Posted on 05/31/2003 9:23:39 PM PDT by ContentiousObjector
Alaska caribou hunter is livid after airport security damages meat U.S. Transportation Security Administration is investigating
By CRAIG MEDRED Anchorage Daily News
(Published: May 31, 2003)
Caribou hunter David Williams arrived home in Houston, Texas, from an Alaska adventure in March to find a nasty surprise from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.
When Williams cut open the strapping tape holding shut the first of two wet-lock boxes full of carefully handled, carefully packaged caribou roasts, steaks and burger, he found inside a mess and a preprinted form from the TSA informing him his airline baggage had been "inspected.''
The inspection, in this case, involved slicing open 45 packages of caribou double-wrapped in freezer paper and marked "roast,'' "backstrap'' and "caribou hamburger.''
Two months later, Williams is still mad about it.
"This baggage inspection was not done in my presence,'' he said. "Therefore I don't know if the meat was stacked on the floor during the 'prohibited item search.' Was any of it swabbed by chemicals for explosive detection? Did any bomb-sniffing dogs lick the caribou meat? Did the TSA inspectors wear new, previously unused rubber latex gloves while handling our tenderloins, or had they just finished handling someone's dirty underwear?
''The value of this caribou meat is about $28 per pound, and we are afraid to eat it. Would you eat it?''
Appeals to the airlines that hauled the meat brought no response, Williams added. They said it's not their fault.
And the Houston hunter, a former Alaska lodge owner, has had trouble getting any response out of the TSA.
TSA Alaska director Ken Jarman on Friday said he had only recently heard about what happened and begun investigating. He is, he added, determined to get to the bottom of the incident. He said he was almost as shocked as Williams at what happened.
"I'm a hunter and fisherman, too,'' Jarman said.
Cutting open packaged game meat or fish is against both TSA policy and procedure, he added.
Baggage inspectors on the X-ray line in Anchorage aren't even allowed to slice packages open if the alarm goes off on a bag there, he said. And in Kenai, where there is no X-ray, baggage checkers hand-inspecting bags are supposed to pass fish and game meat -- not cut it up.
"I feel badly about this,'' Jarman said. "It is under investigation. We are looking into it.''
He also offered assurances to the many anglers now beginning to ship fish south from Alaska that they shouldn't have to worry about the sort of bad experience endured by Williams, who has cooled down somewhat from the day he opened the first meat box in his garage.
"I opened the first box, and that was the first time I knew anything because they had retaped the box,'' he said. "I was irate. I was glad I couldn't get a hold of somebody when I opened that box. I had to cool down before I did anything I was so upset.''
Williams suspects the meat-slashing took place at the Kenai airport, where he first boarded a commercial flight upon returning from a caribou hunt in the Iliamna area. He was participating in a special winter hunt the state Board of Game established several years ago to try to trim the growing Mulchatna caribou herd before it overtaxes its range.
Williams said he was glad to have the opportunity.
Going to Alaska to hunt and fish, he said, "is my favorite thing to do. I don't bowl. I don't play golf. We usually go up in June and again in July. I went up early to get a caribou. I hadn't been up in winter in a long time, and we were out of meat.''
Williams said he plans to come back soon to fish, even though the March trip left him angry. Mainly, he said, he wants the government to get the baggage-inspection system fixed in Alaska. He has, he said, shipped meat and fish through major airports across the country and never had a problem like this.
"I'm trying to make a little stink about it,'' Williams admitted. "If nobody says anything, it just gets worse.
"Something needs to be changed so all of that stuff is scanned and not cut open. I have taken meat through the Houston airport and asked that it be scanned, and it has passed perfectly through a scanner.''
Similar scanners, Jarman said, are now being used for everything in Anchorage. And he's trying to get scanners for Kenai. Inspectors there, at the moment, are still hand-inspecting, but they are not supposed to slice anything open.
Williams wonders about that.
"The government doesn't have any customer service,'' he said.
Jarman, however, assured that the TSA in Alaska will try to act like it does.
Step 1: Substituting in the above sentence full words for contractions before attempting comprehension:
Well, let's start with you are opinion of the impact a bomb ...
