Does D.C. Need Security With a Smile?

Re “Security We Need; Attitude We Don’t,” Commentary, May 6: Many measures taken in the name of security in Washington are nothing more than excuses to keep the public out of its own government’s business, as well as a license to officious people in uniform to behave rudely. I work a block from the Labor Department, which has a U.S. post office on the first floor well within view of the building’s entry. To use this once-convenient branch today, I have to go through the metal detector and X-ray routine, sign in and write down my phone number. That in and of itself is no big deal, because I, like others, I suspect, simply make one up. Nobody in the building or anyone behind me has a right to that information -- though when I suggested that to a young, smug guard, she barked back, “You don’t have to come in here if you don’t like it.”

No, the worst part is that they confiscate all visitors’ driver’s licenses, many of which still feature Social Security numbers, as well as addresses and middle names. So for as long as you’re in line at the post office, or in meetings for hours in the building itself, the four-plus people they have manning the security area have access to all the personal data anyone needs to steal your identity or track you down at home. I’d love to hear the powers that be explain how invading my privacy and risking my personal safety is going to stop a terrorist, whose ID is certainly going to be phony anyway.

Janelle Hartman

Alexandria, Va.

Molly Selvin should try not to take things so personally. In her view a lack of cheerfulness from those assigned the dangerous task of protecting our most important institutions constitutes a grievous offense.

Visiting the Supreme Court is not supposed to feel like a trip to Disneyland, especially these days.

The more focused and vigilant security personnel are about guarding our airport and government facilities, the less likely a potential terrorist is to move against them, and the safer we should all feel.

Larry Cedar

Sherman Oaks

I was in Washington in late January to pay my “respects” to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as they made their way down Pennsylvania Avenue in their heavily guarded, armored vehicles. I also visited the Capitol and other sights in D.C. when I was there. I too was barked at by disrespectful, heavily armed young men with the snarl of an ill-mannered dog.

I was in Moscow in 1985, after Mikhail Gorbachev was in power and just before the fall of the Soviet Union. The atmosphere in Washington in 2005 felt out of balance and afraid, pregnant with change, like Moscow in 1985.

The change in Russia was a velvet revolution. Let’s hope we can do the same here.

Paul Fretheim

Independence, Calif.

So Selvin, an editorial writer for The Times, didn’t like the demeanor of the security personnel she encountered on her recent junket to Washington, D.C. Must have been terribly horrific, having all those serious people around her, totally focused on their jobs, risking their lives every day to protect our Supreme Court.

Then again, based on the sort of editorials I see in The Times on a daily basis, what else would you expect from people whose mission in life is to criticize and insult every move the current administration makes.

What did Selvin expect, gum-chewing, giggly tour guides recruited from Universal Studios?

This was one of the most stupendously inane commentaries I’ve ever read in this newspaper. A galactic waste of ink.

John Johnson

Encino