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Wed. Jun 08, 2005

New Reasons for Terror

As I’ve mentioned recently, our government’s efforts at controlling the movement of people at our airports and borders has become a sad farce from which we can best draw a morbid chuckle (when we can suppress the howls of disgust), but little in the way of actual security.

We have a host of new examples.

On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood.

U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States.

CNN: “Suspect in killings had chain saw at U.S. border”

Surprise! It turns out he’d murdered and decapitated an elderly couple in New Brunswick. Now, go look at the man’s picture, and if that guy showed up in front of you with a bloody chainsaw, looking like he was dressed for Psycho Halloween, what would you do? Let him in?

Meanwhile, our Fine Senators in DC moved a bill out of committee that would expand the Patriot Act to allow the FBI to get administrative subpoenas without review by a judge or grand jury. It wasn’t a party line vote, either, as several Democrats decried this reduction of rights … yet voted for it nonetheless: “‘This bill must be amended on the floor to protect national security while protecting Constitutional rights,’ said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. Ranking Democrat Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., supported the bill overall but said he would push for limits that would allow such administrative subpoenas ‘only if immediacy dictates.’”

Now you may be thinking, hey, what are the odds I’ll ever be affected personally by this expansion of the Patriot Act? After all, you’ve got nothing to hide …. right, comrade? Then you have nothing to fear.

Except maybe simple forgetfulness.

Forgetfulness isn’t a crime, but these days it could get you fined and your name placed on a government security database.

The fines are being handed out at airports across the country to travelers caught trying to pass through security with banned items in their carry-on baggage. Fines can range as high as $10,000 and a criminal referral, according to the penalty guidelines established by the Transportation Security Administration.

Last year the TSA collected $1 million in fines from just over seven million banned items it collected. The money goes into the U.S. Treasury’s general fund. The average fine was $208 with just under 150 cases seeing fines of $1,000 or more, according to TSA figures.

And in fact, typically, with the more common items, such as small Swiss Army knives or sewing scissors, TSA won’t hand out a fine, “but we do have to look at cases where there are aggravating circumstances and typically that will influence the fee amount,” Von Walter said.

In other words, if you shoot off your mouth about being caught trying to take a banned item through airport security, be prepared to pay. It’s common sense, said Von Walter, and not unlike a situation in which you’ve been stopped for a traffic violation. “Be pleasant and apologetic and respectful and it could potentially impact your situation,” she said, meaning the difference between a hefty fine and a stern warning.

“It would be safe to assume that in some cases you may be placed on a ‘selectee list,’” said a TSA source with knowledge of the process. Such lists fall short of the infamous “no fly” list, which have erroneously ensnared politicians, celebrities and other innocent travelers. But this selectee list means you’re more likely to have your ticket flagged, and that means “you would go through additional screening at airport security checkpoints,” the TSA source said.

MSNBC: “Forgetfulness can cost you at airports”

Here’s how I translate that: should you be forgetful about some minor utensil, you’d better be “pleasant and apologetic and respectful” or they may place you on a list that will make your future travels more miserable.

Your government, using employees paid by you, is doing their best to put the airline industry into the grave. Because they think your grandmother might try to hijack a plane with a bread knife.

Cecilia Beaman is a 57-year-old grandmother, a principal at Pacific Middle School in Des Moines, and as of Sunday is also a suspected terrorist.

This past weekend she and several other chaperones took 37 middle school students to a Heritage Festival band competition in California. The trip included two days at Disneyland.

During the stay she made sandwiches for the kids and was careful to pack the knives she used to prepare those sandwiches in her checked luggage. She says she even alerted security screeners that the knives were in her checked bags and they told her that was OK.

But Beaman says she couldn’t find a third knife. It was a 5 1/2 inch bread knife with a rounded tip and a serrated edge. She thought she might have lost or misplaced it during the trip.

On the trip home, screeners with the Transportation Security Administration at Los Angeles International Airport found it deep in the outside pocket of a carry-on cooler. Beaman apologized and told them it was a mistake.

