Perhaps it is because I had to suffer two of the new airport security feel-ups last week, but by willingness to tolerate surliness, hostility and rudeness from security personnel is officially over. Oh, the TSA’s trained molesters are not the problem in that regard; they are almost always cheerful, polite and deferential, more so now, since they have to virtually thrust their gloved hands into my nooks and crannies. It is the security personnel controlling access to public buildings who are too often lacking in congeniality and professionalism, and I’m not putting up with it any more. You shouldn’t either. It is our duty not to put up with itBefore 9-11, I used to marvel at the open access to public buildings in Washington, D.C. There were few security measures, and upon reflection, it seems amazing that we were so naive. Now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and any visitor to a Federal building and a lot of private ones is meant to feel like his or her name may be on a wanted poster somewhere. In Cleveland last week, a guard in a law firm building made me pose for a photograph and wait while he made a picture ID badge that I was instructed to wear at all times.

Yesterday, I was giving am ethics presentation that I repeat every month in the Reagan Building, the huge, obscenely expensive monument to Ronnie that stands near the Smithsonian’s American History and Technology Museum. Tourists steadily stream in this one, in part because, in addition to a theater, meeting facilities, several agencies, and enough open space and high ceilings to play several NFL games simultaneously, it has large Food Court. My session was before that stampede, and for the past, my entry into the building was quick and relatively painless, thanks to a veteran security crew. I showed my driver’s license, put my brief case on track to go through the X-ray scanner, and walked through the gate, which was set to be less sensitive that the airport variety. My platinum hip never set it off.

The old group of uniformed guards were not there. In their place were three new guards who all possessed  that special  hybrid of boredom and hostility that you sometimes encounter with poorly trained McDonald’s personnel, the look that says, “I hate this damn job and I hate you for making me do it.” I showed my ID, as always, and placed my brief case on the conveyor belt to be scanned. “Take out your laptop!” Guard #1 barked. When I didn’t hop to his orders quickly enough, he repeated the command, louder. “I don’t have a laptop,” I said. He glared and frowned. When I went through the gate, an alarm went off, something that has never happened before with exactly the same clothes (and hip). “You have something in your pockets!” Guard #2, a young woman who seemed especially annoyed with the hand life had dealt her, said sharply. “No, I don’t,” I replied. “I have an artificial hip. You’ve changed the settings, I guess.” This comment really offended Guard #3, manning the X-ray scanner. “WE don’t set anything!” he said. “Take off your belt!”

If some one wants me to take off my belt, I expect them to say, “Please,” and maybe even “honey.” I’m willing to act like a prisoner in the interests of foiling terrorists, but I refuse to be treated like one.  I took it off and placed it in an X-ray bin, exactly as I have to do for airport screening. This apparently proved to #3 that I was a moron, and a defiant one to boot. “Don’t put it there! It’s too light! You’re supposed to put it off to the side!” At this point, I was just eager to get away from these authoritarian jerks, so I complied and walked through the gate again. Again the alarm went off.

Guard #2, who appeared to be seething the entire time, now spat out, “Put out your arms!” She snatched the wand as if she was going to beat me with it, and after she got no reading, cursed under her breath,  shot me a look of pure contempt, and said, as she turned away, “Take your things.” That did it.

“What’s the attitude about?” I asked her? “Am I offending somehow you by setting off the alarm?  Is this my fault that you actually have to do your job? You have no reason to treat me like this, and I object to it.”

“GOOD DAY SIR!” she said deliberately, glaring.

I filed official complaints with the building management, the group holding the event, and their  supervisors, and I’m going to follow through on every one of them.  This has to stop. If citizens in their own country, in their own nation’s Capital, have to go through the dehumanizing process of having to stand in line, submit to searches and allow themselves to be scanned and wanded,  the least they can expect is courtesy. Uniformed guard seem to be practicing for work as Gestapo re-enactors should not be ordering us around like Marine recruits.  They should say “please” and “thank you.” They should not roll their eyes and show annoyance when we don’t know new procedures, and they shouldn’t raise their voices under any circumstances at all. They should smile. They should be pleasant, because the experience is inherently unpleasant, and it is part of their job to make it less so.

They should, in other words, treat visitors going through security exactly as all strangers should treat each other when they have to work together: with consideration, respect, kindness and civility. The fact that they have the uniform, the badge and the wand doesn’t mean that I have to accept any less decent treatement. Everybody who gets treated like I was at security checkpoints needs to complain, for it is the only way to prevent such outrageous conduct from becoming the norm.

I’m going to get my apology from Guards #1, 2 and 3 no matter how long it takes.

And those McDonald clerks had better watch out for me too. They’re next.