[iwar] [fc:Homeland.Insecurity]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-26 17:00:51


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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Homeland.Insecurity]
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<a href="http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2001-10-25/cover.asp">http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2001-10-25/cover.asp>

Homeland Insecurity

A Sacramento journalist is taken into custody by police and forced to
destroy photos by an over-zealous National Guardsman.  Apparently, the
terrorists are indeed causing instability. 

By R.V. Scheide 

Photo by Larry Dalton
Does this man frighten you? The "suspicious" journalist shows his ticket and
ID at Sacramento International Airport. The photos of LAX were ordered
destroyed. 
The Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 sighed as its wheels kissed the Los
Angeles International Airport tarmac. Flight 1206 out of Sacramento taxied
to the gate, and my fellow passengers and I released our white-knuckle grips
on the foam-covered armrests of our seats. No oneıs throat had been slit. We
hadnıt flown into a skyscraper. Weıd made it, safely, much to our collective
relief. 

It was 5:05 p.m. on Friday, October 12, and we had call to be apprehensive.
The previous day, the FBI had placed the entire nation on high alert, based
on ³credible² information that Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization headed
by Osama bin Laden, was planning reprisal attacks on U.S. soil for the
coming weekend. The bureau urged Americans to report any suspicious
activity. Friday morning, armed troops from the California National Guard
were deployed at Sacramento International Airport.

America, as weıve been told over and over since September 11, is forever
changed. Nowhere is this change more evident than in our approach to
national security. Practically overnight, major metropolitan airports across
the country have been turned into militarized zones crawling with armed
soldiers and police. Their presence is designed to deter terrorists and
provide us with a sense of security, but as I was about to discover, that
security has come at a high price.

Iıd purchased a roundtrip ticket from Sacramento International to LAX to
observe firsthand the unprecedented measures being taken to combat
terrorism. Thereıd been more than a little fear and paranoia in Sacramento
and I expected to find more of the same in Los Angeles.

I didnıt expect to be ordered to destroy photographs by an irate National
Guardsman. I didnıt expect the Los Angeles Police Department to confiscate
and read the notes Iıd taken on my trip. I didnıt expect to be questioned by
the FBI and detained for nearly three hours for no probable cause.

I didnıt expect any of these things, but thatıs what happened. As I followed
my fellow passengers up the jetway and into the LAX terminal, I had no idea
I was stepping onto the War on Terrorismıs first domestic battlefield,
where, as in all wars, truth was about to become the first casualty.

Terminal 1 at LAX is usually jam-packed with people, but there were no
friends or relatives waiting to greet loved ones at the gate. As part of the
heightened security precautions, only ticketed passengers are permitted to
pass through the metal detectors and into the boarding areas. Thatıs why the
area between the security checkpoint and the aircraft is called the ³sterile
zone.² Everyone who has been allowed to enter the sterile zone has been
checked out. Everyone is ³clean.²

I checked the time of my return flight on the monitor at the gate and
discovered that because of a ticketing error, I only had a 15-minute
layover--barely enough time to walk down to the security checkpoint and
back--to catch my return flight. In Sacramento, Iıd taken photographs of
Guard members, armed with M-16s and pistols, taking positions behind the
personnel operating the metal detectors at the security checkpoints. Iıd
seen other passengers take photos. I figured Iıd snap a few pictures of the
LAX security checkpoint and board my return flight. I figured wrong.

As I reached the checkpoint, I saw that the four guardsmen were deployed in
exactly the same fashion as in Sacramento, behind the metal detectors. I
removed the small digital camera from the right breast pocket of my leather
jacket and took several photographs of the armed citizen-soldiers. I had
just turned to head back to the gate when a loud voice boomed at me from the
direction of the checkpoint.

³Hey you! What are you doing?²

A California National Guardsman, a big guy with a buzz-cut dressed
head-to-toe in camouflage army fatigues, was moving rapidly toward me. I
froze as he approached. He came so close it seemed impossible he wasnıt
touching me. 

³Did you take my picture?² he asked angrily. ³Did you take my picture?²

³Iım a journalist, working on a story about airport security,² I told him.

