Teacher arrested for bookmark at airport

A teacher, 52, was arrested at the airport for a leather bookmark that was considered a weapon. SHE was handcuffed and arrested for the 8 inch bookmark believed to be a weapon at Tampa airport?

Is a leather bookmark a weapon? I understand the need to deter weapons, but a lether bookmark???? A bit extreme I believe.....

www.prisonplanet.tv...

Apparently, the screeners at the airport do not know the difference between a leather bookmark and those weapons the gangsters used to knock people on the head in the 50s movies.

Maybe the book was the real weapon and they did not noticed.

Good thing for us that the people keeping us safe have never seen a bookmark, wot?

I think it's rich that something like that would seem dangerous to them. Just goes to show you, though...Ignorance runs rampant through the masses.

I know of a lady who went through 3 different airports with an Outback steak knife in her personal carry on.... They're kind of large. No ... Not sure how it got there, but I'm relatively certain as to how it wasn't found.............

This is just insane.

What's next, arresting ppl with belts because they can strangle someone?

Thinks thats a bit far do ya? Read the start post .............. BOOKMARK !!!!

Misfit

I can't believe it either. What about Texans with big belt buckles?? Are tehy stopping them too? Much less, handcuffs?

Originally posted by infinite8
I can't believe it either. What about Texans with big belt buckles?? Are tehy stopping them too? Much less, handcuffs?

lolol, funny you say that, I was going to bring up Cowboys' pointed boots (I always call them fairy boots, heh), and Bikers' (yours truely) steel toed boots.

Misfit

How the FAA will let Americans travel in 2006:

I was arrested in Sea-Tac Airport on 07//01/04 on my way to Alaska from California. During a 3 hour lay over. My carry on luggage became heavy so I places 2 dollars in to one of those machines that give you a cart. It malfunctioned so I kicked it, in an attempt to force it to release, like a soda machine..
Next thing I knew I was in jail then transfered south for seven days, while I was extensively researched! No phone call allowed, no bail, no lawyer, in short, no rights
After seven days I appeared in court. No charges, no arrest record, and when I protested, not allowed. They turned me loose 60 miles south of the airport in Kent County. Took me another two days to get my carry on baggage back
Welcome to HomeLand Security. Is this your home or their Land. Answer me Prole!

TUT


�We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read. This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.� � Abraham Lincoln

Oh my god I jumped up from the pc and almost fell on my knees laffing at that one (picture) !!!! lol

On a note about the pic itself - this guy was what, a traiter? Gave info to Taliban or had converted to Taliban or something? See him strapped like that, and what to criminals (rapists, murderers, etc) in the pen here in the states get? Gym, cable tv, library..............hmmm, whats wrong with this picture in greater depth. Guess that should be another thread, just wanted to thro it in.

Still a damn funny way you posted that, heh.

Misfit

[Edit = added "(picture)" ........ Tut had to sqeeze himself in there, lol]

[edit on 5-10-2004 by Misfit]

If you think this arrest is a slap in the face2 freedom, you should do a google on patriot act 2. if this act comes into force through the same channels as partiot act v1.0....then 15 new death sentences are created.....1 of these applicable to protestors who are gonna be named now as, militant combatants. I have a thread going about it and a link to some of the technical talk from the document itself.

The question is...what can the american public do about this new police state being formed????

Are you kidding Tut? That actually happened to you? Are you American? you were detained for 7 days for kicking a cart machine? That is outrageous.

I find that extremely scary. It really looks like America is just too risky to visit for foreigners, even citizens of allied countries. First they need all our fingerprints and biometric details before we are let in (which I thought was reserved for criminals) and on top of that you may get arrested and detained for a week for trivial circumstances.

I read about the PA2 at the EFF.

You can read it here if not wanna Google anything. EFF is as about as down to earth as you can get concearning civil liberties, whereas Google results may lead to some sites of actual DISinformation.

www.eff.org...

And cargo, you said "America is just too risky to visit for foreigners"........

