Breeze Through Airport Security! (Hopefully.)
June 2005 By Denny Hatch
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For Steve Brill and harried airline passengers, this could be really big
On October 27, 2001, I took a taxi to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station and boarded a train to Chicago for a direct marketing convention. In the aftermath of 9/11, I was not afraid to fly. Rather, I had heard horror stories about travelers spending four hours dealing with airport security and even then missing their flights. I figured low-key down time on an overnight train was better than eight hours of high tension at PHL and ORD.
While on the train, I wrote a piece for Target Marketing magazine's Web site saying that I would be happy to pay for a federal investigation into my wife, Peggy's, and my background so that we could be issued a kind of personal E-Z Pass card that would let us breeze through airport security.
Now crusading editor, publisher and author Steven Brill--a man who has had more ups and downs than a championship yo-yo--is testing it.
Brill is the consummate entrepreneur who has tapped into a deeply felt human need and, at the same time, has poked a spike in the eye of civil libertarians terrified of a "Big Brother Is Watching You" National ID Card.
What does it take to be an entrepreneur like Brill?
Backgrounder
Twenty-six years ago I put Steve Brill in business.
A lawyer and the law columnist for Clay Felker's Esquire magazine, Brill decided to launch The American Lawyer magazine, and I was hired to write and design a direct mail effort that would bring in enough paid subscribers to get the publication off the ground.
Just 29 years old, a law school graduate and already the author of "The Teamsters," the definitive primer on union corruption, Brill was pudgy and jowly, with a high forehead, a blue shirt with flashy cuff links, a bright yellow tie and yellow suspenders. Either between his teeth, between his fingers or in an ashtray was his ever-present cigar--no doubt out of his private humidor from Dunhill's.
Brill burned like nuclear fuel rod. "This magazine is for lawyers in big law firms," he said gleefully. "It's gonna talk about how much money lawyers make, who the best and worst firms are and the clients they got and the clients they lost and why they were fired. The magazine will describe the corporate culture, the best practices and the worst. Nothing like this has ever been done before."
On October 27, 2001, I took a taxi to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station and boarded a train to Chicago for a direct marketing convention. In the aftermath of 9/11, I was not afraid to fly. Rather, I had heard horror stories about travelers spending four hours dealing with airport security and even then missing their flights. I figured low-key down time on an overnight train was better than eight hours of high tension at PHL and ORD.
While on the train, I wrote a piece for Target Marketing magazine's Web site saying that I would be happy to pay for a federal investigation into my wife, Peggy's, and my background so that we could be issued a kind of personal E-Z Pass card that would let us breeze through airport security.
Now crusading editor, publisher and author Steven Brill--a man who has had more ups and downs than a championship yo-yo--is testing it.
Brill is the consummate entrepreneur who has tapped into a deeply felt human need and, at the same time, has poked a spike in the eye of civil libertarians terrified of a "Big Brother Is Watching You" National ID Card.
What does it take to be an entrepreneur like Brill?
Backgrounder
Twenty-six years ago I put Steve Brill in business.
A lawyer and the law columnist for Clay Felker's Esquire magazine, Brill decided to launch The American Lawyer magazine, and I was hired to write and design a direct mail effort that would bring in enough paid subscribers to get the publication off the ground.
Just 29 years old, a law school graduate and already the author of "The Teamsters," the definitive primer on union corruption, Brill was pudgy and jowly, with a high forehead, a blue shirt with flashy cuff links, a bright yellow tie and yellow suspenders. Either between his teeth, between his fingers or in an ashtray was his ever-present cigar--no doubt out of his private humidor from Dunhill's.
Brill burned like nuclear fuel rod. "This magazine is for lawyers in big law firms," he said gleefully. "It's gonna talk about how much money lawyers make, who the best and worst firms are and the clients they got and the clients they lost and why they were fired. The magazine will describe the corporate culture, the best practices and the worst. Nothing like this has ever been done before."
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