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Security Comes With A Hitch

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By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: October 17, 2008

Are you beginning to get the feeling that everywhere you go someone is watching?

If it's not a hidden camera, it's someone patting you down or peering into your stuff.

I'm sure some of you can relate. It's a little like being married. One of the things you quickly learn after the honeymoon is that there are no more secrets.

Oh, you try for awhile.

You might stick twenty bucks inside your desk drawer or maybe stop by the Burger Doodle one afternoon and toss the burger bag in the back seat.

Then you go looking for the money and it's not there. Or you are sitting reading the paper and look up and she's standing there holding the Burger Doodle bag, and you feel like you're in a police lineup, they've already got the evidence and you are doomed to some low-carb, no-taste penance.

Now it's spreading outside of marriage. You go into a building almost anywhere and there is a hidden camera hanging on the wall. Now we have them in the streets, grocery stores, malls and likely where you work.

If you sit down at a computer screen the security geeks have the ability to see what you are reading or writing. E-mail may be light years faster than snail mail, but I wouldn't send out an e-mail I wouldn't also mind having posted on the bulletin board.

A Friendly Pat Or Two

Pat-downs have returned to Raymond James Stadium for Buccaneers games. Originally I think they were brought in just in case Osama bin Laden was planning a terrorist attack at halftime, but lately I think they are more concerned that fans might be trying to sneak in free sandwiches and drinks instead of getting held up at the concession stands.

I love it when the Frau shows up and some security guy starts going through her purse. You could hide a drugstore in that bag. The real excitement starts when her cell phone goes off and she begins heaving piles of stuff onto the ground to find the phone.

I haven't figured out why they think fans going to a football game need to be patted down but not ones going to a baseball game. Maybe they will start pat-downs at Tropicana Field if the World Series comes here, especially because it'd be Phillies fans coming to St. Petersburg. If they're anything like the Eagles fans I ran into when the Bucs were up in the so-called City of Brotherly Love, they ought to strip search them just because.

The New Fear Of Flying

The ultimate in "ubersnooping" will begin next week at Tampa International Airport, when the new "security imaging" machines get turned on. The new machines have the ability to see through, well, just about everything.

I mean, these things do what those old X-ray glasses they used to advertise in the back of comic books were supposed to do. I think these things give a new meaning to what politicians are talking about these days when they say we need more transparency in government.

I think a little more privacy now and then wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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