- This morning I'll be escorting my wife to the hospital,
where the doctors will perform a caesarean section to remove our first
child. She didn't want to do it this way - neither of us did - but sometimes
the Fates decide otherwise. The Fates or, in our case, government employees.
-
- On the morning of October 26th Mary and I entered Portland
International Airport, en route to the Las Vegas wedding of one of my best
friends. Although we live in Los Angeles, we'd been in Oregon working on
a film, and up to that point had had nothing but praise to shower on the
city of Portland, a refreshing change of pace from our own suffocating
metropolis.
-
- At the security checkpoint I was led aside for the "inspection"
that's all the rage at airports these days. My shoes were removed. I was
told to take off my sweater, then to fold over the waistband of my pants.
My baseball hat, hastily jammed on my head at 5 AM, was removed and assiduously
examined ("Anything could be in here, sir," I was told, after
I asked what I could hide in a baseball hat. Yeah. Anything.) Soon I was
standing on one foot, my arms stretched out, the other leg sticking out
in front of me àla a DUI test. I began to get pissed off, as most
normal people would. My anger increased when I realized that the newly
knighted federal employees weren't just examining me, but my 7 months pregnant
wife as well. I'd originally thought that I'd simply been randomly selected
for the more excessive than normal search. You know, Number 50 or whatever.
Apparently not though - it was both of us. These are your new threats,
America: pregnant accountants and their sleepy husbands flying to weddings.
-
- After some more grumbling on my part they eventually
finished with me and I went to retrieve our luggage from the x-ray machine.
Upon returning I found my wife sitting in a chair, crying. Mary rarely
cries, and certainly not in public. When I asked her what was the matter,
she tried to quell her tears and sobbed, "I'm sorry...it's...they
touched my breasts...and..." That's all I heard. I marched up to the
woman who'd been examining her and shouted, "What did you do to her?"
Later I found out that in addition to touching her swollen breasts - to
protect the American citizenry - the employee had asked that she lift up
her shirt. Not behind a screen, not off to the side - no, right there,
directly in front of the hundred or so passengers standing in line. And
for you women who've been pregnant and worn maternity pants, you know how
ridiculous those things look. "I felt like a clown," my wife
told me later. "On display for all these people, with the cotton panel
on my pants and my stomach sticking out. When I sat down I just lost my
composure and began to cry. That's when you walked up."
-
- Of course when I say she "told me later," it's
because she wasn't able to tell me at the time, because as soon as I demanded
to know what the federal employee had done to make her cry, I was swarmed
by Portland police officers. Instantly. Three of them, cinching my arms,
locking me in handcuffs, and telling me I was under arrest. Now my wife
really began to cry. As they led me away and she ran alongside, I implored
her to calm down, to think of the baby, promising her that everything would
turn out all right. She faded into the distance and I was shoved into an
elevator, a cop holding each arm. After making me face the corner, the
head honcho told that I was under arrest and that I wouldn't be flying
that day - that I was in fact a "menace."
-
- It took me a while to regain my composure. I felt like
I was one of those guys in The Gulag Archipelago who, because the proceedings
all seem so unreal, doesn't fully realize that he is in fact being arrested
in a public place in front of crowds of people for...for what? I didn't
know what the crime was. Didn't matter. Once upstairs, the officers made
me remove my shoes and my hat and tossed me into a cell. Yes, your airports
have prison cells, just like your amusement parks, train stations, universities,
and national forests. Let freedom reign.
-
- After a short time I received a visit from the arresting
officer. "Mr. Monahan," he started, "Are you on drugs?"
-
- Was this even real? "No, I'm not on drugs."
-
- "Should you be?"
-
- "What do you mean?"
-
- "Should you be on any type of medication?"
-
- "No."
-
- "Then why'd you react that way back there?"
