Crazy CDG security questioning
 

Connected through CDG going from AF to DL for the transAtlantic flight a few days ago. All on a DL coded itinerary. When we got to the gate at CDG, we were met with a security person at the line to get on the plane. He proceeds with an interrogation similar to this:

Did you pack your own bags? (yes)
How did you purchase your ticket? (with my credit card online)
Do you have your credit card with you? (I did)
Can I see it please? (I pulled it out of my wallet, but he didn't look at it)
What kind of work do you do? (professor at a university)
What university? (I told him)
Do you have a university ID badge? (Yes, but I don't have it with me)
Why didn't you bring it? (Didn't think I'd need it, I have a passport after all)
Has anyone given you anything to carry on board? (no)
Have your bags been in your control since packing them? (yes)
What university do you work at? (I told him again)
What is the purpose of this trip? (business, teaching at a conference)
Where did you stay? (The Nile Hilton in Cairo)
Do you have proof that you stayed there? (yes, I have the receipt)
What university do you work at? (I told him again for the third time)

I was traveling with a faculty colleague and she was given a similar interrogation. He insisted on seeing her hotel receipt and took it to show some security supervisor.

I am very used to the 2 or 3 or 4 questions about packing your bag, but I've never been asked about where I work, asked for my work ID, asked about where I had stayed or asked for proof (I wasn't asked, but my traveling companion was asked).

I am Platinum on Delta and have been gold or platinum for years. I'm a US citizen with a US passport. I heard this guy talking to the folks ahead of us in the line and he was asking them similar questions. I don't know if this guy was just very overzealous or if they are just being paranoid or what, but it was pretty crazy!

This is the stupid kind of questioning that passes for the dog and pony show that is security when flying on US carriers back to the US from places such as CDG and AMS.

I'm certainly no fan of this idiocy. Sadly, this is not just unique to DL, as I've seen it with NW and AA rather often too when flying from CDG and AMS.

At AMS, the "interogator" wanted a piece of my travel companion but my travel companion was not interested. :eek: :D

My game with these people is to identify them and where they grew up and/or learned English. ;)

Had this happen at LGW the other day, on NW too, i.e asking a bunch of the same questions over and over..

Don't forget the look of utter contempt when you get asked the same question more than once. ;)

"I told you: I work at IBM." <Idiot boy>

The agent took it a little bit too serious, normally the most important question is who has packed your bags and if anybody had the chance to place any items into your bag, because of obvious reasons...

All other questions might be asked, if the agent likes you or is pretty bored or wants to slow down the process in order to hire more people. ;)

It is mandatory for TATL on US metal ex Europe.

If you fly across the pond quite often, it is as boring as the same questions by US immigration officers again and again...

The person doing my interrogation had a hard time believing that I was a contractor who just came from Iraq but did not have a DOD badge.

Happened to my wife and me about 10 years ago prior to a flight from Cairo to Tel Aviv. El Al security (read Mossad) singled us out and demanded to see "proof" that we were in Egypt. In addition to the "routine" hilarity as above, we also got:

When do you claim you entered Egypt? (2 weeks ago)
How? (on the El Al flight)
May I see your ticket for that flight? (I presented the stack of tickets)
This is the receipt. I need to see the ticket itself. (the airline has that now. we used it)
Well then, did you check any bags on that flight? (yes)
May I see the baggage check? (showed her the little sticker)
No, the part that goes on the bag. (no, we discarded that)
Why did you discard it? (we got the bag and it wasn't needed any more)
So you have no proof that you have your bag? (here it is)
<frustrated> ...
Ok, where did you stay in Egypt? (rattled of the hotels)
Please show me a receipt. (no individual receipts but here is tour receipt)
That is from the US and not valid here. (i'm sorry)
Did you buy anything in Egypt? (yes)
Please show me a receipt. (cannot ... they do not give receipts in Egypt)
Why did you not ask for one? (we didn't need more paper to schlep)
Schlep? (never mind)
...
Do you have anything to prove you are here? (uh.........)
...
and so on for about 15 minutes. Fortunately, the El Al Station Manager wandered by and I caught his eye with a look of pleading. He came over and asked the problem. Ms Mossad said these people cannot prove they are here. SM said I see them, I know them (another story), let them pass. She reluctantly did and he muttered to me "ah, stupid mossad...do you need anything else, sir?"

Later, MM was at the gate and we got the dirtiest look you could ever imagine. We were anticipating a reception committe in TLV ... our adventure story now is how we evaded that!

In many security related interviews, the questions and the responses are secondary to the way a person reacts to them. In the cited examples, the interviewer was trying to get a sense for the individual - are they hiding something or not?

Arriving in LA on a cruise that had originated in Costa Rica (flew DL to there), I presented my U.S. passport to the agent, and he asked what country I was a citizen of. I thought it was a trick question. After all, I had a US passport, so I said isn't it obvious? He didn't like that, and wouldn't let me leave until I told him that I am in fact a citizen of the US.

Interrogations to get on a plane are contrary to a free society. :td:

"Malesh." ;)

They do a poor job of that or even catching blatant lies. And everyone that defends this stuff uses a handful of anecdotes to defend such practice.

X interviewed, with Y percentage of X being a credible threat to the security of a plane, with only Z percentage of Y "caught" (or "flagged" in any seriously meaningful way). If 10-100 times the number of people talked about in the most publicized anecdotes equated with the number of people that are Z percentage of Y, may we still be talking about a waste? Perhaps.

In any event, even the defence of such practices as part of the "layering" of security is just an excuse for weak security practices.

In a free country people should not be interrogated by security to be what we were born to be -- namely free people, free to choose with whom we speak and don't speak when in public venues and not violating the law. And if airlines want to make this a condition of travel, they better make such requirement an explicit -- and very visible -- demand. Sort of like naming themselves "Totalitarian Air".

I disagree with this hyperbole. The questions referenced above are similar to the interrogation one has on the way in and out of Israel, whose national airline has a pretty good security record despite the breezy dismissal of such practices above.

Moreover, travel by airplane is a privilege, not a right. Even our rights as a free people are subject to limitations, as the constitution is not a suicide pact. Privileges are subject to even greater limitations. I fail to see the argument that ten or twenty polite questions at an airport is the leading wedge of totalitarianism. Frankly, I want tight security at airports.

Couldn't agree more.

I developped my own practice a long time ago to handle that kind of questioning. I tell them, I am not going to answer the same questions more than once. They can get a supervisor if they like. They never did so far. :D

Yikes, I used to think I was good in math in school... but I'm so glad I don't have to deal with this stuff in real life. :D :p