Posted on 06/19/2007 8:23:37 PM PDT by FreedomCalls
DES MOINES - 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 is not right," she told us. It's not right!"
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 News did reach a spokesperson with the Transportation Security Administration for comment. They said they did not have record of Beaman's confrontation but did admit that TSA screeners are, by design, becoming more strict.
Despite continued warnings to passengers, TSA screeners say travelers continue to bring banned items in their carry-on luggage. Knives, guns, and other weapons are found and confiscated daily.
Fines issued for knives and other sharp objects range from $250 to $1,500. Fines issued for firearms discovered in carry-on luggage range from $1,500 to $7,500.
The TSA web site also indicates firearms violations will be referred for potential criminal prosecution. The same site does not propose the same criminal referral for knives like the one Cecilia Beaman was carrying.
"This is not the way my country should be treating me," she said. My concern is that if that's the way they're treating American citizens I would hate to think how they're treating other people. It's crazy."
The TSA reminds travelers that is has the authority to impose civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation.
"TSA needs the help of the traveling public in reducing the number of prohibited items brought to airport screening checkpoints," reads the Sanction Guidelines section of the TSA web site. "TSA recognizes that most passengers who carry prohibited items do so without any ill intent. TSA does not impose fines on the vast number of passengers who inadvertently carry prohibited items. Dealing with any prohibited item, however, adds time to the screening process both for the traveler who brought the item and for other travelers as well."
You can find a complete list of banned items, range of fines levied for violations, and information on how to plead your case with the TSA at www.tsa.gov.
What does that have to do with any of it?
Light brown hair, blue eyes, and yes on the latter. None of that has to do with her being searched.
But according to a poster here, I suck as a mother because I allow my kid to get searched. Omgosh. I give up.
I still can’t believe you went there. I can’t believe you insinuated this from what I posted. I can’t believe you insinuated this at all.
I’m a complete idiot when it comes to message boards.
I agree and understand it is a small price to pay, yet, on the other hand I want it to be a fair price. When they are taking granny’s butter knife and overlooking the obvious, the price is too high. Why must we insist on pretending we don’t know things we know in this PC bassackwards society? What some would call racial profiling, I would simply call applying a modicum of common sense. I felt more secure just after 911 when there were m-16’s and soldiers around. I think the TSA, Homeland Security and Chertoff are all jokes and I sometimes wonder how many of them are legal citizens, as we have all seen the illegals in there, saw them terminated at different locations and times. Homeland Security only ever needed to be a clearing house for information not this inflated bureaucracy it has become.
I'm sorry -- "war of words"? You said the TSA were "incredibly polite and gentle" then gave a story about how one was "belligerent" and "snatched a lighter out of your hand as if it were a weapon" and told you "not to give him any attitude" and me pointing out the contradictory nature of those statements is a "war of words"? Huh? I see now that you have elaborated on it a bit and you are saying that you were relating the one and only time they were not nice, but I can't see what you think, only what you write, and what you wrote was contradictory.
That's very well said.
Now you are getting off into la-la land. Who said that? Who even implied that? If your daughter is getting pulled aside and felt up by security goons, then the problem is with the goons and the people in Washington who empower them and establish the policies and procedures under which they operate. What we are here for is all spelled out right there at the top of the front page:
Free Republic is the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America.The TSA has had too much government largesse handed to it and some of its agents are corrupt (85 felons fired from TSA), and rolling back intrusive searches and mindless applications of useless rules is a long-time staple of conservativism. And don't lose sight of the next sentences either:
And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!
As to the story, everybody knows you can't bring knives on board. If every time someone is CAUGHT doing so they get to argue that "it was a mistake", then the screening is meaningless. We have to be able to punish people objectively for objectively breaking the rules.
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.
The Cooler was a "carry-on", which means it was a SMALL cooler. How "deep" could the outside pocket be? 4 inches? 6 inches? Maybe a full 10 inches "deep"?
It would have taken her a minute to empty the entire contents of the cooler, and repack it. EVERY person should completely empty their carry-on luggage RIGHT before they leave for their flight, and re-pack it carefully, to ensure there's nothing hiding in the bags that would get you in trouble.
Club Gitmo Members are treated better than that woman. If I was carrying disposable razors, would they consider me a terrorist?
Are you seriously that naïve?
I haven’t heard from her yet, but I’d be willing to bet good money that she got searched while a stinky sweaty arabic mumbling male got waved through.
Not because you allow it, (like you have a choice!) but because you seem to think it's a fine idea for TSA agents to target her for a feel up every time they can.
Yup. That's what I do, more or less. Learned my lesson years ago when security (pre-TSA) found a speedloader for my .357 in my bag. It was empty, and I had shipped the gun and ammo ahead of me... but the speedloader was down in a pocket I hadn't checked. It caused... some ruckus. :-)
My daughter arrived OK. Four separate flights. Don’t know the details of security, etc., yet.
If you get a green light you simply board.
If you get a red light, expect delays.
A simple random number generator, set the sample percentage to reflect the threat level, and no one has any certainty that they can game the profiling system.
In contrast, in 2003 I was in a Mid-East airport and kept tripping the metal detector.
After emptying my pockets three times, one of the guards tapped my hip with his baton.
Lo and behold I still had my Leatherman on me!
Instead of detaining me, he instructed me to run it back out to my car in the parking lot which I did and then resumed my flight.
Agreed. More Big Government, courtesy of George W. Bush.
You take a lot more crap from those TSA bottom feeders than I would.
Indeed. The cumulative effect of the nonsense that passes for "security" at airports is almost incalculable. How much lost productivity does it represent? I really couldn't even guess. If you want to really screw something up beyond all reason, all you have to do is involve the government in it.
Really, the only thing government is actually good at is breaking things and killing people.
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