I’m sure by now you know that it is virtually impossible to make it through an airport security screening area without stripping from head-to-toe. I’m kidding. But, since 9-11 and even more recently the foiled British based terror plot to blow up several major airlines mid-flight, airport security has clamped down on travelers like never before. But, do you often wonder if some people, celebrities, perhaps, are able to breeze through lines while the rest of us no-names endure the rigors of de-shoeing and having the contents of our carry-ons dumped out and put on display for the rest of the airport to see. After hearing about what one famous author recently went through I would venture to guess the answer is: “No.”
British author J.K. Rowling may not have had to strip down to her skivvies, but she was recently detained and got into a lengthy argument with an airport security screener in New York when she tried to carry on the manuscript of the final “Harry Potter” book.
According to the author’s website had security officials not allowed her to bring the manuscript on as carry on luggage she might not have flown.
“I don’t know what I would have done if they hadn’t — sailed home probably,” Rowling wrote on her site.
The author, who hit celebrity status after her “Harry Potter” books became best sellers (make that pop culture classics) was traveling back to London after participating in a charity book reading event in New York City with fellow writers Stephen King and John Irving when she was detained by airport security. Rowlings was aware that security was drastically tightened after British police said they had intercepted a plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners, but she says she didn’t realize it would affect her ability to hand carry her unfinished manuscript.
Regarding the incident Rowling wrote on her website:
“The heightened security restrictions on the airlines made the journey back from New York interesting, as I refused to be parted from the manuscript of book seven. A large part of it is handwritten and there was no copy of anything I had done while in the U.S.”
Eventually, she added, “They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands.”
America’s Transportation Security Administration says the incident was much to do about nothing. Noting that they don’t understand why the author was detained to begin with. A TSA spokesperson told media outlets that it has “never implemented a ban on carryon luggage for flights originating in the United States and furthermore, a manuscript would certainly be allowed to be carried on.”
Perhaps, the security agents wanted something to read in between frisking passengers—just my guess.