My office is located in a courthouse. I also frequent other courthouses in Los Angeles County. By and large, the Los Angeles Superior Court screeners are not sworn sheriff deputies or police officers. They are mostly security officers (job description) employed by either the LASD or several of the security firms with which the LASD contracts. Take a careful looks at their badges, they say Los Angeles County Sheriff Security as opposed to Deputy Sheriff Los Angeles County. Generally, there is at least one deputy overlooking the security checkpoint.

I have unlimited access to my office outside business hours when I can bring in anything. However, During the hours that the building is open to the public, I must undergo screening, just like any member of the public.

While there is no war on liquids, at the location where I work, we must open any covered beverage containers, such as travel mugs and covered paper cups, to show that we are not hiding weapons in the container (after a few spills, they no longer have us put beverages through the x-ray machine). Sure, they can see suspicious objects through opaque liquids.

Other idiotic rules forbid any object that could possibly be used as a weapon. A few weeks ago, I was entering the building with a female attorney friend, who is personally known to the deputy in charge of the building's security (her husband is a department head in the building). She had an approximately 4" long plastic pin holding her hair in a bun. She was made to remove the hairpin because it could be potentially used as a weapon. Normally, they would make individuals take such "contraband" objects back to their cars or made them dispose of the items. In this particular case, because of her husband's stature in the building, the deputy offered to keep it for her and return it when she left. Key chains are also high on the forbidden list.

Until a recent change, no one, not even employees, was allowed to bring in glass objects, such Snapple bottles or Pyrex food containers (many of the offices in the building have lunch rooms). Well, after many of the female judges and other female employees in the building had their Valentine's Day floral arrangements turned away, the supervising judge forced the sheriff to change that particular rule.

Needless to say, I generally arrive at my office early, before my access card stops working for the day.