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.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Are we secure yet?
Clean teeth but at what cost?
Hopefully many of you have seen or heard of the latest product scare - pirated "Colgate" tooth paste coming here from China. Apparently this fake Colgate can be poisonous. One of the tell tale signs is the misspellings on the tube itself.
Having conducted many pirated merchandise cases both here and abroad, I can attest to the fact that one of the signs to look for is some sort of flaw. Sometime it is a color that does not look quite right, sometime it is a misspelling. We handled a case for a corporate client a few weeks ago and we could tell the clothing product was fake due to the fact that some of the letters in the popular make was "slanting" to one side.
When the product is a clothing article or a CD or DVD at least there is little chance that a person's health can be compromised. However as with the case of the fake tooth paste, people can be hurt and even die. It pays to be extra careful when there is a possibility that the product we are purchasing might not be the genuine article. Take a little time to make sure that everything appears genuine.
I recently returned from a trip to China with 30 other business people. We found it amazing how much fake and pirated merchandise was readily available on every street. Rolexes seemed to be every where fom as little as $5.00. Surprisingly, the quality was very good. Most could not tell the difference at first glance.
To give an idea of how some Chinese feel about the proliferation of pirated merchandise in their country we visited Fudong University where one of the top lecturers in China's economy addressed us. She informed us that she believed that the pirating of a company's product was good in the early days of introducing the line to the market place.
As she explained it, many Chinese would like to own a real Rolex watch. However, since they can not afford to spend thousands of dollars on a watch, they will buy one on the street for a few dollars. According to the professor, they will wear the fake in the interim as they aspire to owning the real thing one day. When that day arrives, they will pay the money for the genuine article. The jury is still out on this theory however.
