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
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright � 2003 The Seattle Times Company