³You canıt take pictures here,² he said.

³Says who?² I asked.

³Says me!² he barked.

He moved next to me, shoulder-to-shoulder, so he could view the cameraıs
display screen. ³You are going to show me the pictures you took, you are
going to delete the pictures you took, and you are going to show me that
they are deleted!² he breathed down my neck.

³This is a public space, I have every right to be here,² I said. ³There are
no signs that say you canıt take pictures here.²

³Either you delete the photos, or Iım taking you to a room, and you can talk
to my superiors. You can talk to the FBI.²

Normally, I would have stood my ground. I would have talked to his
superiors, the FBI. I was 99 percent certain that I had every right to take
photographs of the California National Guard at the LAX checkpoint. Nothing
I had read about the new security precautions, no one I had talked to,
including other Guard members, had advised me otherwise.

But these are anything but normal times, and the slight shadow of doubt that
had entered my mind, weighted by the intimidating behavior of the guardsman,
caused me to make a questionable decision, at least from a journalistic
viewpoint. I showed him the photos I had taken of the checkpoint, he
objected to every one of them, and he ordered me to delete them. So I
deleted them. I looked at the guardsmanıs I.D. badge and wrote his name
down. 

³What are you doing!?² he screamed. By now, his face had visibly reddened.
³Donıt you write my name down!!²

What strange universe had I entered? What was I supposed to do, cross his
name out? Force myself to forget it? The guardsmanıs anger seemed totally
out of proportion to the situation. To put it bluntly, he scared the living
hell out of me. Only the timely intervention of a female Los Angeles Police
Officer smoothed the scene over. She asked to see my I.D., ascertained that
my California Driverıs License was valid, and allowed me to proceed back
into the terminal to catch my flight.

³Hey!² the guardsman yelled as I was departing. ³Whereıs your ticket?²

I pulled it out of my left breast pocket, where it had been in plain view
during the entire encounter, and showed it to him from 10 feet away.

³Right here,² I said.

He didnıt ask to look at it more closely, to see if it was actually a valid
ticket, so I left, beaten (Iıd been forced to delete my photographs) but not
broken--I was still going to catch my flight home.

Or so I thought. I reached the gate at the absolute last second and was
permitted to board the plane. The flight was nearly full, and I took one of
only two empty seats in the back. Several passengers chuckled at my hurried,
flustered appearance. I began to furiously scribble in my reporterıs
notebook, trying to capture all the details of what had just transpired
before they faded from memory. The plane was on the verge of pulling out of
the gate when an LAX Southwest Airlines employee--not a member of the
planeıs crew--materialized in front of me.

³Sir, Iım going to have to ask you to exit the aircraft,² he said.

Iıd been on board no longer than three minutes. As I limply followed the
Southwest employee out of the plane and up the jetway, I knew who would be
waiting on the other side of the door.

Two LAPD police officers greeted me at the gate. The California National
Guardsman was standing behind them. Officer Brennan, the same policewoman
who had just checked my I.D., now informed me that passengers from both of
my flights, the one into LAX and the one I had just been removed from, had
complained about my ³suspicious behavior.²

³Who complained?² I asked her.

³I canıt tell you that, sir,² she said.

³What suspicious behavior?² I asked.

³They said you were going through overhead compartments and writing things
down.² 

³I have one carry-on bag,² I said, indicating my backpack. ³I placed it
under the seat in front of me on both flights. I didnıt even touch an
overhead compartment. And since when is writing in a notebook considered
suspicious activity?²

³Weıre going to have to detain you, sir.²

The guardsman smirked behind her.

Photo by Larry Dalton
Like the guardsmen he supervises, Capt. Jeff Wurm received two days of
training before being assigned to the Sacramento airport.
³You both know Iım a journalist,² I said.

³Yeah, you said you were working on a story about airport security,² the
guardsman said. ³What do you want to do, give away our security positions to
the enemy?² I stared at him incredulously as the second LAPD officer,
Ramirez, confiscated my notebook.

³Do you have press credentials?² he asked.

