I had to fly to D.C. today for the Internet2 member meeting. As usual when I fly these days, I was packed for and expecting intense scrutiny at the airport. I worry about this more than most of my friends, I think, because of my skin color and, in this case, because I was flying into Reagan. My cousin, who just flew home to India (and returned), just shared with me his story of passing through security at Logan. He was taken to a private room, asked to turn the top of pants inside out, and had his luggage hand searched. As far as he could tell, he was the only one. He also noted, when boarding the flight, that he was the only Indian (the first leg of the flight stopped in Europe somewhere), and felt that people were staring at him.

So, having just heard that, you can understand why I was concerned. Instead, of course, I breezed through security today. They made everyone run their shoes through the X-Ray machine, but beyond that nothing special. In fact, they didn’t even check ID at the gate. I get so confused by the inconsistency of checks, and this further bothers me, because it seems to me to be uneven security. It is entirely likely when I think about it that I was flagged “Green” by the CAPPS or CAPPS II systems because my ticket was paid by a credit card and booked via my employer’s travel service, I’m a U.S. citizen, have a frequent flyer history, who knows.

I wish this were more transparent without giving up security. As much as I believe in transparency in these types of processes, I’m not sure I know enough to say if it’s really possible in this space without giving up the entire system. I also wish my cousin didn’t have to go through what he went through. Or at least that the white folks on the plane had to go through it to (selected by a truly random sampling process, for example).