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Tales of an American Police State

18:42 / 08.04.03

PITTSBURGH -- Joseph Kross, 51, of Pittsburgh, allegedly told a security screener at Pittsburgh International Airport that he hoped a bomb explodes there.

At 2:10 p.m. Monday, police arrested Kross after he reportedly made a comment that alerted security.

Officials said Kross reportedly told a TSA screener, "You're doing such a lousy job; I hope a bomb does go off."

TSA officials called Allegheny County police, who in turn called the FBI.

Kross is a salesman on the way to Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

Kross was placed under arrest and later received a summary citation.

Kross will have to go before a magistrate and pay a fine. A date for that hearing has not been set.

18:53 / 08.04.03

What, so being an asshole to someone who's doing his best in a thankless job is a God-given civil right now?

About time. I'm off to spit on those jerks at the Burger King who gave me onion after I sepcifically told them to hold it—and there's nothing the pigs can do about it, if I and the ACLU have anything to say about it.

Jesus.

18:59 / 08.04.03

It may not be polite but I don't see why being rude to someone should mean that the police and the FBI should be involved, that the perpetrator should be placed under arrest and should recieve a summary citation, and should have to pay a fine. Some of it would probably have been justifiable if violence or abuse had occurred, but telling someone that you think they're doing a 'lousy job' and appending a fatheaded comment about bombs surely doesn't merit such a response?

Foust is SO authentic

19:47 / 08.04.03

I'm inclined to think that only an utter fool not worthy of my sympathy would make a bomb joke in airport, post 9/11.

21:57 / 08.04.03

Dumb, yes. But the whole 'thought police' aspect of it is what I find disturbing. If they had just detained him for a strip search, now that'd be justice. But this is way over the line.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

22:10 / 08.04.03

Forget pre and post 9-11 It always has been a crime to threaten airports with bombs.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:39 / 09.04.03

Oh, yeah. For decades. Lufthansa in the seventies would put you in restraints if you used words like 'hijack' during a flight.

If you want actual concerns, check out the ACLU website - never short of a few stories to scare the shit out of you.

09:55 / 09.04.03

Or, alternatively,The Mcarthyism Watch,from the Progressive Magazine.

Phex: Dorset Doom

10:30 / 09.04.03

I'm with Foust and Nietzche here; if a man making kinda-halfway bomb-threats to airport staff DID detonate a bomb then we'd be talking about it as a failiure of the American Police State to protect it's citizens.

11:04 / 09.04.03

Hello. Long-time lurker here so please be kind, even if I myself am not. Why can't you make bonb-jokes post 9/11? No bombs used at all in that one to my knowledge, unless you count the ones USAF shot the fourth plane down with. It is a shame that even casual bellicosity is verboten in modern America now, but as some of the posters here are maintaining, that's how they like it. I like this site, even if it does stretch the limits of 'counter-cultural debate' when some of the debaters are what in my day we would call 'Tories'.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:35 / 09.04.03

Marian, the point is that you couldn't make bomb-jokes in that context before 911. You might think that's an overreaction, and maybe it is - but if so, it's a long standing one and nothing to do with the current erosion of rights around the world.

On the other hand, there are Post 911 issues coming before the Supreme Court, and significant civil rights issues being raised which may not have a direct link, but may suffer from a counter-rights culture.

I have to say I think this isn't top of the list of worries about a 'Police State'. Check Greg Palast's site for a few more pressing things - Palast broke a number of stories about the Florida voting exclusions during the 2000 election. Since you're based in England, it wouldn't hurt you to read Palast's book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy", or George Monbiot's "Captive State".

There are soooo many things we should be more agitated about than the paranoid attitude of law enforcement and airline security to people talking about airline-related violence two years after the single most successful terrorist act of all time was committed using aircraft.

As to counter-culture and 'Tories' (and when was 'your day'?) - it wouldn't be much of a debate if everyone agreed. On this site you'll see arguments about the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram sharing bandwidth with disputes on queer theory, immigration and copyright. So when you say it 'stretches the limits', I hope you intend that to mean that it pushes the boundary in a good way, rather than that we're too conservative for you. If you did mean the latter, let's take that discussion elsewhere and you can put forward a case.

13:03 / 09.04.03

And certain of us aren't above arguing a view with which we do not necessarily fully agree, for the sake of debate. For my money, there's nothing duller than forum full of people loudly agreeing with one another...

All I was trying to point out is that, whether this arrest is right or wrong, it should certainly come as no surprise. Speech may be free, but not all of it is protected—some words have consequences: public threats against the President, for instance, even when made idly, are always treated seriously by the Secret Service. And threatening speech can actually be prosecuted as assault under US law.

As for the guy in the airport, his offense falls under the shouting-"Fire!"-in-a-crowded-theater rule: his words could be construed to cause a panic amongst his fellow travellers and/or the staff of the airline, and as such he constituted a clear and present danger to the public. Pretty cut-and-dried, in the eyes of the law.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

21:20 / 09.04.03

And let us not forget, they also fall under the Darwin Awards Rule: if you do something amazingly amazingly stupid and something bad happens as a direct consequence, my sympathy for your plight is lessened. See also Alligator Wrestling, Russian Roulette, and Trying To Get The Bill When Andre The Giant Takes You For Dinner.

10:44 / 30.06.03

A report on the gleeful neighbor-led McCarthyism sweeping the country.

Apparently, spying on your neighbors and turning them in isn't just for police and schoolteachers anymore. Though they do seem to be big fans of it.

