I enjoyed your note attached. I have two comments to contribute:

                (1) This Mafia thing is also applicable to Japan and China. It seems Mafia thing works everywhere in the world.  In Japan they are called "Yakuza", and they do exactly what you wrote.

                (2) I wonder if we can make comparison between Airline carriers and passenger boats. In the passenger boats, captain also has authority over passengers, the customers, for the safety purpose. But I do not hear boat captains and boat attendants being rude or authoritative. Maybe with their long history, they just behave at the normal situation, and only in the unsafe situation they work with given authority. But airline carriers have still shorter history in their business, they do not know how to use their authority. Maybe they feel they are elite. Or they just take words from government and stick to government instruction as they are more regulated than passenger boat business.

                I agree with your notion to protect rights.  But in addition to it, I would recommend further that airline carriers should work harder to lessen regulation, not in terms of safety, but by competition among themselves.  Cheers!

                T.U., Senior Corporate Vice President, Connecticut

PHOENIX, Aug 26 - We received the following comment from a CPA in Arizona, who is also a world traveler:

Hi Bob

Your essay makes good points. The government and the airline industry have done a good job of intimidating the flying public, without really providing security. Unwilling to make the investment needed for real security, they have been able to convince us that relinquishing our rights as citizens is necessary to avoid the next terrorist attack. What will happen when the next one comes? We need to wake up or we will see our rights further diminished.

J.T., Arizona

 Bob, I am so glad you wrote it.... I was just thinking about the same - how  much is enough? This type of abuse goes on and on - and we have less and less rights as passengers.

You mentioned cream being taken off.  Well, two days ago, they took away my eyebrow tweezers.  I am still trying to figure out how I can do any harm with those - overpluck, perhaps?

Before the same flight - we were flying (my husband and I) from Mexico - they took away a bottle of water bought at the gate, well after the luggage control, still icy-cold with a receipt in hand.  My husband could not take his medication until an hour later, when the stewardess finally brought a glass of water (we waited for an hour before the take-off which seems to be a norm these days). 

I can list numerous occasions when I was singled out to be frisked.  Whoever tells me it's statistical should go back to school . When we flew to London on vacation last year and I was singled out again my husband stood aside and counted: he counted 11 women singled out while waiting for me and not a single guy....no kidding.

I did send letters of complaints to Delta for being rude to - lucky me, waited for landing to do it after I made the same mistake you did: told the steward I would report him. Got an immediate promise to be handcuffed 'for screaming at the flight attendant'. So I shut up and sent a letter when I got back and got a standard  letter back with lots of customer-care talk, and not a word of apology.

 Recently a friend of mine missed her flight because of Delta overbooking  their flight to NYC. So that she had to change terminals with bags twice to get to Boston connection - apparently no agent could give her a correct information of where to go. So she ended up sitting on the floor crying. Guess what?  She got arrested and spent a night in jail for that. She is
 preparing to sue the airline now.

 So, it goes on and on.....good luck with your letter. I liked your idea of  writing to a senator - this is what I will do next time. There should be a way to curb the airlines dictatorship masked as protecting us.

I.K., Connecticut

NEW YORK - Hope Your Story Makes the Front Page of the New York Times

NEW YORK, Aug 26 - We received the following cryptic comment from senior business executive with a major IT company in New York area:

It is all too common.  I hope your story makes the front page of the New York Times.  It should...

B.D., New York

SCOTTSDALE, Aug 26 - We received the following comment from a corporate sales representative from Scottsdale:

Bob, I’m sorry to hear about your experience and to answer your question- yes it’s a story worthy for publishing. I’m sure it will provide the genesis for useful debate and sharing of similar stories by frequent travelers.

I feel that what’s happening to our freedom rights stems from the governments failure to do its job in the first place. Because the Federal intelligence and security agencies dropped the ball, while asleep at the wheel, distracted and disabled from internal squabbles for power- they allowed terrorists to pull off 911. And now we all suffer through bureaucratic safety measures which look good, but really don’t achieve anything but large scale hassle and the infringements you’ve highlighted. The cost/benefit trade-off between liberty and security is worth applying in my opinion, but the way things are going its very difficult (if not impossible) to attribute any benefits to the costs. The financial costs are staggering too.

My sense is that your experience or incident of terror in the sky had more to do with the revenge or preemptive strike by the flight attendant. Anyone that’s traveled will be able to identify with your story, and there are probably many similar stories (and worse) if someone wanted to research it.  Good luck.

The moral of the story: Don’t travel by air unless you absolutely must, or buy your own plane.