Step 2: Attempt comprehension of the written text:
Error, sentence does not compute as phrased ...
If this box made TSA's ETD machine alarm, this guy's lucky he received it at all.
I'm not crazy about this whole TSA thing either, but this may not be entirely their fault.
Oh, and TSA employees are non-union, so far.
I know the rules are not being enforced because this guy's meat, that wan't supposed to be touched, was ruined.
Do you know this person has not/will not be disciplined?
Even if discipline is forthcoming, that helps Mr. Williams how?
The article says they broke the rules.. It is their fault.
Aren't the screeners TSA? If so, they are union.
The TSA is in a no win situation with a lot of people on this forum. Damned if they do. Damned if they don't.
... impact [an exploding] bomb ...No.That would be a major catastrophe.
Wouldn't you agree?
I would classify it as a manageable experience.
Look at the really, minimal effect the bomb that went off had, overall, at the summer games in Atlanta a few years back ...
Would you want to fly with a box, that tested positive for the presence of explosives, that TSA was afraid to physically inspect because there might be expensive meat inside?
Sorry, but if any other passenger's any damn package, computer or bag alarms the ETD machine while I'm in line, the TSA better investigate that alarm.
If some passenger goads the TSA into letting his baggage pass without being thoroughly, physically inspected after it tests positive for the presence of explosives trace and the TSA can't determine it was a false alarm any other way, I'M NOT GETTING ON THE PLANE, AMIGO.
I don't know about you, but I'm worth more than $28 per pound.
I didn't find out about this for a long time and was pretty aggravated that nobody went to an outside agency like the state police or FBI but they didn't.
Rockpile-----Airline free since 1985.
I will not subject myself or my family to such fake safety measures that have no problem shooting me from the sky with an F-16 but worries about an armed, pilot having small arms conceiled upon their person for defense of the cockpit.
Their excuse.....he could kill a lot of people.............not that he couldn't flying the dang plane into the dirt.
Drive when ya can for now but look forward to seeing all those neat rest stops on the interstates being used for safety inspections in the future. Thats the next step for them to take IMO.
Stay Safe !
I'll bet you dollars for donuts that this was the work of some emplyee at the TSA that was determined to teach a lesson to what they perceived as a gun weilding, Bambi killing Right Wingnut.
Nor should it. They work for us! We are the ones that should dock our workers when they don't perform to previously agreed-to standards and practices.
A large bomb exploding among as many as 2,000 men, women and children waiting in line at a crowded checkpoint would be a "manageable experience"?
Not to mention the major terminal damage and gore that would take days or weeks to repair and clean away?
What if it wasn't an isolated incident?
Check eBay.
A 'large' bomb', as you put it, would impose significant 'weight' and volume requirements on it's 'human transport host' and would be more than just a little OBVIOUS as well ... all factors leading to it's discovery (the way MOST ALL of these 'nuts' are discovered before they are able to complete their 'task') ...
No points - not a viable, hypothetical situation.
Try again ...
As I recall, the x-ray machine operators can't see through food that's frozen solid, regardless if it's wrapped in paper, plastic or aluminum foil.
Next time I'm in line at a checkpoint, I'll ask one of the Screeners about it, again. You might do the same. We can compare notes.
I'm a steak lover, too. Butter-basted over white-hot coals. Mmmm, mmmm, nothing beats that.
But the scenario we're discussing is one in which a large bomb explodes in line before any airport employees ever take a look at it or ascertain its weight or even wonder about the bags contents.
A big guy could load one of those wheeled bags with a couple of hundred pounds of explosives and get right in line and then detonate it before he ever tries to pass it though the x-ray machine.
Nobody's scrutinizing the passengers or their baggage up to that point at any of the airports I've been to.
Completely, "viable, hypothetical situation."
Wouldn't you agree?
Untrue. They could use the CAPPS information that WOULD HAVE STOPPED 9/11 to focus on the actual likely terrorists.
Or do you believe it is irrational and/or unreasonable to call the current airport security system and expensive, degrading, ineffective charade?
Yeah, as long as there is a domestic nutter to blame it on. Or, as in the case of AA587, an FAA team player willing to destroy their own credibility by declaring "It wasn't terrorism." before the fires are out.
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