Writes a friend:
11:07 am on January 4, 2011Last night at a big-city airport, on my way to catch a flight, I was stopped by undercover agents. I had already checked my baggage, and during the check the customer service agent did leave me in the middle of the baggage check for about three minutes, but the undercover agents said my stop was random. It occurred roughly three minutes after I completed checking two bags.
Here’s what happened.
After I checked my two bags and began walking toward the security gate, a tall (6’5″) man dressed casually walked up to me and flashed a badge and asked me if he could talk to me. It happened so fast that I didn’t catch the name of the agency. We walked to the side. At this point, I realized that there was a second man who was behind me, and when we reached the side near the windows they both stood in front of me. I was dressed in slacks and a blue blazer, and carried my briefcase and a heavy winter coat.
They said to me that they were doing random checks and asked me if I minded if they could ask me a few questions. Quickly, tossing in my mind between refusing to answer and what might result from that, and answering the questions, I told them I didn’t mind.
They asked me where I was headed and where I lived. They asked me what I was doing in the city and where I stayed. I told them I was there on business and that I stayed at a hotel. They asked me if I paid for the hotel or anyone else. They then asked me what I did for a living. I told them I was a writer.
Once I identified myself as a writer, they asked me who I wrote for. I was vague. They asked to see my ticket and asked me if I paid for it.
They then asked me what was in my briefcase. I said my laptop. They asked if they could look. They looked in all the pockets. I had Rothbard’s Strictly Confidential. They asked me about the book and I told them he was an economist who had done a lot of work on non-exchange praxeology.
At that point it seemed the questioning was over but they didn’t say “You can go.” We all just stood there. Being very curious and with as friendly of a voice as I could muster I asked, “So you guys do this all day?” They said they were a special unit that travels among the airport, the train station, and hotels. I almost fell over when they said hotels.
After that I just said, well have a good day and walked away.
Again, I have no idea if this was random, or if I was ID’d when I checked my bags, but in either case this is certainly outrageous conduct. I have a life to live and didn’t really have time to test the system to see what would happen if I refused to answer the questions. Would they have allowed me to go, or taken me into custody on some kind of pretext?
More writing needs to be done to alert people that this is going on, and advice is needed from legal professionals as to what the best way to handle this is. I know we have the “right” to refuse to answer these questions, but I can’t believe an outfit that isn’t afraid to ask these questions in the first place isn’t afraid to further tramp on your rights if you refuse to answer the questions.