  G.R., Arizona

SAN DIEGO, Aug 28 - Alas, even flying your own airplane is no shelter from the government's long intrusive arm.  "The security/surveillance/scrutiny is catching up now to private aviation, too," writes D.G.S., former head of an aviation company in California.  Here's an excerpt from a comment he has sent about "Terror in the Sky" to his own list of friends:

This (Bob's) account should alarm most of us, but it will not.  People have for too long been giving up their freedoms for the illusion of safety/security, while our country is reformed into a police state or ARMED MADHOUSE.

I use to travel by commercial airline 2+ times weekly in the 90's.  I did not ever have problems and found it was a flexible and convenient way to travel for my job.  Since 9/11/2001, I've only taken one airline trip to Hawaii and do everything I can to avoid airline travel now but would love to take some international trips so I'll have to fly. 

I don't like the incremental criminalization of Americans (and myself).  I don't like the feeling of being molested and interrogated by taking off my shoes and belt.  And that was not even secondary or the 3rd check that many people get.  They are not going to take my liquids and gels, period.  It is a matter of principle, I have never been a great conformist of
feeling like cattle being herded (thus why I never-ever attend sporting events). 

It would not make me feel safer to be subjected to what the masses seem to accept, to go through machines, sniffers and be padded or wanded down.  The county sheriff deputies were standing there (in a courthouse), and I put my cell/wallet/keys/pen through the detector in the little tray, I felt they were more civil to me than the folks at the airports who walk around like little Nazi people.  Some even carry their AR15s on their shoulders just to impress me a little more.

Just keep running the reruns from 9/11 of big shiny airplanes hitting tall shiny buildings and then they all fall down, and I suspect the people will eventually agree to standard strip searches with body cavity inspections.  You know, it is for our safety.  Another 9/11 and I'm afraid we will all be told to sit down and not talk.  You'll have your own neighbors taking video of you with their cell phone when you are out after the 9pm curfew that they will establish to of course (say in unison, clap your hands) "keep us all safe." 

For many foreigners coming here from suppressed countries or dictatorships, they see this as something from their country of origin. For those that came here with much more freedom from their source, they see the differences here.  For those like myself that can still remember what it was like just a short-decade ago, believe me, I see the development of a police state and something far more sinister.

I've made some big mistakes in my life, the ones affecting people directly ranks as most regrettable, but one of the ones I do regret is shutting down my business in the jet charter industry because that industry (charter, fractional shares and full ownership of aircraft) has taken off incredibly since 9/11 because those with money and options, along with the desire to maintain a sense of freedom, are not traveling on commercial airlines unless they have to.  One slight problem, the security/surveillance/scrutiny is catching up now to private aviation too.

You must read the account of Bob's experience below, on American Airlines.  It is detailed and hundreds of people go through this every day now with the power Nazis who warn us that we should fear the Muslims. 

D.G.S, San Diego

PERTH, Aug 27 - We received the following comment from an Australian businessman in Western Australia:

G’day Bob – very interesting commentary.  It’s many years since I’ve flown in the US, and so I don’t have a frame of reference, but I do hear of these stories from time to time.  The same level of paranoia and control which drives these behaviours thankfully still sits at the periphery here in Oz, although in certain areas it is creeping in (there’s fairly massive uproar in certain parts of Sydney about the APEC conference next week which will effectively shut down the whole Sydney CBD, and to which there is still some doubt as to whether  the leader of the free world will even attend, but that’s another story). 

The airline staff I experience here are very good, and whilst Perth (domestic) airport has its fair share of goons, in other Australian cities I visit I have a more friendly experience.  But at a broader level, as a society we are regulated to the nth, particularly in the business sector.

 Good luck with your story – I think that you should publish it.  There’s a very quaint Australian (I assume) expression about “pissing into the wind”, and I think that’s probably what you’ll be doing, but, hey, go for it.  If enough people did, maybe things would change.  (And without in any way siding with or condoning the actions of those who actually do commit acts of terror such as 9/11, the reality as I perceive it is that they have had a far greater impact (win?) as judged by the all pervasive reaction of the Western world to their initial activities than they ever had with those activities in the first place.)

 Keep up the good fight!  Perhaps, as Arlo Guthrie famously said in his Alice’s Restaurant song in the early 70s, you’ll start a movement!  Keep me posted.

