Security Screener Has Taken Enough Lip

People do it right before her eyes, still trying to game the system. They lie. They hide forbidden items--like the woman who, for whatever reason, had a nail embedded in the cover of her Bible. When all else fails, they might even throw a fit.

But it doesn’t work like it used to, says Kimberly Williams, airport security screener.

“Because of the National Guard, people think twice before they start screaming and yelling,” she says. “I love this now.”

After five years coping with surly and impatient travelers, finally, some respect. Williams acknowledges the system isn’t perfect. But she takes exception to the way screeners have been portrayed as low-wage losers who can’t stay awake at their X-ray machines.

“They’re scapegoating us,” she says, “calling us knuckleheads on TV. Everybody’s turning on us.”

Nothing quite grates on her like the newly chastened travelers. They say how pleased they are that she’s poking through their bags, frisking their bodies and making them take off their shoes.

“ ‘I’m glad you’re finally doing your job,’ they tell me,” says Williams. “I thought I was doing my job, I tell them.”

In her opinion, the airlines, which hire private security companies, and the flying public have only themselves to blame for the breaches of the past.

“If somebody made a big fuss, they could get through [security] with anything short of a gun,” she says. “If the airlines said something could go through, it could go through. Airlines should never have been in charge of their own security.”

There’s no denying that changes have occurred. There are more baggage screeners than before. And they’ve been given the authority to be more demanding, more intrusive. “Do you mind if I touch behind your belt buckle?” they’ll ask. Or, “Do you mind if I break the blade off your fingernail file?”

Even though she recently got a real estate license, Williams, 38, says she now sees the possibility of making a career of screening.

The irony is, she’s due to lose the $8- to $9-an-hour job shortly, when the federal government takes over airport security. She has decided to apply for the new federal position. That would mean more job security and the authority of the U.S. government behind her.

And another thing: She figures she might get a real uniform, not the “silly get-up” her company now issues--an ill-fitting blazer with a throat-clenching yellow bow tie. How can you lift and bend, heave bags and wand passengers, for hours, in something like that?

Says Williams: “It’s like working in a warehouse wearing a suit.”