Thanks for the warm welcome and your comments!

I want to clarify what I meant by the title “security done right.” I certainly didn’t mean that security screenings in America (or elsewhere) should be this intensive. It’s a completely different situation in Israel. Some examples: your bags are searched umpteen times per day, any important buildings are surrounded by barriers, and wherever you go there are off-duty 18 year old soldiers wandering round with machine guns slung over their shoulders.

As coast2coast points out, my experience must have been extreme. I occupied an average of two agents for about two hours. If they did this for everyone, they’d need to employ about 20000 guards, just for Terminal 3!

Rather, my point is that, even though the security is much stronger, they respected me and treated me with dignity the whole time. No “power trips, badges, and yelling” as Mats points out. No petty rules. Obviously I’d prefer not to be screened. Given I was, I appreciated the fact that they weren’t wasting my time, in that if I’d been planning mischief, they probably would have found out.

Dovster, I don’t know exactly what made Jenna suspicious about me. I asked but she deflected the question. I’m white so it’s not that. I suspect it was because I found it hard to describe my job in a way that fit in with their questions.
“What is your job function?”
“I do research.”
“What does that mean?”
“I prove theorems and write papers.”
“Who tells you what to prove?”
“Um… it doesn’t work like that.”