I know. I travel quite frequently. Most of this is painless, but flights in America are total hell. I always breathe of sign of relief when I am finally boarded on and buckled into that international flight, symbolizing the last of the total crap I'll have to deal with until my return journey. Outside the US I have always been treated with respect by airport workers, while in the US I feel constantly treated with disrespect, I feel like a kid back in kindergarden again, "Uh, do you think we could hurry this up a bit? I am awfully close to missing my flight." "Sir! We will get done when we get done! If you miss your flight, then you miss your flight!" as they thumb through every single page of every book and magazine in my bag.
The whole thing LJ said about the guy asking what the hard drive was, then accepting that when told without further question is exactly right. It almost feels like a big show to reassure us we are safe. What if LJ had had a bomb in his bag, and told the guy it was a hard drive? "Oh, its a hard drive. Okay, cool. Go ahead."
In Europe I sill feel safe, but I don't feel on edge the entire time going through the airports. The whole atmosphere is more laid back. Outside the states I really enjoy traveling. In America it feels like the policy is to treat everyone like a terrorist, regardless.
It also seems the big international airports suffer from a large amount of employees who barely speak English. Even in foreign airports the employees often speak very good English, and even if they don't and I don't speak their language, they are usually patient and willing to use hand signals or gestures in order to help people around the airport or give instructions. The last time I was coming back into America, I came through Washington D.C., as soon as I got off the plane and was heading toward customs, a Chinese woman was all up in my face yelling "bagasheeee! bagasheeeee! bagasheeeee! See yo bagagasheeee!" Had no idea what the hell she wanted. Finally she started waving a baggage claim ticket around and we realized she wanted to see our claim tickets in order to determine who to send to the first of the line so they didn't miss their flights. A while later I heard her talking to another airport worker and she was easy enough to understand even though she had a thick accent, but whenever she'd start yelling she'd start dropping whole syllables and words out of her sentences. It was just frustrating people and making the whole painful process of feeling like cattle while going through customs even more painful. Seems like they should be more careful with that, communication in such a situation is important, and yelling "bagasheee!" at people instead of "We need to see your claim tickets!" is hardly communicating.