Are we secure yet?

Unless you have not flown anywhere in the past six years, you will be aware of the increased security measures introduced for our safety. Every time there is a new scare, new measures are introduced. Ever since the shoe bomber from Britain we have had to take off our shoes and have them x-rayed. I was flying to Singapore and passing through Heathrow last summer when they had the liquid scare that brought in the new rule whereby liquids over 3 ounces can no longer be carried through check-in.

That is why my experience at Dulles Airport three weeks ago really shocked me. I was attending a conference in Texas and flying from Dulles to Chicago. I was accompanied by my wife and 22 month old son. We had our driver's licenses as forms of Government i.d. while he had his passport with his baby photo that was taken when he was nine months old.

When we came to the security check point I began to look for my license while my wife handed our e-tickets to the security person along with her license and our baby son's passport. The security screener took the passprt, opened it and after looking at the baby's photo on the page, looked up at me to see if it matched. Of course it didn't. While I have been told he looks just like me, there is no way anybody should confuse a nine month old baby with a man forty years his senior.

Yet the security screener at one of the nation's busiest airports did just that. He looked down at the picture one more time as if double checking and then back up at me and then - he waved me past! I never did have to show him my license. For a while I thought that it was some kind of joke or prank like Candid Camera or Punk'd. But nobody jumped out to say "caught you" or anything like that.

I would have felt much safer if they had.