“You’ve committed a felony,” Beaman says a security screener announced. “And you’re considered a terrorist.”

Beaman says she was told her name would go on a terrorist watch-list and that she would have to pay a $500 fine.

“I’m a 57-year-old woman who is taking care of 37 kids,” she told them. “I’m not gonna commit a terrorist act.” Beaman says they took information from her Washington drivers license and confiscated and photographed the knife according to standard operating procedure.

She says screeners refused to give her paperwork or documentation of her violation, documentation of the pending fine, or a copy of the photograph of the knife.

“They said ‘no’ and they said it’s a national security issue. And I said what about my constitutional rights? And they said ‘not at this point … you don’t have any’.”

KOMO: “This is not right”

A grandmother with a bread knife (chaperoning 3 dozen kids) is a terrorist, a felon, and has no constitution rights, despite her US citizenship. Okey, dokey. Well, surely we can all tremble in the waiting line a little less knowing that the rules will be applied consistently wherever we travel. Right?

As for who gets a fine, who gets a warning and who gets to walk, Davis said it can vary from person to person and airport to airport.

“Keep in mind, too, there is a value to inconsistency, if you will, in that it keeps the bad guys guessing,” Davis said.

Airport Director Kevin Dillon said that inconsistency is passengers’ most common complaint.

“There are many frequent fliers that say. ‘Hey, when I traveled through XYZ airport, I don’t have to take my shoes off, but it’s being mandated at Manchester Airport. Why?’” Dillon said.

According to Davis, it often comes down to how each airport security director interprets TSA guidelines. Taking off shoes, for example, isn’t a national requirement, but security directors and even individual screeners can demand it.

Former TSA employee James Dennehy said that’s a big problem. “There are 158 federal security directors, and that leads to 158 different interpretations of what the potential fine in a similar circumstance could be,” Dennehy said.

Because TSA hasn’t hammered down its regulations, Dennehy likens the inconsistencies to traffic violations. “It would be similar to receiving a DWI in Plymouth and being slapped on the wrist and told not to do it again and going to jail in Manchester,” he said.

WDSU: “Air Travelers Face Hefty Fines For Banned Items”

I’m lucky, in that I don’t do anything that requires air travel. Because I don’t respond to institutional insanity and illogic by being “pleasant and apologetic and respectful,” and would therefore likely be on every watch list from here to Hawaii. Others, like Christopher Hitchens, aren’t so lucky. And are even more disgusted than I.

The last time I was at Dulles Airport, the line for security began at the entrance to the terminal and wound itself in several rope-line convolutions, like a clogged intestine, for about 40 minutes. I had allowed the usual two hours and was checking no luggage, but this and other banana-republic conditions almost made me miss my plane. Nor was it a “peak time.” In any case, a passenger cannot know what a “peak time” will be. Only the TSA knows how many people are booked on how many flights at a given hour and can make provision of enough machines and personnel. Or not, as the case may be.

The time elapsed between Sept. 11, 2001, and today’s writing (1,364 days) is only slightly less than the time between Pearl Harbor and the unconditional surrender of Japan (1,365 days). And airport security is still a silly farce that subjects the law-abiding to collective punishment while presenting almost no deterrent to a determined suicide-killer.

What we are looking at, then, is a hugely costly and oppressive system that is designed to maintain the illusion of safety and the delusion that the state is protecting its citizens [...] What amazes me is the willingness of Americans to submit to confiscation at the point of search. Every day, people are relieved of private property in broad daylight, with the sole net result that they wouldn’t have even a nail file with which to protect themselves if (or rather when) the next hijacking occurs.

Christopher Hitchens: “Terminal Futility”

I don’t know why Americans submit to this treatment either. It has moved beyond the point of bureaucratic silliness to active antagonism towards the very citizens it claims it is trying to protect.

And when I said it is going to put the airline industry into the grave, I discounted the likely outcome in such a circumstance: nationalizing the airlines. Then you’d get to pay the tab for the people administering the harassment and delays prior to flight, as well as help soak up the airline’s losses caused by such harassment and delays.

Do you feel protected … or fleeced?