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April 9, 2005

Homeland Efficiency

I
would appreciate it if somebody could explain to me why, in entering the United States via Raleigh-Durham International Airport ("RDU"), travelers are required by the efficiency-minded folks at Homeland Security to pass through a metal detector after clearing Immigration and Customs, on their way to the parking lot.

Yup, that's what RDU makes you do. You fly in from London Gatwick, clear immigration, pick up your luggage, clear Customs, surrender your luggage again onto a conveyor belt that takes it back into the bowels of the terminal, and then stand in a long line to pass through a metal detector. Once you're through the metal detector (and frisked), you go to the baggage claim area, where you again pick up the luggage you just finished giving back. Then you leave and go home.

If there is a rationale for requiring people to have their hand luggage searched and to pass through a metal detector so that they can go home, I'd love to hear it.

Posted by Eric at April 9, 2005 7:43 PM

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Comments

Is it possible that people with connecting flights have direct access to their gates from the area beyond the metal detectors but before baggage claim? Just a guess.

Posted by: Evelyn Blaine at April 9, 2005 8:36 PM

Yes, people with connecting flights do have this access.

But that doesn't explain why they make people who do not have connecting flights go through the detectors.

Posted by: Eric at April 9, 2005 9:57 PM

Maybe they've determined that a person coming from a non-US (assumed low-security) airport, terminating their flight at RDU, could pass something to a person originating at RDU.

Posted by: Wapiti at April 9, 2005 10:34 PM

Eric, you shouldn't have said anything. Now you'll be on the SS's SSSS list. Prepare to be eternally frisked.

Posted by: WillR at April 9, 2005 11:33 PM

Maybe, Wapiti.

But that doesn't explain why they allow people terminating their travel at RDU to have continued access to people originating at RDU. They could simply shunt the people terminating at RDU off in a different direction out of the secure area.

Instead, they double their own workload, slow down the anxious travelers who actually have a connection to make, and submit those who are terminating their travel to a completely needless search.

Posted by: Eric at April 10, 2005 5:46 AM

You've answered your own question: they do it to double their own workload and thus justify the need for more people.

Posted by: Classic Liberal at April 10, 2005 9:06 AM

How silly to think that there was a reason for it -- even a cynical one like doubling their workload to justify the need for more people. At best, there was a motive for it, namely that people with the power to make rules had nothing useful to do and felt like asserting their power.

Posted by: Vizzie at April 10, 2005 8:37 PM

Haha. As a oddly-frequent visitor to Chapel Hill (look, you go to UNC for one year, and fall in love with the place), I've got used to the "RDU Dance" now. Everybody looks strange at me as I begin taking my shoes off as I clear immigration, but they soon understand...;)

Posted by: Ian at April 12, 2005 4:53 AM