Uh-oh. Iım a freelance writer. I donıt even carry a business card, just my
California Driverıs License, my Social Security card, and a bunch of credit
cards. For all they knew, I was Joe Q. Ticketed Passenger walking around the
terminal taking notes and photographs, which, I was still 99 percent
certain, was completely within my rights. ³I donıt need press credentials to
be in an airport,² I declared. ³Give me back my notebook.²

Instead, Ramirez passed the notebook to Brennan, who leafed through it with
the guardsman while Ramirez sternly advised me to ³shut up² and ³stop asking
questions.² My handwriting is worse than a doctorıs, and Brennan thought Iıd
misspelled her name. She guffawed and elbowed the guardsman. He got an even
bigger kick out of my initial description of him as ³unarmed.² I hadnıt
noted his gun until later.

³You got that wrong,² he said, smugly patting the pistol strapped to his
side. 

³Turn the page,² I said curtly.

My acquiescence was giving way to anger. I had followed the guardsmanıs
direct order to delete the photographs, against my better judgment. That
should have placated him, in my opinion. I couldnıt help feeling that the
guardsman and the LAPD were now harassing me for daring to put up any verbal
resistance at all. Brennanıs explanation that I had been detained because
unnamed persons had observed me acting suspiciously on both flights didnıt
wash. ³Who are these witnesses?² I kept asking. ³What did I do?² She didnıt
have to answer my questions, she said, because of ³operational security,²
and ³new FAA regulations.² Then she took my ballpoint pen, ³because it could
be used as a weapon.²

She wasnıt being ironic. In fact, the idea that a pen could literally be
used as a weapon had occurred to me before boarding Flight 1206. A month
ago, such thoughts would have been considered unusual. Now, they constitute
the mindset of the average American air traveler. Iıd discovered as much
earlier that day at Sacramento International.

I arrived at the airport at 11 a.m., just as several local TV crews were
setting up their remote units in front of Terminal A. The California
National Guard had deployed earlier in the morning, and it was big news.
Reporters, photographers and TV camera operators were gathered on the
terminalıs second level, observing ticketed passengers as they moved through
the metal detectors. Occasionally, a guardsman shouldering an M-16 could be
glimpsed behind the checkpoint, but otherwise, it was a dull photo
opportunity. The only way to pass through the checkpoint and into the
sterile zone, where the Guard was actually posted, was to buy a ticket.

It took 25 minutes to pass through the line at the Southwest Airlines
counter. The customers waiting in line were clearly more jittery than usual;
eye contact and conversations between strangers were rare; furtive, nervous
glances were the norm. A healthcare executive from Kansas City who said heıd
flown seven times since September 11 told me about two women heıd seen
detained for periods of time in two separate airports. Theyıd been very
upset, he said, but ³weıre just going to have to get used to it.²

After purchasing the ticket, I waited in line at the security checkpoint,
removing the laptop computer out of my backpack as instructed by a makeshift
sign in the staging area. I also removed my camera and my tape recorder,
just in case. The line ahead of me stalled for several minutes; passengers
grumbled. When it was my turn, I placed my devices, along with the backpack,
on the conveyor belt and passed through the checkpoint without setting off
any alarms. I was in the sterile zone.

I proceeded to photograph the half-dozen or so guardsmen at the Sacramento
checkpoint from approximately 30 feet away. I took several shots, then
interviewed California Air National Guard Captain Jeff Wurm, the officer in
charge of the detail. In civilian life, Wurm is a computer programmer and
analyst. Now heıs commanding a squad on the frontlines of the War on Terror.
Like all National Guardsmen currently patrolling the nationıs airports, he
and the members of his unit had received two days FAA airport security
training before being deployed.

³What weıre here for is security and deterrence,² Wurm said. Translation:
The Guard were there to be seen, and the citizen-soldiers at Sacramento
didnıt flinch when an occasional passerby snapped a photograph of the newly
militarized checkpoint. Although a few people gaped at the camouflaged men
carrying automatic weaponry in the airport, most thanked the Guard for being
there. 

