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Airport Security in Colombia: Compare and Contrast

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Friday, 14 December 2007

Traveling around South America for a couple of months. My Spanish still sucks, but estoy aprendiendo.

You know you're in Bogotá when the airport is filled with signs warning you not to mule.

It would be very sad for your family if you were a mule!

Interesting that the deterrent here isn't jail, violent reprisal, or any other punishment -- they're appealing to shame and family honor.

Not sure what that says about Colombian culture, but it's hard to imagine the US analog having any effect: Kids! If you got involved with drugs, your parents wouldn't like it.

Yeah. That would totally work.

Anyhow. Changing the subject.

Multiple studies have found that security in US airports is no better than before 9/11, so critics often decry various TSA measures as merely "security theater."

One wonders, then, what non-theatrical security might look like.

After having been through airport security in Colombia four times in the last week, I'm thinking I should share with the rest of the class. (Not saying they have things perfectly right, by any means. Just sharing what I saw.)

In recent years, Colombia has seen violence from FARC and ELN, the counter-revolutionary AUC, and multiple major drug organizations. Their airports don't double as political showpieces. They're potential targets in an area rife with active conflict for over four decades. And Colombia is hardly a rich country. They're clearly not in any position to screw around.

Just out of curiosity, let's compare the US and Colombian gauntlets.

WHAT THEY DIDN'T DO IN COLOMBIA (at least in my experience):

You don't take off your shoes. They don't give a rat's ass about your shoes. They're going through the metal detector anyway.
You don't take off your jacket. They don't give a rat's ass about your jacket. It's going through the metal detector anyway.
You don't have to put all your fluids, emollients, and palliative goos into little 3-oz. containers. (Technically, the signs say that you do. But you don't. Nobody bats an eye.) If binary bombs were a real concern, I've just traveled across Colombia with enough shampoo and sunscreen to blow up Cali and Medellín combined. If you really get off on traveling with fluids, Colombia is a holiday paradise.
You also don't always take your computer out of the bag. Two times out of four. But this was purely perfunctory. They don't seem to give a rat's ass about your computer, either.

WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DID IN COLOMBIA (at least in my experience):

You will be surrounded at all times by heavily armed men. Fuck with Colombia, Colombia will fuck you right back. This message at least is clear.
You will be metal-detected as the main event. First the big machine. Then the wand. Slowly. Seriously. About the speed of languorous foreplay, except surrounded by armed men and not remotely enjoyable. Then you turn around and get wanded again. Colombia looks for metal. If I ate a diet high in magnesium, I would be wary of traveling in Colombia. All your metal are belong to Colombia.
You will be given a brisk full-body frisking by a cheerful but lethally armed soldier, in the company of half a dozen other lethally armed soldiers. By "frisking," I mean a procedure roughly halfway between high-speed shiatsu and a drive-thru prostate exam. If you like having your balls bounced casually by swarthy fellows trained to kill on command, a Colombian vacation is for you.

HOW LONG COLOMBIAN SECURITY TAKES:

In my four trips through, never more than three minutes tops, believe it or not. Twice it felt like I barely broke stride until the wand-o-rama.

Maybe I got lucky. And much of this is probably the result of lesser air traffic. Bogotá, for all its charms, isn't quite the air hub Atlanta and Chicago are. Go figure. Then again, Colombian airports also had fewer security lines -- never more than one or two operating, period. So I'm not sure how the size argument works out.

It's also possible that Colombian security is way more focused on drugs on the way out than weapons on the way in. I'm not sure how that necessarily changes anything, though. They sure as hell would have found anything strapped to my keister.

In any case, time and energy do seem to be saved by not wasting time on stupid shit. Colombia doesn't ask every single passenger in every single line to remove shoes, coat, laptop, and liquid goods, all while emptying pockets and juggling their smaller bags into various trays before slowing things down on the far side by undoing and reassembling all the nonsense they just did. Colombia doesn't try to prevent binary bombs that don't exist, nor do they worry about shoe bombs that could just as well be in your knickers.

Colombia (a) X-rays your stuff on a conveyor belt, (b) wands your ass until your fillings come loose, and then (c) asks you to hold still for about twenty seconds of vigorous manual contact that for ten dollars more ought to come with a happy ending.

Granted, there must be considerations I haven't realized. I'm sure there are. Consider this entry pre-disclaimed. I'm not saying Americans would willingly accept twenty seconds of rubber-gloved Kung Fu Grip in exchange for being allowed to pack a whole tube of Gleem. And I'm not saying the US should turn its airports into Colombian style armed camps. Hell no. Just pointing out what was.

That's the experience, anyway. Take from it what you will.

Meanwhile, he's another anti-mule sign posted in front of the McDonald's in the Bogotá airport food court.

And since you told your family you were a mule?
(With, I believe, roughly the tone of "and how's that working out for you?")
(And note again the emphasis on family shame, above all other deterrents.)