'This Is Not Right'

KOMO 1000 News (Radio) ^ | June 1, 2005 | Kevin Reece

[ActionNewsBill]

'This Is Not Right'

June 1, 2005
 
By Kevin Reece

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.

[fish hawk]

Not to worry. The ACLU is hot on their way to do her justice. Oh, there goes another pig flying by.

[PotatoHeadMick]

Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed the story, my brother regularly dines out on it. I'm not sure if it's relevant in this case as it involves a situation where the security staff obviously messed up. I see from your other reports that you have a bit of knowledge of this business, that's why I respect your opinions on what appears to me to be a useless waste of time which merely gives the terrorists what they so desire, a sense of insecurity and fear among free people.

I'm coming around to the opinion that there should be the right to bear firearms aboard planes. Okay I accept that some reasonable limitations should be placed on the type of ammo and whether the bearer should be allowed to avail of the duty free but I'd sooner trust ordinary armed American citizens to sort out an actual problem on a plane than rely on some federal agency to try and prevent the problem arising in the first place.

[iconoclast]

Working on the first-- not fast enough, IMO.

You can say that again!

[iconoclast]

have it your way. American muslims do not have grandfathers or grandmothers.

This rather red faced Irishman has 17 grandchildren, but no swarthy ones yet!

[CGASMIA68]

"RICHARD REED", MORON

[DugwayDuke]

"I didn't see term "butter knife" in the article. "

Action Bill in post number seven was the first on this thread to use the term 'butter' knife. It does not appear in the article where it is referred to as a 'bread' knife.

[tet68]

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."

Actually, I would hope they were treating "other people"
a hell of a lot worse.

[Howlin]

It was a 5 1/2 inch bread knife with a rounded tip and a serrated edge

I have one of those I ordered from L.L. Bean years ago; it has a wooden handle and it will cut your heart out.

[California Patriot]

This is the sort of thing that explains why Kerry almost won. Bush has played along with political correctness and has permitted a liberal, PC Rat, Norm Mineta, to gum up our national security with liberal myths, like: everyone has an equal chance of being a terrorist.

[Howlin]

[HitmanLV]

"You've committed a felony,"

Works for me.

"And you're considered a terrorist."

Lets not get crazy, boys!

[AndyJackson]

OK, I'll bite. What's your solution?

Your problem is that you are a fascist who cannot see subtle distinctions. A teacher whose student has secreted a butter knife is not an evil person, but your final solution to our terrorist problem - if WE actually have a terrorist problem - is to throw her, throw all of them, in the slammer. Well let me tell you. Whatever side of a problem you are on, I am going to join the other side because your solution is pure unadulterated evil. That is the result of all extremists like yourself who cannot see subtle distinctions between right and wrong. Like all fascists, you cloak yourself in a blanket of morality to perpetrate the gravest injustices known to mankind.

Of course, you are too dumb even to know it, which is the other reason that fasists are so evil. They all think they are twice as smart as they really are.

Frankly, from everything I see OUR terrorist problem is blown way out of proportion. We are dealing effectively with the problem by containing the problem in the Middle East. I see nothing that requires that we trample on the civil rights of Americans, particular nothing of a magnitude to turn our society over to evil little fear mongers like yourself.

[AndyJackson]

I trust the word of this woman more than I trust the word of a TSA employee.well, this high-school dropout of a TSA employee with a badge and a gun said she is guilty of a felony. No need for a trial by a jury of her peers. She is guilty.

[Smokin' Joe]

Marching in lockstep toward a better tomorrow. Just wait until the Dems get ahold of this...

[AndyJackson]

The woman in the article clearly has a political bias and by making these allegations, she's trying to make a political point.

In a thread filled with prize postings yours will surely rate an honorable mention. The woman must be guilty. How dare she protetest her innocence. How dare she. If she were a good citizen she would just follow along to the gas chambers like any good muslim-hating American.

Surely you are not that dumb.

Before posting any more on FR Get out your copy of the Constitution, read it and get back to us. This is a site for Constitutional conservatives.

[AndyJackson]

t's not up to me to provide proof. That's the teacher's job--she made the allegations.

That is not how the system run for We The People works. The system is required to prove her guilt to a jury of her peers, and if I am on the jury, the jury can be sequestered for the rest of its natural life - she will not be found guilty - not because a student concealed a butter knife.

[AndyJackson]

To those who scare peace loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends. - John Ashcroft

I hope it occurs to some people here why 'the greatest of all of America's attorneys general" is no longer at his post. We lower the flag in honor of those who have served the country. We lower constitutional standards for no man, including John Ashcroft, no matter how many morning prayer sessions he holds.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

This doesn't sound right. Recently (about two days ago), I was caught with a pocketknife when going through airport security (I carry one everywhere, and I totally forgot about it). All they did was confiscate it. And they were pleasant about it too. Fortunately for me, the pocketknife had little intrinsic and sentimental value for me.

However, that was the end of the incident as far as the TSA were concerned. No further screening, no nothing.

[Egon]

Your problem is that you are a fascist....Like all fascists...Of course, you are too dumb even to know it, which is the other reason that fasists are so evil....evil little fear mongers like yourself.

Wow. Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?

Drink some coffee, eat some fiber, re-read my posts, and try again.

I don't like zero-tolerance policies-- I think they're stupid. They accomplish two things: they remove the discretion from the front-line people, and they teach people who are trying to circumvent the system that, as soon as they get around the primary security hurdle, the front-line people will be exercising no ingenuity apart from the script they're using, and will likely fail to catch them as a result.

I also don't like it when people blindly say: The system sucks! It won't work! Bush is at fault! The TSA sucks! It should be dismantled! ...without positing a possible solution to the problem.

I also don't like it when people jump on a bandwagon and blindly mis-attribute the problem to another cause. In this case the administration or the beauracracy as opposed to a Liberal P.C. mindset that forces us into these retarded zero-policy programs.

I also dislike hypocrisy. I found it deliciously ironic that a school principal found herself the victim of a zero-tolerance policy when, all across America, it's exactly this type of mindless policy that school administrators are ramming down our kids' throats.

In short, sir, either your definition of facism is wrong, or you didn't take the time to actually discern my position based on the multiple examples of it in this and other threads I've contributed to over the past few years. Either way, your ignorance puts you much farther down the facist road than I.

Have a great day!

[AndyJackson]

More TSA tyranny. Tyranny. O-tay 'Panky!

What do you think the mechanism of tyranny is? It is always some power drunk functionary too stupid to underdstand why he is doing what he is doing.