During the half-hour I observed the checkpoint, I saw no obvious profiling
of passengers going through. The California National Guard is supervising
the process; all the screening at the checkpoints is still conducted by
security personnel subcontracted by the airlines. A few passengers
complained about being subjected to extra searching, usually because metal
objects they didnıt know they had been carrying had set off the metal
detector. ³Itıs like down at the jail,² said one man whose steel-shanked
boots had set off the buzzer. He was allowed to continue after removing his
boots and being thoroughly ³wanded² with a hand-held metal detector. I was
interviewing a man who had forgotten he was carrying a Buck knife when two
Sacramento sheriffıs deputies, J. Coe and Doug Diamond, approached me. A
passenger had reported a suspicious-looking man in a leather jacket hanging
around the checkpoint. I explained that I was on assignment for the
Sacramento News &amp; Review.

³Oh, I like that paper,² said Deputy Coe.

I had showed them my driverıs license, and they had allowed me to continue
doing what I was doing.

Fast-forward to LAX three hours later. As up to 10 LAPD officers guarded me
near the Southwest Airlines Gate 12, I wondered what had gone wrong. No one
could tell me what Iıd done, and no one seemed to know what to do with me.
They were waiting for some other authority, the FAA or the FBI, they werenıt
sure, to show up. Iıd been standing since the ordeal had begun; I took off
my backpack and sat down on the floor behind the check-in counter in a yoga
position as the police continued to stand around. I closed my eyes and began
taking deep breaths. When I opened my eyes, a male passenger in the boarding
area was staring at me like I was the dog-faced boy at the circus.

³Iım a journalist!² I yelled. His brow furrowed in concern, then he moved
away. Other people in the boarding area were regarding me nervously. An LAPD
sergeant, a burly Hispanic man, arrived. I stood up.

³You understand sir, this is a national security measure, and weıre going to
have to check with the FAA to clear it,² he said. ³You know they might not
let you back on the airplane. You make people nervous.²

³How do I make people nervous?² I asked.

³By doing whatever youıre doing.²

³What am I doing?² 

³I donıt know, but whatever it is, youıre going to stop doing it!²

³OK,² I said. ³But what am I doing?² I wasnıt getting it. He began poking
his index finger at me to emphasize the point.

³I donıt know what youıre doing, but youıre going to stop doing it!²

I re-assumed my yoga position. Higher-ranking LAPD officers began arriving.
Eventually, someone figured out that holding me prisoner right next to the
entrance of the jetway was really making some of the passengers nervous. I
was moved to an empty row of seats facing the window. My return flight was
long-gone; the boarding area was beginning to fill up for the next flight. A
couple of Arab-looking men in their 20s attempted to sit in the seats next
to me. 

³Can we sit here?² one of them asked a police officer. The cop looked at me.
He looked at them. He looked back at me. A dim light flickered in his eyes,
then went out. ³No, you canıt,² he said, and they moved off.

I had been detained for more than an hour by the time Lieutenant Joseph
Peyton, the LAPD duty incident commander, arrived. I complained that my
notebook had been taken, and Peyton and another officer immediately returned
it to me. 

³Can I take notes now?² I asked Ramirez.

He didnıt say yes, but the rueful look on his face didnıt say no. I grabbed
another pen out of my backpack. I was a journalist again.

Peyton explained that the officers at the scene were part of an additional
detail that had been assigned to boost security at the LAPDıs airport
substation after September 11. He apologized for my detainment, and said I
would be free to go--as soon as I was cleared by the FBI. He admitted that
the War on Terror was making everybody a little nervous. A few days
previously, heıd watched two F-16 fighters escort a Canadian jumbo jet all
the way into LAX. A passenger had set off a smoke detector in the jetıs
restroom and become irate after a stewardess had reported him. Peyton, who
normally works LAPDıs West Traffic division, was soft-spoken and reassuring,
and the tension in the air dissipated somewhat. Then Angela Karp arrived on
the scene. 

