Airports are still swabbing Cpap's

Don't put words in my mouth, and make sure you really, really want to go there before you suggest anyone on here is racist. You are the one going down that road, not me. For the Americans on this board, and anyone else that might show interest here, In my opinion the terrorists have won when they are able to get our national security agencies to start checking a dying granny's diaper, or feeling the buttocks of a small little girl looking for explosives or weapons without probable cause and a warrant. We should never be so willing to give up our constitutional right to be secure in our persons, places and effects from unreasonable and unlawful search in order to gain access to public facilities and public transportation. I am surprised how fast and easy people give it up, or just don't care to begin with. You know how much terrorist groups hate the freedoms we take for granted? They (terrorists) win if they are able to see us loose some of them, and they will do whatever they can to accomplish that. Terrorism isn't just about bombing or shooting, it goes farther than that. It's not racist to want to protect our freedoms. I'm just saying, we don't need all the intrusive warrant-less searches, and I believe they are unconstitutional and unlawful because there is no probable cause to warrant a search to begin with in the majority of cases. Get probable cause first, then get a warrant, then do the search. Not the reverse. You don't want a cop searching your car for no other reason than you driving it on the road, looking for some weapon or anything after the fact, right? Same goes here. TSA is no different, and their duty under the US Constitution to establish probable cause is no different. A search is a search is a search. It is the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, that shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. How many times has the TSA performed invasive searches of air travelers and their effects without a warrant, and without any probable cause (meaning they believe a crime has been committed and certain evidence of that crime exists in a certain place or person)? They don't, and that in my opinion is a violation of our rights, simple as that. I don't feel we should have to give up those rights, especially when excersising our right to personal freedom of travel. We may as well have checkpoints at every state line throughout the country, and allow warrantless searches of our automobiles and RV's and camping trailers (and yourself too for that matter) whenever we take our kids on a road trip across the country to see the nations capitol. It's no different in either case. Not at all. The rational for it doesn't trump our constitution. Don't play the race card when racism isn't involved. Where is America's national pride?

Simple bureaucratic inconsistency, compounded by geography.

Islandboy, I am sorry for jumping to conclusions and I was most definitely NOT trying to infer that you yourself are racist (mainly because I don't know you and am going by one comment left in an online message board), but as a woman of colour (in this case yellow, being of Japanese ancestry) and hearing first hand of what my parents and their families had to go through during WW2 (both of my parents are Canadian born and forced to go into Internment Camps, Father being born en route to one and Mother being born in one to a Mother who herself was also born in Canada), I suppose that I am a little bit touchier than I should be and as such am a little bit vigilant about racism, whether deliberate or, in your case, unintended.

Also, having been myself detained at the Peace Arch Border crossing (Blaine, WA) for over 30 minutes last August for reasons that were never explained to me doesn't help much in my disregard the racism that still exists in North America and for all of this crap that the events of the last decade have brought upon us all. I am CANADIAN BORN AND RAISED and my travel documents are CLEAN and in order and as a Canadian I enjoy and respect my special visa-free admission privileges into your country (please don't ask me my thoughts on how I felt about being asked, like a common criminal, why my passport picture didn't match my driving license picture - I didn't realize I had to provide BOTH, as it is my understanding that only the passport was required - sure the driving license picture is ugly as sin, but I didn't think that it was necessary for the border agent to ask me a) WHY the pics don't match and b) did I have plastic surgery done). I was relieved when they finally let me proceed with my 2 week car trip across the prairie after dong the expected search of my car for contraband.

That said, I completely agree with you that the terrorists have won when 6 year olds and little old ladies in wheelchairs are needlessly searched for anything that might be construed as dangerous. While I don't live in your country, what happens in your country eventually affects the running of mine (I visited the CN Tower last month and was subjected to a security search that definitely was not there the last time I visited back in 2002), and my co-workers and I watched in horror as the events of 9/11 unfolded and we stood at the ready (in our small hospital) hoping that we wouldn't see any casualties here in the West like they saw in the East.

Can we chalk this up to one big misunderstanding and blame it on the terrorists?

Absolutely, I'm all for that

Just did a flight through France and back with my PRS1 in its bag. No mention of it in Paris for the outbound flight. For the return flight, in Toulouse airport, the woman looking at the Xray screen asked her colleague to put a bag through the machine again: she said "put the bag just after the CPAP through the Xray again".
So I noted two things:
1) I had no special check of my CPAP
2) They definitely knew what a CPAP was!!

It's OK, He just thinks only brown people should be screened.

WestCoastCdnGrl wrote:Also, having been myself detained at the Peace Arch Border crossing (Blaine, WA) for over 30 minutes last August for reasons that were never explained to me doesn't help much in my disregard the racism that still exists in North America and for all of this crap that the events of the last decade have brought upon us all. I am CANADIAN BORN AND RAISED and my travel documents are CLEAN and in order and as a Canadian I enjoy and respect my special visa-free admission privileges into your country (please don't ask me my thoughts on how I felt about being asked, like a common criminal, why my passport picture didn't match my driving license picture - I didn't realize I had to provide BOTH, as it is my understanding that only the passport was required - sure the driving license picture is ugly as sin, but I didn't think that it was necessary for the border agent to ask me a) WHY the pics don't match and b) did I have plastic surgery done). I was relieved when they finally let me proceed with my 2 week car trip across the prairie after dong the expected search of my car for contraband.

It may have had nothing to do with race.

Back before 2001, my mother took the northern route around the great lakes on an extended road trip, partly because the view was better, but mostly because it was faster. When she crossed back into the US, the agent asked why she'd been in Canada, and my mother said truthfully, "It was the best way to get where I'm going." In response, the agent put her hand on her gun. My mother was about 60 at the time, is five feet tall, and is as likely to shoot at the border patrol as she is to grow wings and fly to Antarctica. She's also white.

Border agents are paid to be suspicious, and faced with an unending stream of people who aren't doing anything wrong, I think they tend to alert to things that aren't that remarkable -- like a DL photo so bad that it doesn't even look like you, or a little old lady taking a shortcut through another country.