-
- You see the thinking? You see what passes for reasoning
among your domestic shock troops these days? Only "whackos" get
angry over seeing the woman they've been with for ten years in tears because
someone has touched her breasts. That kind of reaction - love, protection
- it's mind-boggling! "Mr. Monahan, are you on drugs?" His snide
words rang inside my head. This is my wife, finally pregnant with our first
child after months of failed attempts, after the depressing shock of the
miscarriage last year, my wife who'd been walking on a cloud over having
the opportunity to be a mother...and my anger is simply unfathomable to
the guy standing in front of me, the guy who earns a living thanks to my
taxes, the guy whose family I feed through my labor. What I did wasn't
normal. No, I reacted like a drug addict would've. I was so disgusted I
felt like vomiting. But that was just the beginning.
-
- An hour later, after I'd been gallantly assured by the
officer that I wouldn't be attending my friend's wedding that day, I heard
Mary's voice outside my cell. The officer was speaking loudly, letting
her know that he was planning on doing me a favor... which everyone knows
is never a real favor. He wasn't going to come over and help me work on
my car or move some furniture. No, his "favor" was this: He'd
decided not to charge me with a felony.
-
- Think about that for a second. Rapes, car-jackings, murders,
arsons - those are felonies. So is yelling in an airport now, apparently.
I hadn't realized, though I should have. Luckily, I was getting a favor,
though. I was merely going to be slapped with a misdemeanor.
-
- "Here's your court date," he said as I was
released from my cell. In addition, I was banned from Portland International
for 90 days, and just in case I was thinking of coming over and hanging
out around its perimeter, the officer gave me a map with the boundaries
highlighted, sternly warning me against trespassing. Then he and a second
officer escorted us off the grounds. Mary and I hurriedly drove two and
a half hours in the rain to Seattle, where we eventually caught a flight
to Vegas. But the officer was true to his word - we missed my friend's
wedding. The fact that he'd been in my own wedding party, the fact that
a once in a lifetime event was stolen from us - well, who cares, right?
-
- Upon our return to Portland (I'd had to fly into Seattle
and drive back down), we immediately began contacting attorneys. We aren't
litigious people - we wanted no money. I'm not even sure what we fully
wanted. An apology? A reprimand? I don't know. It doesn't matter though,
because we couldn't afford a lawyer, it turned out. $4,000 was the average
figure bandied about as a retaining fee. Sorry, but I've got a new baby
on the way. So we called the ACLU, figuring they existed for just such
incidents as these. And they do apparently...but only if we were minorities.
That's what they told us.
-
- In the meantime, I'd appealed my suspension from PDX.
A week or so later I got a response from the Director of Aviation. After
telling me how, in the aftermath of 9/11, most passengers not only accept
additional airport screening but welcome it, he cut to the chase:
-
- "After a review of the police report and my discussions
with police staff, as well as a review of the TSA's report on this incident,
I concur with the officer's decision to take you into custody and to issue
a citation to you for disorderly conduct. That being said, because I also
understand that you were upset and acted on your emotions, I am willing
to lift the Airport Exclusion Order...."
-
- Attached to this letter was the report the officer had
filled out. I'd like to say I couldn't believe it, but in a way, I could.
It's seemingly becoming the norm in America - lies and deliberate distortions
on the part of those in power, no matter how much or how little power they
actually wield.
-
- The gist of his report was this: From the get go I wasn't
following the screener's directions. I was "squinting my eyes"
and talking to my wife in a "low, forced voice" while "excitedly
swinging my arms." Twice I began to walk away from the screener, inhaling
and exhaling forcefully. When I'd completed the physical exam, I walked
to the luggage screening area, where a second screener took a pair of scissors
from my suitcase. At this point I yelled, "What the %*&$% is going
on? This is &*#&$%!" The officer, who'd already been called
over by one of the screeners, became afraid for the TSA staff and the many
travelers. He required the assistance of a second officer as he "struggled"
to get me into handcuffs, then for "cover" called over a third
as well. It was only at this point that my wife began to cry hysterically.
-
- There was nothing poetic in my reaction to the arrest
report. I didn't crumple it in my fist and swear that justice would be
served, promising to sacrifice my resources and time to see that it would.
I simply stared. Clearly the officer didn't have the guts to write down
what had really happened. It might not look too good to see that stuff
about the pregnant woman in tears because she'd been humiliated. Instead
this was the official scenario being presented for the permanent record.
