Increase in airport security: necessary or not?

In order to travel the world by plane in the post-9/11 world, one requires an excessive amount of patience. When traveling to India during the summer of 2009, sophomore Priyanka Krishnamurthi recalls having to arrive at the San Francisco International nearly three hours early just to proceed through the extensive security check, thoroughly exhausting her before her plane even took off.

Those who travelled before 2001 often associate the increased security and extra hassle at airports with the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which devastated the nation and ignited worldwide panic.

Science teacher Lisa Cochrum, an frequent traveler who has gone to places as distant as Antarctica and Africa, saw several changes in airport processes since 9/11.

“I think the big thing I’ve noticed is just increased security both nationally and internationally,” Cochrum said. “My bags are often [searched] now. I always go through some kind of check, whether it’s a metal detector, a full body scan or a hand check.”

As the years have progressed, security has grown increasingly stringent.

“We didn’t even need our passports checked when we went through Greece before the 2004 Olympics,” Cochrum said. “We didn’t have our IDs or passports checked when we went to Africa. They just loaded you on a plane.”

Cochrum said that at times she had to ask around six people just to find out where the plane was headed because of the immense chaos in the airport.

She also recalled how before 9/11, if her previous flight was delayed, the airport staff would rush her through security to ensure she boarded her next flight.

“Now, there is a one-hour window in which you have to have your boarding pass in your hand before they will even let you go through the gate,” Cochrum said.

The staff and students hold mixed views on the post-9/11 security.

“I think [airport security] is rather excessive right now,” junior Johnny Chang said. “There’s been a heightened sense of paranoia because of the terrorist attacks.”

Chang also believes that although some people feel safer with the new policies, much of it is not necessary.

Junior Shreyas Nagaraj, on the other hand, believes that the stricter security does help; however, he disapproves of the way it racially profiles people. He believes that in many cases the checks are racially oriented.

“I remember once I was going to India, and [security] checked our baggage here, and then at Hong Kong, they checked my mom’s baggage again,” Nagaraj said. “And later just as we were about to board the plane, her baggage was checked again just because of her skin color.”

Cochrum holds a different view on the racial profiling.

“I have a passport profile,” Cochrum said. “I’ve been to a lot of Muslim countries, and they see this and check me.”

By passport profile she means that more than race, security profiles people who have been in countries where terrorists are known to come from. Cochrum also strongly feels that today with non-Muslims behind the bombings in Norway and other attacks around the world, racial profiling ceases to exist.

Based on her experiences travelling thousands of miles before and after 9/11, Cochrum said that flying itself has radically changed in the last ten years.

“Things that I used to fly with, I can’t fly with now,” Cochrum said. “I brought home this 4-foot-high fake giraffe one year from Africa, and I can’t bring home drums from Africa anymore. I can’t bring home some of the carvings I’ve gotten from Thailand. A lot of the things I have at my home now, people can’t get anymore.”

She, however, feels that all these security hassles are worth it.

“I really support the increase in security,” Cochrum said, “because if it was my family member or my friend on that flight on 9/11, I would do anything to save those lives. So even if you’re saving just one plane, one time every 20 years, it’s totally worth the hassle.”