Hell man, it's risky to be an American in America !!! That's even WithOUT the PA2.

Misfit

bookmark bomb?...i always knew teachers were terrorist!

Originally posted by cargo
Are you kidding Tut? That actually happened to you? Are you American? you were detained for 7 days for kicking a cart machine? That is outrageous.

I find that extremely scary. It really looks like America is just too risky to visit for foreigners, even citizens of allied countries. First they need all our fingerprints and biometric details before we are let in (which I thought was reserved for criminals) and on top of that you may get arrested and detained for a week for trivial circumstances.

Yes Sir,

It is true. I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. And find it difficult to accept that I was subjected to such totalitarian government behavior. A phone call should have been extended at minimum!
The true rub is there is no public record, no charges, nothing a ACLU Rep could sink his or her teeth into. Totally invisible.
And I am, I assure you, a upstanding patriotic individual. I have committed 4 X as much taxes as required by S.S., worked all my life in the American Drilling Industry. Oil Field Trash and Proud of It
In defense of those simple people, they are under a mandate from our Federal Government [a.k.a.-Our Administration] and I believe the enforcement officials are paranoid as they have been directed to be. And it will become worse, it is a design. Kudos to the perpetuates!
We have been successfully lured into the impression we are free when we are hostage to an Imperial Few. If you doubt this assessment, look around the globe. Search for where Freedom Exists, see where the best schools are, the best medical benefits, the best worker benefits, [excluding China look to Europe]......... In Germany the work week is 34 hours, I believe. We are 17th in education among industrial nations in China education is free if you pass the tests! In America it is for sale! Witness G.W.B. at Yale 2.0 graduate, then off to Harvard. In closing I am going to post a letter from one of G.W.B.'s Professor's.




His former Harvard Business School professor recalls George W. Bush not just
as a terrible student but as spoiled, loutish and a pathological liar.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mary Jacoby

Sept. 16, 2004

For 25 years, Yoshi Tsurumi, one of George W. Bush's professors at Harvard
Business School, was content with his green-card status as a permanent legal
resident of the United States. But Bush's ascension to the presidency in 2001
prompted the Japanese native to secure his American citizenship. The reason:
to be able to speak out with the full authority of citizenship about why he
believes Bush lacks the character and intellect to lead the world's oldest
and most powerful democracy.

"I don't remember all the students in detail unless I'm prompted by
something," Tsurumi said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "But I always remember
two types of students. One is the very excellent student, the type as a
professor you
feel honored to be working with. Someone with strong social values,
compassion and intellect -- the very rare person you never forget. And then you
remember students like George Bush, those who are totally the opposite."

The future president was one of 85 first-year MBA students in Tsurumi's
macroeconomic policies and international business class in the fall of 1973 and
spring of 1974. Tsurumi was a visiting associate professor at Harvard
Business School from January 1972 to August 1976; today, he is a professor of
international business at Baruch College in New York.

Trading as usual on his father's connections, Bush entered Harvard in 1973
for a two-year program. He'd just come off what George H.W. Bush had once
called his eldest son's "nomadic years" -- partying, drifting from job to job,
working on political campaigns in Florida and Alabama and, most famously,
apparently not showing up for duty in the Alabama National Guard.

Harvard Business School's rigorous teaching methods, in which the professor
interacts aggressively with students, and students are encouraged to
challenge each other sharply, offered important insights into Bush, Tsurumi said. In
observing students' in-class performances, "you develop pretty good ideas
about what are their weaknesses and strengths in terms of thinking, analysis,
their prejudices, their backgrounds and other things that students reveal," he
said.

One of Tsurumi's standout students was Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., now the
seventh-ranking member of the House Republican leadership. "I typed him as a
conservative Republican with a conscience," Tsurumi said. "He never confused
his own ideology
with economics, and he didn't try to hide his ignorance of a subject in
mumbo jumbo. He was what I call a principled conservative." (Though clearly a
partisan one. On Wednesday, Cox called for a congressional investigation of
the validity of documents that CBS News obtained for a story questioning
Bush's attendance at Guard duty in
Alabama.)

