No rest for security weary

Like millions of other men, women and children who each day pass through the dizzying maze called the airport passenger screening system, Jim Adams, an executive at a natural gas company in Dallas, has gotten the drill down pat: taking off his shoes, stripping himself of jacket, belt, watch, cell phone and loose change, making sure his 3.4-ounce tubes of toothpaste and shaving gel are safely sealed in a quart-size plastic bag, unpacking his laptop, discarding that half-finished bottle of water — all while glancing nervously at the clock, wondering if he is going to miss his flight.

But several weeks ago, a new step was added to that routine: trying to prove to suddenly skeptical security agents that he actually was the person his boarding pass and photo ID said he was.

A rule that is being phased in this year requires that the names on IDs and tickets match perfectly; it's not permissible to have an ID that reads "John Smith," your legal name, and a ticket as "Jack Smith," the name you use in everyday life.

Adams, 63, says he has routinely had to wait 30 minutes or more for a Transportation Security Administration official to check his ID and enter his name in a logbook. It's happened more than a dozen times, and he has never been told exactly why he is being singled out.

"In the early days it was anything sharp or pointed," he said. "Now it's gotten really personal. It's me. It's not my fingernail clippers or pen knife."

Adams said, however, that he was able to avoid additional security screening and subsequent delays on two flights this month for which he used his full name, James L. Adams Jr. He said he still hadn't received a response from the Transportation Security Administration about his problems on earlier flights.

Even for people who pass through security with less difficulty than Adams, the airport security system has made flying increasingly miserable in the eight years since 9/11. Many of the measures instituted the last few years, like the limitations on liquids and the requirement that you take off your shoes, were almost knee-jerk reactions to specific scares and were left in place as a matter of course.

As rule upon rule has been added, passengers have learned to cope with the long lines, bag checks, physical pat-downs and carry-on restrictions that border on the absurd. But now there is a fresh opportunity for change. This month, the White House said that President Barack Obama planned to nominate Erroll G. Southers, a former FBI special agent, to head up the Transportation Security Administration, which has been without a permanent head for eight months.