searched at an airport for the first time ever

[alarimer]

As I was going through security in Biloxi/Gulfport airport, my stuff was flagged for an hand search. That has neve happened before. I suppose it was because I had a one-way ticket. But the more paranoid part of me thinks it might have been because of two anti-Bush books I bought with my credit card a week or so ago. Anyway it was odd. Another odd thing was that in this very tiny airpot (3 gates or so) they had one of those machines that blows air through the clothes to test for explosives. I knew they were testing them in various places but Biloxi???? Must be afraid of all those losing gamblers. No telling what someone who lost a bundle might do. Wierd.

[msturgis524]

1. I was hand searched 3 times in one airport

Coming back from Mazatlan Mexico last year, I was hand searched checking in, then at security, then pulled out of line boarding to be searched again. Maybe I just looked suspicious I don't know.

[Squeech]

2. I was searched in 2002

Frisked, made me take my shoes off, etc.

I wear long hair and a full beard, and being Jewish I suppose I look Semitic. OTOH where I was going was Brazil, which as far as I know (and the CIA will back me up on this) has no active Al Qaeda cells.

[Cassandra]

3. Several years before 9/11...

I was searched for drugs (wanded) going from Orlando back to NYC. As though any single woman without children leaving Orlando must be a drug runner. I was attending a trade show and was rather insulted. If I met their profile, than their profiling was nuts.

[amazona]

4. Oh heck I was on a roll for getting searched

I got searched a whole buncha times in a row but they seem to have finally gotten bored with me. But I've been searched on 3 continents in less than 2 years -- well, 3 -1/2 if you count Panama as Central America instead of North America. I got searched so many times in Memphis coming back from Amsterdam, also questioned, that I started to wonder if they thought I was a money launderer or something. Oh well, I know they're just trying to do their job.

I don't think it's the anti-Bush books you bought. One way tickets are often used by drug dealers, or at least they used to be, so when you have to go one way, you just have to be patient and allow time to be searched. It happened to my partner too. He got very annoyed because they searched him three times at one gate. This wasn't in Mississippi but it was in Arkansas so maybe similar policies.

[Corgigal]

5. I was searched

and I wasn't even flying. I was escorting my teenaged son to his gate. I never had a ticket.

Beat that.

[Carson]

6. I was pulled out of line three times in one day at the same airport

Shoes taken off, wand, the whole deal.

This was back in 2002 and I had gone to the airport to pick up my son who was flying as a unaccompanied minor (he was seven at the time). Delta had somehow "lost track" of my son and he was not on the airplane. Talk about a mother almost losing her mind.

There I was, in the patented Mother-crouch, waiting to greet him at the gate and when the last of the stragglers came off the plane and I didn't see my son, I went immediately to the desk. There I was told they had no record of my son on that flight. I showed them the ticket with the flight number and that's when the blank looks came. It took them only 10 minutes to determine what had happened, but it was the longest 10 minutes of my life.

Long story short, I had to wait at the airport 7 hours. Going back and forth through the checkpoints, I was pulled out of line three times by different security officers. I guess I must've looked like I wanted to blow up some planes.

[cally]

7. My husband has been searched many times

He flies a lot and after 9/11 he kept on flying. I think they thought that only terroists would still fly so much after 9/11. For a while, I was afraid to fly with him. My luggage has also been searched a few times. :shrug:

[alarimer]

8. I should proofread

before I post! My typing skills seem to go downhill with each passing day. At any rate, I figured it probably was because of the one-way ticket. It didn't upset me or cause any delays )how could there be a delay at security at an airport with 3 gates!! I l ive in a city with an airport that has 6 gates and there wasn't one of those explosive testing machines so I thought that was incredibly odd.