Bush, by contrast, "was totally the opposite of Chris Cox," Tsurumi said.
"He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his
prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30
seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged
him." When asked to explain a particular comment, said Tsurumi, Bush would
respond, "Oh, I never said that." A White House spokeswoman did not return a
phone call seeking comment.

In 1973, as the oil and energy crisis raged, Tsurumi led a discussion on
whether government should assist retirees and other people on fixed incomes with
heating costs. Bush, he recalled, "made this ridiculous statement and when
I asked him to explain, he said, 'The government doesn't have to help poor
people -- because they are lazy.' I said, 'Well, could you explain that
assumption?' Not only could he not explain it, he started backtracking on it,
saying, 'No, I didn't say that.'"

If Cox had been in the same class, Tsurumi said, "I could have asked him to
challenge that and he would have demolished it. Not personally or
emotionally, but intellectually."

Bush once sneered at Tsurumi for showing the film "The Grapes of Wrath,"
based on John Steinbeck's novel of the Depression. "We were in a discussion of
the New Deal, and he called Franklin Roosevelt's policies 'socialism.' He
denounced labor unions, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Medicare,
Social Security, you name it. He denounced the civil rights movement as
socialism. To him, socialism and communism were the same thing. And when challenged
to explain his prejudice, he could not defend his argument, either
ideologically, polemically or
academically."

Students who challenged and embarrassed Bush in class would then become the
subject of a whispering campaign by him, Tsurumi said. "In class, he
couldn't challenge them. But after class, he sometimes came up to me in the hallway
and started bad-mouthing those students who had challenged him. He would
complain that someone was drinking too much. It was innuendo and lies. So
that's how I knew, behind his smile and his smirk, that he was a very insecure,
cunning and
vengeful guy."

Many of Tsurumi's students came from well-connected or wealthy families, but
good
manners prevented them from boasting about it, the professor said. But Bush
seemed unabashed about the connections that had brought him to Harvard.
"The other children of the rich and famous were at least well bred to the point
of realizing universal values and standards of behavior," Tsurumi said. But
Bush sometimes came late to class and often sat in the back row of the
theater-like classroom, wearing a bomber jacket from the Texas Air National Guard
and spitting chewing tobacco into a cup.

"At first, I wondered, 'Who is this George Bush?' It's a very common name
and I didn't know his background. And he was such a bad student that I asked
him once how he got in. He said, 'My dad has good friends.'" Bush scored
in the lowest 10
percent of the class.

The Vietnam War was still roiling campuses and Harvard was no exception.
Bush expressed strong support for the war but admitted to Tsurumi that he'd
gotten a coveted spot in the Texas Air National Guard through his father's
connections.

"I used to chat up a number of students when we were walking back to class,"
Tsurumi said. "Here was Bush, wearing a Texas Guard bomber jacket, and the
draft was the No. 1 topic in those days. And I said, 'George, what did you
do with the
draft?' He said, 'Well, I got into the Texas Air National Guard.' And I
said, 'Lucky you. I understand there is a long waiting list for it. How'd you
get in?' When he told me, he didn't seem ashamed or embarrassed. He
thought he was entitled to all kinds of privileges and special deals. He was not
the only one trying to twist all their connections to avoid Vietnam. But
then, he was fanatically for the war."

Tsurumi told Bush that someone who avoided a draft while supporting a war in
which others were dying was a hypocrite. "He realized he was caught, showed
his famous smirk and huffed off."

Tsurumi's conclusion: Bush is not as dumb as his detractors allege. "He was
just badly brought up, with no discipline, and no compassion," he said.

