“Sir, these are a security threat,” the guard announces, triumphantly brandishing the water bottles she had discovered in my hand luggage. I make an abortive attempt to negotiate return of the empty bottles, but she doesn’t understand and I don’t really care. Mostly, I’m just amused at being back. Back in a world where security is a charade.

I’d just arrived in Budapest from Tel Aviv, en route to my home in Amsterdam. Security in Israel, as you might imagine, is a serious business. My security check that morning at Ben Gurion took just under two hours. The surprising thing? It was really quite pleasant.

It started with an extensive interview. They wanted to know everything. Why I’d been in Israel, where I’d visited, where I stayed, what I did, what my routine was, who I met, who funded my trip, when did I decide to go, when did I buy the ticket, what I work on, how I met my Israeli hosts, how I got my current job, why I took my current job, why I spent so long in Australia over Christmas, etc., etc.

My security facilitation officer (my title for her, henceforth we’ll call Jenna) stayed with me the whole time. En route between the various security check-points, she would pepper me with questions, intent to trip up my story. Maybe she’d rifle through my passport and ask “When did you visit Fiji?” or maybe she’d ask me to take off my glasses (again) so she could compare me (again) with one of the photos on the many pieces of identification I’d entrusted to her.

I’d been in Israel visiting two colleagues at Tel Aviv University. They looked at all the emails we exchanged. I showed them our joint papers and they got excited when they noticed one had today’s date.
“But you said you finished this before coming here?”
There followed an extensive tutorial on how LaTeX (a scientific word processor) automatically adjusts the date.
“You say your background is in physics, but now you say you have a job in computer science. What courses in computer science did you take?”
“None, I taught myself.”
“But how could you be hired if you have no training?”
I fumbled this one and they kept coming back to it. Eventually, I told them I was smart and we moved on.
“Can you explain the connection between physics and computer science?”
Oh, boy, you betcha… they had to cut off my answer.

They x-rayed my luggage, they swabbed every single thing in my suitcase for explosives and then they re-x-rayed all the electronics individually. They did my laptop first and then gave it back to me so I could check my email why they were testing everything else.

Meanwhile, Jenna had gone off to check me in. It turned out the flight was overbooked and they wanted to bump me to a later flight. The KLM agent and I carried out a long-distance negotiation intermediated by Jenna, who didn’t waste the opportunity to continue with her questions: “Why are you so keen to be on this flight?” Meanwhile, I was taken away into an enclosed room and searched.

Finally, I was done. Jenna wished me well, asked another random question, and then introduced me to a lower-level agent, who stayed with me as I checked-in, showed me which counters to go to, and then led me through a bypass lane so I could get to the terminal without having to go through the hand luggage scanners.

And they let me keep my water.