Enough with the "Raised" threat level, already.

This weekend Trevor and I took a trip to see my brother in CO. To do this in a reasonable time frame (e.g. not taking more than 2 days off work), we flew. The troubles and adventures we have flying is enough to fill a book, not just this one blog, but let me vent for just one minute about the loud speaker announcements in airports.

"The threat level, as determined by the Department of Homeland Security, has been raised to orange....."

Oh??? The threat level hasn't been raised to orange, it's been orange for over a year. I think they could spend the few dollars to record a new message that rids of of the 'raised'. Or, get rid of the darned thing. What are they trying to accomplish by telling us every 5 minutes that our world is no longer safe, and that we are almost, but not quite, at a state of emergency?? We've had to take our shoes off, travel without water (unless we bring an empty bottle and fill it on the other side, or buy their ridiculously expensive drinks on the 'inside'), travel with small portioned sizes of our liquids and toiletries unless we want to check our baggage, and subject ourselves to random searches (that in my opinion are quite inadequate to actually find anything) for over one year. I have read numerous articles where random testing found that TSA did NOT catch bomb parts, even with the 'increased' security. I'm inclined to agree with the articles. All they have done is increase passenger stress, the time to prepare at the airport, the price of airline tickets, and the hassles of flying. They are driving people away from flying, and they wonder why airlines are going bankrupt?

I am not saying that we shouldn't be a vigilant people, especially in 'today's day and age', but I remember when flying was fun. I remember when you got dressed up to go on a plane. I remember the sense of adventure. All I see now when I look around the waiting area of the airport is the sense of impatience and barely contained disgust. People no longer fly because it's part of the adventure of vacation, but because their time has become so pressed they have no other alternative, and they don't like it.

I realize that security is important - I'm in the safety and health field, for goodness sake - but since when did security include distrust and veiled malice for all of our fellow man?

This threat level isn't "raised", this is maintained, and it's time they either did something to return flying to it's normal state of operations, or made permanent their changes and did away with the message. I don't see them ever going back to 'yellow' or 'green' so perhaps it's time they recalibrated their scale. What happens the next time some random attack happens, and we need to find a way to keep it from happening again? Will we endure 2 years of 'the threat level has been raised to red. Please collect all your baggage at the airport from the seperate plane it flew on, and you may not have ANY carry-on items without a doctor's note'? What happens when they raise the level to red, remove more of our constitutional freedoms, and something else happens? Will they invent Purple? Will they finally kill the airline industry? Will the airline industry use that as an excuse to raise prices, drive out the small fish, and create a monopoly similar to the 'oil crisis, war' and the current gas price?

Why not spend the millions and millions of dollars per year on permanent, updated, security measures. Why are we still relying on x-ray machines that are 30+ years old (in some airports), and human error for our safety? How much training do our luggage searchers and person inspectors have to take, anyway? Are they trained on the making of bombs and terrorism and materials that would be used? Are they taken through practice drills, or do they spend the hours that a detective or law enforcement individual would have to be able to watch an individual and match up key behaviors with the materials? No. We'd have to pay them far more if they had that level of skill.

You what to know my personal opinion? If flying stays the same 5 years from now as it is today (no other attacks, no extra security, and no going back to the way it was), we'll have one or two airlines, insane airfares, and people will go back to the old-fashioned road trip for vacation. I personally think that even though this is hurting the airlines, someone is benefiting too much from the way things have been changed to to ever go back. They feel these changes are 'for the good of the nation', 'we have to protect our citizens from all threats', when really, they are just padding their pockets or advancing their own agendas. Why is it that noone looks at airports as a business, trim the fat, innovate, fix the problems or close down.

This stupid 'raised to orange' gets my water hot every time I hear it, but I'll get off my soap-box now. thank you