It doesn't even matter that it's the most implausible sounding situation
you can think of. "Hey, what the...godammit, they're taking our scissors,
honey!" Why didn't he write in anything about a monkey wearing a fez?
-
- True, the TSA staff had expropriated a pair of scissors
from our toiletries kit - the story wasn't entirely made up. Except that
I'd been locked in airport jail at the time. I didn't know anything about
any scissors until Mary told me on our drive up to Seattle. They'd questioned
her about them while I was in the bowels of the airport sitting in my cell.
-
- So I wrote back, indignation and disgust flooding my
brain.
-
- "[W]hile I'm not sure, I'd guess that the entire
incident is captured on video. Memory is imperfect on everyone's part,
but the footage won't lie. I realize it might be procedurally difficult
for you to view this, but if you could, I'd appreciate it. There's no willful
disregard of screening directions. No explosion over the discovery of a
pair of scissors in a suitcase. No struggle to put handcuffs on. There's
a tired man, early in the morning, unhappily going through a rigorous procedure
and then reacting to the tears of his pregnant wife."
-
- Eventually we heard back from a different person, the
guy in charge of the TSA airport screeners. One of his employees had made
the damning statement about me exploding over her scissor discovery, and
the officer had deftly incorporated that statement into his report. We
asked the guy if he could find out why she'd said this - couldn't she possibly
be mistaken? "Oh, can't do that, my hands are tied. It's kind of like
leading a witness - I could get in trouble, heh heh." Then what about
the videotape? Why not watch that? That would exonerate me. "Oh, we
destroy all video after three days."
-
- Sure you do.
-
- A few days later we heard from him again. He just wanted
to inform us that he'd received corroboration of the officer's report from
the officer's superior, a name we didn't recognize. "But...he wasn't
even there," my wife said.
-
- "Yeah, well, uh, he's corroborated it though."
-
- That's how it works.
-
- "Oh, and we did look at the videotape. Inconclusive."
-
- But I thought it was destroyed?
-
- On and on it went. Due to the tenacity of my wife in
making phone calls and speaking with relevant persons, the "crime"
was eventually lowered to a mere citation. Only she could have done that.
I would've simply accepted what was being thrown at me, trumped up charges
and all, simply because I'm wholly inadequate at performing the kowtow.
There's no way I could have contacted all the people Mary did and somehow
pretend to be contrite. Besides, I speak in a low, forced voice, which
doesn't elicit sympathy. Just police suspicion.
-
- Weeks later at the courthouse I listened to a young DA
awkwardly read the charges against me - "Mr. Monahan...umm...shouted
obscenities at the airport staff...umm... umm...oh, they took some scissors
from his suitcase and he became...umm...abusive at this point." If
I was reading about it in Kafka I might have found something vaguely amusing
in all of it. But I wasn't. I was there. Living it.
-
- I entered a plea of nolo contendere, explaining to the
judge that if I'd been a resident of Oregon, I would have definitely pled
"Not Guilty." However, when that happens, your case automatically
goes to a jury trial, and since I lived a thousand miles away, and was
slated to return home in seven days, with a newborn due in a matter of
weeks...you get the picture. "No Contest" it was. Judgment: $250
fine.
-
- Did I feel happy? Only $250, right? No, I wasn't happy.
I don't care if it's twelve cents, that's money pulled right out of my
baby's mouth and fed to a disgusting legal system that will use it to propagate
more incidents like this. But at the very least it was over, right? Wrong.
-
- When we returned to Los Angeles there was an envelope
waiting for me from the court. Inside wasn't a receipt for the money we'd
paid. No, it was a letter telling me that what I actually owed was $309
- state assessed court costs, you know. Wouldn't you think your taxes pay
for that - the state putting you on trial? No, taxes are used to hire more
cops like the officer, because with our rising criminal population - people
like me - hey, your average citizen demands more and more "security."
-
- Finally I reach the piece de resistance. The week before
we'd gone to the airport my wife had had her regular pre-natal checkup.