Want to fly an American flag upside down in protest of current policies? Expect a dead fish or, worse, a dead and bloodied coyote to lie in wait at your door. Hanging anti-war-related art in your classroom? Say good bye to your job. Don't really want to accept the American flag your landlord wants you to hang up? Better start looking for a new place to live.

"Crowds, especially crowds that become hunting packs, are very frightening," he said. "As I looked out on the crowd, that is exactly what my book is about. It is about the suspension of individual conscience, and probably consciousness, for the contagion of the crowd--for that euphoria that comes with patriotism. . . . That kind of contagion leads ultimately to tyranny. It's very dangerous, and it has to be stopped. I've seen it, in effect, take over other countries. But of course, it breaks my heart when I see it in my country."

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:21 / 01.07.03

In response to Cherry's post...

I know this point's been made before, but the whole patriotism/"body-snatchers" kind of thing that I read about from the States always reminds me of the mass "oh fuck Princess Di's dead" hysteria that swept this place a few years back... we were threatened with the sack if we made inappropriate comments on her funeral day in front of customers, and we were a fucking comic shop!
Fortunately, that was a brief mass hysteria type deal. Not an ongoing "there's a bunch of people who want to kill us" kind of thing, which is gonna be self-perpetuating.
I don't know, actually, thinking about it... our (the UK's) insidious conflation of the concepts of "terrorist" and "asylum seeker" is pretty fucking scary too.

Back to the guy in the airport- if I'd been that worker, I'd probably have been pleased if they shot him, just for fucking up my day. Fortunately for everyone else, I don't get to make the laws. Over-reaction? Yes. But an understandable one, especially considering he was probably reported by someone (said worker) who had every reason to have something of a grudge against him, and probably talked it up a little. As I'm sure any of us would likely have done had we reached the end of our tether at our jobs.

14:37 / 01.07.03

I'm beginning to wonder if the US was EVER the so-called "land of the free", bearing in mind its fierce social repression of its own citizens over the last 100 years, from the McCarthy witchhunts, to the removal of basic rights housing, health, education, transport and other services to millions of Americans.

Among these social crimes are the 50m Americans without health insurance and the massive criminalisation, jailing and execution of hugely disproportionate numbers of people from from poor and black communities.

Externally, how can the US be the self-proclaimed "leader of the free world" when it has snuffed out so many democracies at birth, from Latin America to Asia. Yet, when we hear the constantly repeated boast of US democracy and human rights at home and abroad no-one blinks an eyelid, despite all these uncomfortable facts.

But there is one thing the US government can be proud of: its propaganda is slick, fruit-flavoured and puts the old monolithic Soviet efforts to shame.

unheimlich manoeuvre

15:21 / 01.07.03

I'm beginning to wonder if the US was EVER the so-called "land of the free"

the history of the USA is a continual narrative of fear. the early european immigrants were escaping religious persecution and then were trying to survive in a new land. they were afraid of the american indians, their "savage" african slaves, the asian economic migrants etc etc. (better shown in bowling for columbine iirc) the american constitution was itself a fearful compromise between the federalists and statists, and was not intended to guarantee the rights of the common man. so no it was never the land of the free.

20:11 / 01.07.03

The US constitution doesn't deal with common rights. The amendments, though apparently increasingly forgotten these days, do.

As a subject of the UK, I'm always wary of criticising other nations' hypocrisy. The "Mother of Parliaments" has a lot to answer for. Britons never, never, never would be slaves ... while we had militia in Africa, Asia and America. And in case you think its all in the past, I give you Northern Ireland.

20:14 / 01.07.03

Further to this (and to pretend to be on-topic), I wouldn't fancy my chances of being able to joke about bombs while I was checking in at Heathrow. I reckon I'd get more than a stern talking to by a friendly bobby.

Kiss My Apocalips

09:28 / 02.07.03

The “War on Terrorism” - angst is all part of the millennia-old game “Take Care & Control”. This is definitely NOT New World Order, but the oldest of Old World Orders. What is the perfect fascist state? The state that keeps itself in a constant state of war. War against outer enemies [“terrorists”, “radicals” or “space aliens”], war against it´s own criminals and, ultimately against it´s own folks. The result is paranoia, fear of the “other one”, thus separation from the Spiritual Whole in favor of a hive-like, programmed mass; a need for führers who are in control of things; censorship not only on deeds, but also words [written, spoken, e-mailed, spraypainted] and, last not least, on thoughts. -- Perhaps there will be some little automatic electro therapy via your internal brain-chip, when you think “BOMB!” while looking at a passing by jumbo jet. ;-) And so you better don´t think at all; there are those in Control who will do it better for you.
(But, ok, if I would have chosen to be a security officer at Lufthansa, for instance, that man´s comment would have pissed me off, alright. On the other hand, if I would have chosen to become a samurai, I´ll have to reckon that there could be the possibility of loosing my head.)

“I want to be a number.” (Ragged Robin)

P.S.: But then, after all, who will be spraypainting “King Mob” on all these cold steel walls?

14:51 / 02.07.03

I work airport security, and while I agree the man is a moron to say what he said, and an ass, he did not deserve to be arrested or cited, he did not make a threat, he said, "...I hope a bomb does go off here." That is not, "I'm going to set a bomb off here.", or "You can expect a bomb now that I'm mad." He did not make a threat, he expressed a revenge wish, based on the workers poor performance, that that performance would result in an tragic occurance, and, (this is where the mans reasoning displays his stupidity) reveal to the airport security worker why he should have done a better job, as if loss of life is going to be worth some one working harder, as if someone who obviously doesn't care enough to do his job properly would care after an explosion. And yes it is thankless, thats why I'm looking for another job.