In recent days, Tsurumi has told his story to various print and television
outlets and appears in:www.salon.com/books/int/2004/09/14/kelley/index.html
Kitty Kelley's expos� "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty." He
said other professors and students at the business school from that time
share his recollections but are afraid to come forward, fearing ostracism or
retribution. And
why is Tsurumi speaking up now? Because with the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq
and Osama bin Laden still on the loose -- not to mention a federal deficit
ballooning out of control -- the stakes are too high to remain silent.
"Obviously, I don't think he is the best person" to be running the country, he
said. "I wanted to explain why."

salon.com

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

About the writer
Mary Jacoby is Salon's Washington correspondent.

www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/16/tsurumi/index.html

Originally posted by Misfit
And cargo, you said "America is just too risky to visit for foreigners"........

Hell man, it's risky to be an American in America !!! That's even WithOUT the PA2.

You're right, I just don't like the fact that I have to have my personal bio details on some database just to enter when Americans themselves are not subject to the same scrutiny when entering my country. How would Americans feel if the concept was spread to other allied countries? I feel it would be an infringement on their privacy, and would expect them to feel the same way about my privacy.

Who knows what could be done with my details? If they don't trust me then I sure as hell don't trust them.

I'm not about to look up who exactly said it, if yer old enuff you know what I'm talking about.

Many years ago, the Communist party said that they will take over America from within.

Hmmmm

I believe this already belongs above the Capital:



Crap, someone bangin at the door...........hey, HEY !! WAIT, WHAT ABOUT MY RIGHTS, MY FREEDO...................

Misfit

You're right, I just don't like the fact that I have to have my personal bio details on some database just to enter when Americans themselves are not subject to the same scrutiny when entering my country. How would Americans feel if the concept was spread to other allied countries? I feel it would be an infringement on their privacy, and would expect them to feel the same way about my privacy.

Who knows what could be done with my details? If they don't trust me then I sure as hell don't trust them.

Well if you think its unfair than I would reccomend getting together a petition to demand that your legislatures do something about it. Persoanally I have no interest in visiting your country but if I did I wouldn't dream of complaining about your countries policies. After all I would be a GUEST in your country. Just as anyone who VISITS America is a GUEST in ours.

Refresh my memory, which is the 52 nd State #1
#2 Why do I get the feeling this is directed at me
I'm not about to look up who exactly said it, if yer old enuff you know what I'm talking about.
Merely paranoid, I reck'on

TUT

Originally posted by tututkamen
I was arrested in Sea-Tac Airport on 07//01/04 on my way to Alaska from California. During a 3 hour lay over. My carry on luggage became heavy so I places 2 dollars in to one of those machines that give you a cart. It malfunctioned so I kicked it, in an attempt to force it to release, like a soda machine..
Next thing I knew I was in jail then transfered south for seven days, while I was extensively researched! No phone call allowed, no bail, no lawyer, in short, no rights

After seven days I appeared in court. No charges, no arrest record, and when I protested, not allowed. They turned me loose 60 miles south of the airport in Kent County. Took me another two days to get my carry on baggage back

Welcome to HomeLand Security. Is this your home or their Land. Answer me Prole!

TUT

�We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read. This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.� � Abraham Lincoln

Tut, that is unbeleivable! I am pissed off just reading about your experience. I can't imagine how violated you must have felt (feel). I have been saying for years that the airports are a complete SHAM now! All it is are a bunch of gov't goons who get their jollys off of groping women (and they have definitely taken advantage of my wife in doing so...using their famous 2 finger swipe up and down her legs) and detaining non-threatening passengers just to meet their quotas. The sad thing is, as obnoxiously slow the process is to get checked in and borad a flight, the security is 0% better that it was before 9/11. The security continuously fail in house tests allowing fake passengers thru the checkpoinst while they carry weapons. Hell, my brother in law, who is a marine, but was passing thru the airport checkpoints in civilian clothing had a very dangerous pocket knife on him. He even forgot it was there. He went thru radar detectors and everything and nothing....and this was a week after 9/11!

Don't be lied to people, the airports are NOT any safer. In fact, they are even more lawless than ever before. Tut and the 52 yr old teacher who smuggled the death weilding leather bookmark are perfect examples why.