Karp, the Southwest Airlines station manager for LAX, held what appeared to
be a plane ticket. Instead, it was a credit receipt refunding my return fare
to Sacramento. She said several passengers had complained that my behavior
had made them nervous and because of that, Southwest Airlines was barring me
from all flights out of LAX for the remainder of the evening.

³Can you tell me who said I made them nervous?² I asked.

³No sir, I cannot do that.²

³Can you tell me what my alleged behavior was?²

³No sir, I cannot do that.²

It was an issue of national security and the safety of the airlineıs
passengers. As a private business, Southwest had the right to refuse service
to anyone, she said, and they were giving me the boot. She turned on her
heel and was gone. 

Photo by Larry Dalton
The National Guardıs mission at Sacramento International? To be seen.
³What is it?² I asked Peyton. ³My black leather jacket?²

³I hope not,² he said. ³I have a black leather jacket.²

By the time the two plainclothes FBI agents arrived, I had been detained by
the LAPD for nearly two hours. One agent was a husky guy in a khaki green
Hawaiian shirt. The other agent, Anthony Gordon, had the grizzled, wizened
demeanor of character actor Harry Dean Stanton. It didnıt take him long to
evaluate the situation. Neither the guardsman nor the LAPD had the name of
the passenger(s) who had complained about me, so no one could say if I had
actually done anything suspicious. After questioning the guardsman and the
LAPD, Gordon sat down beside me and quietly explained that the entire nation
was on high alert. Everyoneıs nerves were frayed. Taking the photographs of
the checkpoint was completely legal. But the guardsman had served on the
California National Guardıs Counter-Drug Task Force, and was worried that
somehow drug dealers might recognize his photograph if it appeared in the
paper. 

³He does counter-drug work, thatıs why he freaked on you,² Gordon said.

If the explanation was supposed to soothe, it didnıt. Iıd been ordered to
delete photographs, had my notebook confiscated and read by the police, and
detained for three hours with no probable cause--all because the California
National Guard had assigned a camera-shy counter-drug person to security
duty at the airport? What the hell was he doing there? Gordon just shrugged.
Case closed. I was free to go home.

But how? I had been banned from Southwest and the other airline in the
terminal didnıt have any Sacramento flights. I wondered if I had been
blackballed off all of the airlines as I trudged the quarter-mile to
Terminal 7, where United Airlines, the only other carrier with a flight to
Sacramento that night, was located. I booked a flight on the 10:05 shuttle,
waited an hour in line at the security checkpoint and returned to Sacramento
without further incident.

The following days were filled with conflicting thoughts and emotions. Iıd
gone to the domestic frontlines of the War on Terrorism to observe the new
security apparatus in action, and the new security apparatus had terminated
my observation without cause. In my opinion, ³truth² is a word that
journalists bandy about too loosely, but there was no denying that my
ability to get at the truth in this case had been severely injured. It
seemed surreal, unbelievable, and possibly illegal. I also felt violated.

At the same time, when a half-dozen different cops tell you youıve done
something wrong for two hours straight, thereıs a tendency to start
believing them, even if you havenıt done anything. That shadow of a doubt
regarding my rights as a citizen and a journalist in the so-called sterile
zone kept telling me that considering the ³war² was on, I should have known
better, that I deserved to have my photographs erased, my notebook
confiscated. The enormous pressure to ³stand united² with the country in the
War on Terrorism added to my feelings of guilt. But how could I stand united
when the very freedoms we were supposedly defending from the terrorists were
being stripped away before my eyes--not by terrorists, but by fellow
Americans? 

The answer was, I couldnıt. So I tried to find out what had really gone
wrong at LAX. Lieutenant Colonel Terry Knight, public information officer
for the California National Guard, was stunned when I informed him a
guardsman had ordered me to erase photographs. ³That doesnıt make sense,²
Knight said via telephone from Washington, D.C. ³Thatıs wrong.² But when
told that the guardsman worked in counter-drug operations, Knight had an
epiphany. ³Itıs understandable why he didnıt want his picture taken.²

³Should someone who doesnıt want their picture taken be working guard duty
in such a public area?² I asked.

³Theyıre fine for that duty ...² he began. Then he stopped and referred me
to Sergeant Joe Barker, acting public information officer for the
Counter-Drug Task Force, for further comment.

