old Vancouver woman was not allowed to buying a pack of cigarettes because she could not produce documentary evidence of her age. And have you noticed how all the cigarette packs in corner stores, gas stations and pharmacies are now hidden by government decree behind some sort of physical barrier? The questionable logic behind the regulation is that it will dissuade young people from purchasing tobacco. And yet the sliding doors concealing the cigarettes at my local Shoppers Drug Mart are plastered with a large, blood-red skull and crossbones logo, which strikes me as about as sexy as a come-on as you can invent for thrill-seeking teenagers.

The absurdity of such zombie-like thinking is not simply frustrating when applied to matters of airport security, especially when you consider the gaping holes in the system that still exist, while uniformed guards continue to confiscate our hair gel, toothpaste and suntan lotion, and force us to put our cigarette lighters in baggies, while ignoring serious breaches of security. For an enlightening look at this subject I suggest you read the November 2008 article in The Atlantic by Jeff Goldberg, which is available online at www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/airport-security.

Meanwhile, the ever-vigilant security forces at Kelowna Airport are now testing a new high-tech X-ray technology known as “the virtual strip search,” which reveals the naked bodies of passengers on scanners in order to detect the presence of concealed metal objects or explosives. Critics of the technology claim that children could be screened by pedophiles, while pregnant women could be exposed to radiation. Although the images aren’t saved, critics contend there is nothing to stop an operator from taking a snapshot of the screen on their cell phone and for that image to later make an online appearance on Facebook or MySpace. These full-body scanners, which are now employed in such places as Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, are being tested in Canada to assess public reaction. If you feel strongly about the procedure maybe you should let the Canadian Transportation Agency know what you think. And if anyone has stories to share about their experiences with rude or doltish airport security guards, feel free to pass them on.