Big Brother or Minority Report?

[Laura's Babies]

I work with a guy that is 100% pure Cajun so he talks "different" and is dark complected with wirey bushy hair. Things always seem to happen to him no matter where he goes. Crew change day, we all stay in touch with each other as we are traveing to the boat and this one trip, he was flying up to the boat. I didn't get my usual call from him on my way and when I picked up my Captain, he asked if I had heard from the guy and I told him I hadn't. He hadn't either. We get to the boat and STILL have not heard from him and we were worried! Not even the office had heard anything from him. This was so unusual...

He finally gets to the boat (late evening) and has a story to tell. He had a carry on bag and it set off an alarm at the airport so they pulled him out of the line. He had no idea how serious the situation was until some men with guns showed up. They took his cell phone away from him and he was not allowed to make any calls to anybody and he was detained while they searched and researched his bag but they couldn't find anything in the bag although it kept setting off an alarm. They detained and questioned him for hours before they finally released him and allowed him to continue his trip. However, they took his bag away from him and put that on a different plane. When he got to his final destination, security was there waiting for him to escort him and watch him while he waited for his bag to arrive on a later flight.

All we could figure was he had a bottle of cheap cologne and it cracked and leaked into his bag. It was enough to set off the alarms. It was a nice bag so he tied it to the railing outside the wheelhouse and left it there for the whole 28 day trip during all kinds of weather. When time came to get off, he had to fly back home and was scared to death to take that bag on the plane again so he threw it away.

When he got home, he had a official letter telling him he was now on the watch list.

HOWEVER, we are transportation workers and are now required to have TWIC cards issued by the government where they have to do background checks, fingerprints and really check you out and he has his TWIC card now. I can figure out how he can be on the terriost watch list and have passed the background check to get a TWIC card.

[phesina]

Wow.. Laura..

[DJFyrewolf36]

That poor guy Laura! Further proof that racial profiling is not an efficient way of handling threats...while they were spending hours questioning a guy who had nothing to do with terrorists, how many ACTUAL terrorists could have caused trouble?

I would really laugh if the next attack was done by a stereotypical white guy. Not that I am condoning harming people in any way, it would just turn all this racial profiling garbage on its ear.

Look at Oklahoma City, were those guys "typical" terrorists?

[smokey the elder]

Does anyone remember Richard Reid? Or John Lynch? Both WHITE guys. 'nuff said.

I have an odd post 9/11 story I heard. In Carmel, NY there are some mountains, and two Middle Eastern fellows had been hiking from the previous weekend, out of touch with the outside world. They showed up in a diner on Wednesday the 12th, all grubby, with backpacks (naturally.) Needless to say, people were a little concerned. Fortunately, they had had an alibi from a ranger who had been in the hilly areas during that time. Poor fellas.

[Laura's Babies]

Another time I was flying to the boat... Rie had something to do that day so she had to take me to the airport about 3 hours early and drop me off.. BECAUSE I arrived so early, it called attention to me. They escorted me everywhere I went, searched my carry on and once I was aboard the plane and it was ready to take off, they announced my name over the airplane speaker and said if I was there to please raise my hand... I did, the attendant came, looked at my ticket again and asked for a ID. They would not load my luggage until they were sure I was on the plane!

So arriving early sets off a security alarm, and also, the company books these flights on short notice because we never know where the boats will be on crew change day... another alarm, last minute booking..

White female, 50 to 60 years old, blond hair, blue eyes. I am wondering if our TWICK cards will prevent this now when we have to fly?

[smokey the elder]

Wow! Maybe they thought you had smuggled some pre-owned kitty litter aboard. That's the pits, though, what they put you though. It's too bad you didn't have some kind of proof why you had to be there early so they'd get off your back. I wonder if someone else might slip through when they pull stunts like that.