³I know this is real X-Files-sounding stuff, but you canıt print that
gentlemanıs name,² Barker said when reached at his Sacramento office. When
asked what law prevented the SN&amp;R from doing so, he backed off. ³Thereıs
nothing I can do to stop you from publishing his name and what he does, but
it would definitely endanger his life.²

The Guard provides ancillary support to federal, state and local drug
enforcement agencies working in California, particularly near the Mexican
border area and in marijuana eradication programs. Because of ³operational
security,² Barker wouldnıt explain what the guardsmanıs counter-drug duties
were or how publishing his name or photograph might endanger his life, but
the guardsman probably wasnıt making undercover buys. Barker was a little
more specific when asked where the guardsman had gotten the idea he could
force me to erase my film.

³He was following his FAA training,² Barker said, adding that details of the
two-day FAA training course were classified because of ³operational
security.² 

The training may be classified, but according to the FAA, the classes donıt
instruct guardsmen to confiscate the film or notebooks of anyone, including
journalists. 

³No, heıs totally wrong,² said FAA spokesman Mike Ferguson. ³You didnıt do
anything illegal there.² The only photography restrictions in the sterile
zone concern the privacy of passengers, not security personnel. Close-up
photos of the X-ray monitors and of people having their luggage searched by
hand are not permitted. Otherwise, Ferguson said, ³You can shoot whatever
you damn want.² By ³you,² he meant anyone--journalist or private citizen.

Several days later, Barker reversed course. ³Itıs perfectly crystal clear
that you canıt force someone to erase pictures that have already been
taken,² he said, adding that heıd passed this information on to guardsmen at
a recent FAA training session in San Francisco. ³I can personally say that
the people I gave the briefing to have been instructed to not erase
photographs,² he said.

Thereıs a reason members of the Guardıs Counter-Drug Task Force were
assigned to LAX, according to Nancy Castle, the airportıs director of public
relations. The task force has some of the Guardıs ³more seasoned members,
the ones used to dealing with the public.² When told that the guardsman was
afraid his cover might be blown, she pointed out that more than 100 local
media outlets had recently been invited to interview, photograph and film
the Guard during a visit by Governor Gray Davis, who was touting LAXıs new
security precautions. No guardsman that she was aware of had asked that his
picture not be taken.

Castle said there are no signs prohibiting photography posted in the sterile
areas of LAX and that she has never heard of anyone having their film
confiscated at the airport.

According to Terry Francke, legal counsel for the California First Amendment
Coalition, no government agency has such authority. ³Thereıs no law that
permits anyone to summarily confiscate a camera or film or order the
destruction of that film,² Francke said.

While Barker acknowledged that the guardsman was wrong to force the deletion
of the photographs, he knew of no pending disciplinary action in the case.
³If there was, Iım not sure we would release it,² he said.

Francke also said that the Guard and the LAPD may have violated a California
statute designed to protect the ³unpublished information² of journalists.
The law, California Penal Code § 1524, prohibits judges from issuing search
warrants for ³notes, outtakes, photographs, tapes and other data of whatever
sort not itself disseminated to the public through a medium of
communication.² 

³Clearly, they had no right to do what they did,² Francke said. ³Under
California Law, journalists are free from search and seizure directed at
unpublished information.² He added that the guardsman and the LAPD officers
also failed to comply with federal law, which states that the U.S. Attorney
must exhaust all other means (such as issuing a subpoena) to obtain
unpublished material before allowing a law enforcement agency to seize it
without a warrant. 

While now might not seem like the ideal time to pursue such a case, Francke
said that in the long haul, it might be in the publicıs best interest.
³People caught up in war fervor and the opportunity to express solidarity
with national security are probably going to see this story as a sign of
reassurance--until they get caught with a camera in their bag or staring at
a plainclothes policeman too long,² Francke said.

³If, as we all hope, this particular hijacking threat recedes and nerves
return closer to normal, I do think people will maybe turn their minds back
on and acquire some common sense.² 

------------------
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