... trip to Israel, as it was my first time flying on El Al. Now THAT was not an experience I want to go through again, as they make you go behind a screen, and an El Al employee "pats you down", and trust me when I say, she was pretty rough about it, if you know what I mean.
This was back in the early 70's, so I can just imagine what you have to go through flying El Al these days. ~cringe~
Hmmm... Maybe it's because that was shortly after the first wave of muslim hijackers, and nobody had yet developed a good security system.
El Al, being Israeli, is of course the most coveted airline target of muslim terrorists. I traveled multiple times to/from Israel during the 90's and 00's, and much preferred El Al. My experience was that some pretty young El Al gal would strike up a conversation and ask me many questions. They are discreet, respectful, and very good at detecting deceit. No touching involved.
I always traveled with a lot of heavily laden bags, with quite interesting multi-spectrum scanner responses. I got a lot of questions. They called the local (to my destination) military commander at 3am Israel time to get his judgement. But once they were satisfied, they checked seven large and heavy cases at no extra charge, gave me an exit row seat, and one of the security gals invited me to her and her brother's place for barbecue.
El Al has the best security, plus their pilots are former Israeli Air Force, and their planes have a few extra modifications for evading missiles.
They also have quite good food.
Back home, I've undergone background checks, mug photos, and fingerprinting for NFA1934 tax stamps. Every time I would buy a full-auto weapon or a supressor, I'd have to fill out the federal paperwork, go through the background check, fingerprinting, photos, etc. Then it takes about six months for the federal paperwork to clear. But then, as a fire commander and arson investigator, I always had periodic photo IDs and range qualification anyway.
So, while I recognize the threat of misuse of identifying data, I figure the powers that be already have me identified.