Airport Security-Europe vs. the United States

The pilot and I are going on a much needed vacation to see family in Thessaloniki, Greece. We take his airline over to Germany and then pay for a flight on one of our favorite airlines, Aegean Airlines, from Stuttgart to Thessaloniki. In the United States, we breezed through security. I could see no difference in procedures post-underpants bomber. In Germany, where security has always been tight, (German police have a heavy presence in the airport and carry guns on them as they patrol), they picked up something that the United States did not. I did not realize that I had a decorative metal piece on my pants. Of course, the metal detectors in Germany picked it up and I was subject to a pat down. (I've never gone through Germany without being patted down). That's when I saw that there was a metal piece on the pants. These were the very same pants that I wore out of the United States and through TSA security. I'm really starting to believe that you could probably drive a semi-truck full of explosives through the security screeners in the United States and they would never pick it up.

Bottom line is this...if the sensitivity for the metal detectors is not set high enough, it won't pick up metal very well. What I had on my pants was pretty substantial. I've been through courthouse metal detectors that picked up a foil gum wrapper that I had in my pocket. I think it's disgraceful that a courthouse, which has a less likelihood of trouble, has a more sensitive scanner than the busiest airport in the world. I think if I can figure this out, then it's not a stretch to think that terrorists bent on destruction will, too.

All the time and money that the United States has spent on the illusion of security is laughable. However, I'm not laughing and neither will anyone else when the next near miss, or God forbid, a tragedy occurs. The political posturing needs to stop and real security needs to take precedence.