 P.C., Western Australia

VICTORIA, BC, Aug 27 - We received the following comment from a retired banking executive who has just returned to Canada from his native Britain:

Hi, Bob:

I returned from the UK, yesterday and must empathize with your commentary.  Heathrow, which is a nightmarish airport at the best of times, has taken a progressively cynical view of their passenger/customers. Their standards of care and cavalier attitudes are slipshod and poor: the security rigmarole has gone way beyond a joke, and the blasé attitude to the personal rights of the clientele is actually quite frightening.  No, actually it is our acquiescence which is more scary.  In the name of the protection of our safety, we are permitting abusive and ever increasing manhandling.  

And, of course, the pursuit of the almighty dollar is allowing us less and less courtesy/service. Both airport staff and management hide their dirt and incompetence under the ‘safety’ rug.  

I complained, yesterday, when I was asked for the fifth time to produce id – and I had not left the secure area from the first id check.  I also complained when after having had my hand luggage rifled and having gone through a personal screening device, I and my fellow passengers were commanded to remove our shoes and pass them through their x-ray machine.  Now, perhaps you and I are fit enough to remove our shoes unaided: there are those who cannot and there was absolutely no arrangement for people to sit to both remove and replace their shoes.  Unacceptable.

My words of protest were ignored – it seemed I was creating a fuss, which I was not and even fellow passengers were more concerned with getting on with their day than voicing their objection. I don’t blame the traveler not wanting to create waves, but, like you, I think it mandatory we air our views and complain when our liberties and personal rights are being infringed.

I could add my own version of your horror show, but it is unnecessary: yours says it all.

As The Duke of Wellington said, when Harriette Wilson threatened to publish a biography of his life: “Publish and be damned”.

M.S., British Columbia

DALLAS, Aug 26 - Here's an excerpt from the only dissenting opinion we received from a senior business executive in Texas:

Maybe we are just two travelers looking at the same thing and reading the situation differently.   While I think some of the airport security is silly, I think the reason is quite different.

Somehow, the government and courts believe we cannot highly profile terrorist, run that profile against all both in and out of the airport,  then check them out where ever necessary. The actions and policy must say everyone must be treated the same. Making an old black or white lady with a crutch take her shoes off to go thru security is silly. Neither is making me take my belt off, assuming it is a normal belt.  So the base problem is not personal liberties, but the inability or unwillingness of the government to profile as needed.

The courts don’t make it any easier for the TSA, you, or me. Many judges being basic liberal wimps, that allow the 10 Muslim guys out of Miami to huddle in the airport, act strange on the plane, then bully the attendants… then file law suits for discrimination against the airlines and the government.  That is wrong in my book.

I would guess of the 8,000 attendants AA has that at least 200-300 of them are bad actors simply from a statistical basis. So, I don’t think you throw out all the rules, because of a few bad actors.  I’ll bet over the years, you have seen many people on flights that should have had their hands slapped or worse, but did not under the old rules.

When I get upset and the airport procedures, I get mad at the terrorists, not the TSA or the AA attendants.  I think you should not publish your letter. While I know you and your background, the average reader (99.9% of the people reading it) will have no prospective.

C.A., Texas

ARIZONA - Metamorphosis of Sky Waitresses to Sky Cops with Unlimited Power

PHOENIX, Aug 26 - We received the following comment from an IT manager in Arizona:

D.J., Arizona

BRITAIN - Focus on the Airline, Not the Government

LONDON, Aug 27 - We received the following comment from a business executive in London, England:

TiM Edit: As my friend from London can see below, a meeting with senior AA execs was not necessary.  My letter seems to have done the trick, even without this article.

KENT, Aug 26 - We received the following comment from a journalist from Kent, Ohio:

TiM Edit:  Well, we hope that our journalist friend from Ohio will be heartened when she reads the following letter we got today from American Airlines.  No need to stay jaded.  :-)

CHICAGO, Aug 27 - Here's an excerpt from a letter I received today from American Airlines.  It was a response to my letter to them of Aug 24.  The response was short and the action swift:

TiM Edit: In my books, the closes the books on this particular incident.  I don't think a passenger/customer can expect anything more than this.  American Airlines reply was professional and to the point, and their corrective action swift and appropriate.  But other higher level issues about our general rights violations that were raised in my article remain.  We must stay vigilant in defending our rights.  This is a good example of how that sometimes pays off.  It should encourage us all to exercise our rights more.

SERBIA - It Pays to Complain, Denounce, Stand Ground and Fight Back

TiM Edit: History has also shown what happens when angry people rise up against tyranny, such as in 1776, 1788, 1917, 1941... They send the cruel masters packing.  You may also want to read George Orwell's "Animal Farm."