TSA ediorializing on luggage contents

DoreneFC at aol.com DoreneFC at aol.com
Sat Mar 15 13:20:27 PST 2003


Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific

Suitcase surprise: Rebuke

written on inspection notice

By Susan Gilmore

Seattle Times staff reporter

Seth Goldberg says that

when he opened his

suitcase in San Diego after

a flight from Seattle this

month, the two "No Iraq

War" signs he'd picked up at

the Pike Place Market were

still nestled among his

clothes.

But there was a third sign,

he said, that shocked him.

Tucked in his luggage was a

card from the Transportation Security Administration

notifying him that his bags had been opened and

inspected at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Handwritten on the side of the card was a note,

"Don't appreciate your anti-American attitude!"

"I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have

received this message," said Goldberg, 41, a New

Jersey resident who was in Seattle visiting longtime

friend Davis Oldham, a University of Washington

instructor.

Goldberg says that when he took his suitcase off the

airplane in San Diego, the zipper pulls were sealed

with nylon straps, which indicated TSA had

inspected the luggage. It would be hard, he said, for

anyone else to have gotten inside his bags.

TSA officials say they are looking into the incident.

"We do not condone our employees making any kind

of political comments or personal comments to any

travelers," TSA spokeswoman Heather Rosenker

told Reuters. "That is not acceptable."

Goldberg, who is restoring a historic home in New

Jersey, said he picked up the "No Iraq War" signs

because he hadn't seen them in New Jersey and

wanted to put them up at his house.

"In New Jersey there's very little in the way of

protest and when I got to Seattle I was amazed how

many anti-war signs were up in front of houses," he

said. "I'm not a political activist but was distressed

by the way the country was rolling off to war."

Goldberg said he checked two bags at Sea-Tac on

March 2 and traveled to San Diego on Alaska

Airlines. The TSA station was adjacent to the Alaska

check-in counter.

Nico Melendez, western regional spokesman for the

TSA, said the note in Goldberg's luggage will be

investigated, but he said there's no proof that a TSA

employee wrote it. "It's a leap to say it was a TSA

screener," Melendez said.

But Goldberg said, "It seems a little far-fetched to

think people are running around the airport writing

messages on TSA literature and slipping them into

people's bags."

He says TSA should take responsibility and refocus

its training "so TSA employees around the country

are not trampling people's civil rights, not intimidating

or harassing travelers. That's an important issue."

Oldham, the UW instructor, said he was so upset by

the incident he wrote members of Congress. U.S.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has asked TSA for a

response.

"The Senator certainly agrees with you that it is

completely inappropriate for a public employee to

write their opinion of your or your friend's political

opinion," said Jay Pearson, aide to Cantwell, in a

letter to Oldham. He said he expects it may take a

month or more to hear back from the TSA.

"I just thought it was outrageous," Oldham said. "It's

one of many things happening recently where the

government is outstepping its bounds in the midst of

paranoia."

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or

sgilmore at seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company

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