GUWonder

1. Everyone on the planet behaves in an atypical manner since most all individuals behave in ways not typical of most all other individuals -- especially when it comes to anything beyond biological activities.

2. Supplemental questioning by a government employee on the basis of legally-protected atypical behavior is retaliation.

Legally-protected written expression on a plastic bag was perceived as a threat here. What kind of threat was perceived?

That non-threatening words on a plastic bag were perceived as a threat says a lot about those who perceived it as a threat. What it says about such government employees perceiving it as a threat is rightfully derogatory.

Singling out someone for expression of constitutionally-protected political affiliation is not much different than singling out someone for constitutionally-protected expression of political opinion. It's still singling out someone for political expressions that are constitutionally-protected.


Questioning in the manner done is retaliation, since it was retaliation prompted by the words written on the bag. If the bag had no words on it, the OP would have experienced no such incident at MKE yesterday.

The TSA lacks skills to properly evaluate for criminal activity. What is also clear to me is that the TSA's core competency will never include the evaluation for criminal activity even as that increasingly falls within their purview. Evaluation for criminal activity is best left to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

This talk about the government identification of criminal activity is a side-show. The OP was clearly not involved in criminal activity at MKE, and it's the violation of US law by government employees that is more core to this incident.

GUWonder

Actually, I wasn't susceptible to perceive that this was a suppression of his right to free speech. My skepticism about the incident and a suppression of the right to free speech extended to the OP too.

If the TSA is supposed to go looking for terrorists, they'll miss even more than they are already missing .... all while continuing to waste our money and time.

There were no non-state actor terrorists involved in the OP's MKE incident. Why all this talk about non-state actor terrorists then? We're talking about government employees -- just happens to be TSA and LEOs this time -- acting in a retaliatory manner triggered by an individual's constitutionally-protected political expression. That some would use "security"/"threats" as cover to justify the limiting of political expression should not be shocking, for that's the usual excuse.

Big deal. The TSA complaint will be best dealt with via alternative channels.

cme2c

You are sidestepping the issue, give me a break. He behaved atypical. How many do you think had stuff written on their bags that day? Very few, that was the atypical part.

One may be unable to determine if it is legally-protected without further questioning as is the case here. Again, the TSA officer perceived this statement as a threat, he then determined if the threat was real. Once it was determined that it wasn't he was let go.[/QUOTE]

You keep repeating yourself, ask the TSA officer.


Again, right or wrong the officer's initial impression of his form of expression was that it was possibly a threat. Only upon further questioning would he be able to determine if this was constitutionally protected expression.

Again, I disagree. If when asked he had just come out and said what it was for instead of being evasive by saying "it could mean a lot of things..." he wouldn't have been in that mess. Again, he conveniently left that out of his complaint sent to the TSA.

I agree, TSA employees for the most part do not have the skills to adequately evaluate for criminal activity. I have the same concerns about a good portion of law enforcement and intelligence agencies as well. But I disagree that the OP was "clearly not involved in criminal activity". They had no way of knowing that. They saw someone who acted outside the norm and questioned it.

whirledtraveler

All human behavior makes sense, if you're smart enough.

GUWonder

A lot of mind-reading and jumping to conclusions with little (i.e. almost no) basis going on in the above post.

I've spent a long time in Wisconsin, but the topic is not me. [I've seen some MKE LEOs do some really stupid things over the years, including wasting time on people for no good reason. But that discussion is a side-show.]

Have you surrendered your right to write "___ is an idiot"? I haven't, nor has the OP. That some choose to do so and others don't is a personal preference. The Constitution still affords us the right to write constitutionally-protected political opinions without being harassed by the government for holding such opinions.

GUWonder

Exactly. And in the absence of that, things seem atypical.

windwalker

Oh Lordy, the response to this statement could be wrong in soooo many ways.

Let's just say I think Bart deserve's to be above Herr Idiot Hawley ^

VetPsychWars

My point is that an entitlement attitude is going to get you looked at.

A year after 9/11 I went to Vegas overnight for a Bangles concert with no luggage and only a camera bag. Guess what? I was checked at every airport, no exception.

Did I complain? Not to the people checking me. Wouldn't have done any good. Did I write TSA? Heck no. Why?

Yeah, you can write whatever you want on your plastic bag.

Gargoyle

No. To any position above Hawley, not below. We want Bart to be able to implement real, logical change that will give actual security, not to get stuck banging his head against a wall.

GUWonder

What "entitlement mentality" are you talking about? Who here is demanding that he be exempted from the security check. What the critics of yesterday's government action are saying is that Americans should not be harassed by other Americans for having a legally-protected political opinion and writing it down somewhere. An effective security screening applied without regards to someone's legal political opinion is what I expect. Are you against that?

cme2c

Agreed, but the root of this issue is whether they suppressed his 1st amendment rights.

Again, you keep using retaliatory. Retaliatory (def: of or relating to or having the nature of retribution implies that he was personally offended by the comment and seeking retribution. My guess is the TSA supervisor thinks Hawley is an idiot too and could care less what was actually said. It was the fact that it made the OP stand out.

Superguy

To the new folks showing up here:

Please read the terms of service. Personal attacks aren't permitted and will be reported.

We can debate this intelligently (even if we disagree) without resorting to getting personal.

Super

cme2c

Yes, but unfortunately even psychopaths make "sense" when you think of it that way.

windwalker

Yep writting on a baggie is protected speech, not a criminal activity. No LEO skills needed for this.

They did question him(OP) about it and that should have been the end of it(you know that freedom of speech thing?) but nooooooo, they (MKE-TSA) wanted to usurp a PVC holding device.

If I ever get the chance to fly through MKE, I'll make sure to have another baggie so they can add to their collection

GUWonder

The root of the issue is whether they did suppress or attempted to suppress his First Amendment rights. Whether it was wittingly or unwittingly done is not a root issue.

Standing out due to legally-protected writing on a bag is not a basis for demanding extraordinary "screening". That is, extraordinary "screening" merely on the basis of "standing out" for reasons independent of prohibited objects (and related alarms) is harassment in the same way that an attractive woman being sent for secondary screening on the basis of "standing out" for reasons not related to prohibited objects (and related alarms) is harassment.