The GeTSApo* Strikes Again

In its relentless quest to prove itself a passenger’s worst enemy, the TSA “detained” a mild-mannered professional for “more than 20 hours” because he wanted to file a complaint.

[Roger] Vanderklok, 57, is a Philly architect who runs half-marathons. Twice a month, he flies around the country for weekend races. On [Jan. 26, 2013], he was headed to Miami. In his carry-on bag was a packet of PowerBars and a heart-monitoring watch. When the bag went through the X-ray scanner, the items looked suspicious to a TSA agent [sic for ‘thug’]…”

Of course they did. These are the imbeciles who mistake cupcakes for bombs and fear that little girls hugging their grandmothers are smuggling guns.

For the next 30 minutes, screeners checked the bag several times. Vanderklok told them that a tube-shaped case in the bag contained his watch. Then he was asked if his bag contained ‘organic matter.’ Vanderklok said no, as he thought ‘organic matter’ meant fruits or vegetables. PowerBars, which contain milk, grain and sugar, are considered ‘organic matter’ and can resemble a common explosive.”

Yep. That would be why the Founding Fathers prohibited the State’s morons from rifling our “persons, houses, papers and effects”: because the sort of shiftless idiot who “works” for government can’t differentiate between snacks and bombs, as the Cupcake Caper amply demonstrates.

At any rate, “once the items were deemed harmless, Vanderklok says, he told [Charles] Kieser[, one of the multitude of ‘supervisers’ at the ‘bloated’ TSA] that if someone had only told him what ‘organic matter’ meant, he could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Kieser then became confrontational. Vanderklok says he calmly asked to file a complaint.”

That simple request landed Mr. Vanderklok in the pokey. “Confrontational” Kieser sicced the airport’s cops on Mr. Vanderklok; they temporarily caged him in an “airport holding cell” before handcuffing him for a trip to the local precinct and another cell. Only when “he was arraigned at 2 a.m.” did his captors announce “that he was being charged with ‘threatening the placement of a bomb’ and making ‘terroristic threats.'” Apparently, that’s how the TSA interprets complaints against it.

I was scared to death. I have never been arrested in my life, never had handcuffs put on,” the victim, still visibly “rattle[d]” two years later, recalled. “Throughout the night, I was in a dark place; no one knew where I was. I thought, ‘I could fall off the face of the earth right now, and no one would know it.'” Where have we read of such horrors before? Ah, yes: they characterized communist gulags.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch–er, the Vanderkloks’ home, Mrs. V. was also scared to death. Her husband hadn’t phoned “when he board[ed] the plane, when he land[ed] and when he arrive[ed] at his hotel,” as is his wont, nor was he responding to her “increasingly panicked messages.” Finally, one of her husband’s kidnappers–sorry, one of the cops called her. She paid $4000 ransom to spring him.

At trial, “Confrontational” Kieser lied, blatantly and predictably: how else does one become a supervisor at the TSA? “‘I saw a passenger becoming agitated. Hands were in the air. And it’s something we deal with regularly. But I don’t let it go on on my checkpoint.” Eeeeewwww: the stench of self-righteousness, and in such an evil cause, too. “[Mr. Vanderklok] had both hands with fingers extended up toward the ceiling up in the air at the time and shaking them.’ …Vanderklok also ‘put his finger in my face. And he said, “Let me tell you something. I’ll bring a bomb through here any day I want.” And he said you’ll never find it.'”

The airport’s surveillance video refuted these whoppers so thoroughly — Mr. V never raises his arms at all as he calmly holds his laptop in front of him — that a judge dismissed the bogus charges.

Our sympathies always lie with the TSA’s prey.  Yet I must ask: why is anyone still flying? Certainly, some people have no choice, primarily those whose jobs require it and who can’t find other work in an economy Our Rulers have savaged. But virtually all the passengers who fall into the TSA’s clutches are “leisure travelers,” as is Mr. V. And while their abuse outrages and infuriates, these folks nonetheless resemble swimmers who stubbornly head into the water despite the weekly headlines and gory, front-page photos of the shark’s latest casualty. Should they or we be surprised when they wind up bloody and maimed?

Don’t fly. For your own safety. For liberty’s sake. Don’t fly.

*Thanks to “TestJeff Pierce” for this clever coinage. My gratitude as well to the many readers who sent reports of the Vanderkloks’ travail.

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5:06 am on February 5, 2015