The child had settled into the proper head down position for birth, continuing
the remarkable pregnancy she'd been having. We returned to Portland on
Sunday. On Mary's Monday appointment she was suddenly told, "Looks
like your baby's gone breech." When she later spoke with her midwives
in Los Angeles, they wanted to know if she'd experienced any type of trauma
recently, as this often makes a child flip. "As a matter of fact..."
she began, recounting the story, explaining how the child inside of her
was going absolutely crazy when she was crying as the police were leading
me away through the crowd.
-
- My wife had been planning a natural childbirth. She'd
read dozens of books, meticulously researched everything, and had finally
decided that this was the way for her. No drugs, no numbing of sensations
- just that ultimate combination of brute pain and sheer joy that belongs
exclusively to mothers. But my wife is also a first-time mother, so she
has what is called an "untested" pelvis. Essentially this means
that a breech birth is too dangerous to attempt, for both mother and child.
Therefore, she's now relegated to a c-section - hospital stay, epidural,
catheter, fetal monitoring, stitches - everything she didn't want. Her
natural birth has become a surgery.
-
- We've tried everything to turn that baby. Acupuncture,
chiropractic techniques, underwater handstands, elephant walking, moxibustion,
bending backwards over pillows, herbs, external manipulation - all to no
avail. When I walked into the living room the other night and saw her plaintively
cooing with a flashlight turned onto her stomach, yet another suggested
technique, my heart almost broke. It's breaking now as I write these words.
-
- I can never prove that my child went breech because of
what happened to us at the airport. But I'll always believe it. Wrongly
or rightly, I'll forever think of how this man, the personification of
this system, has affected the lives of my family and me. When my wife is
sliced open, I'll be thinking of him. When they remove her uterus from
her abdomen and lay it on her stomach, I'll be thinking of him. When I
visit her and my child in the hospital instead of having them with me here
in our home, I'll be thinking of him. When I assist her to the bathroom
while the incision heals internally, I'll be thinking of him.
-
- There are plenty of stories like this these days. I don't
know how many I've read where the writer describes some breach of civil
liberties by employees of the state, then wraps it all up with a dire warning
about what we as a nation are becoming, and how if we don't put an end
to it now, then we're in for heaps of trouble. Well you know what? Nothing's
going to stop the inevitable. There's no policy change that's going to
save us. There's no election that's going to put a halt to the onslaught
of tyranny. It's here already - this country has changed for the worse
and will continue to change for the worse. There is now a division between
the citizenry and the state. When that state is used as a tool against
me, there is no longer any reason why I should owe any allegiance to that
state.
-
- And that's the first thing that child of ours is going
to learn.
-
- Nick Monahan works in the film industry. He writes out
of Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and as of December 18th, his
beautiful new son.
-
- Copyright © 2002 LewRockwell.com
-
- http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/monahan1.html
-
-
-
- Response To Comment By Aonghus de Barra
-
- From Frank Altomonte
- alto100@attbi.com
- 12-28-2
-
- Jeff,
-
- It's cowering and fearful poor excuses for Americans
such as this that are the real enemy to our liberties. This guy should
have his orifices probed as well as his wife and see how he feels about
it. There is no apology for this. This fellow is un-American and needs
to move to a fascist dictatorship country where he will be cared for.
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Aonghus de Barra
- aonghusdb@hotmail.com
- 12-24-2
-
- Nicholas Monahan should perhaps take a moment to consider
why the security procedures he encountered took place. He seems to have
an ego so enormous that what is a routine occurence for thousands of travellers
now, was to him a personal attack (even 'molestation') by people who have
'no right' to interfere with his, or his wife's personal space. Even after
reading his piece, it is clear that none of the ensuing chaos he experienced
would have occured at all had he not remonstrated with the guards afterwards.
I think we can assume that harsh words were used too, as the anger is evident
in his writing still. He is the author of his own misfortune, and needs
to think carefully about this.
-
- I'll bet that if, on the way to his plane, he passed
an Arab looking couple being given the same shakedown he would have felt
great relief that he and his pregnant Wife were being protected to such
a degree, given the potential for the destruction of any plane at any time
by whomever you choose to believe was behind 9/11. The 'Shoebomber' incident
shows that novel concelament of bombs is clearly on the agenda for terrorists:
An apparently pregnant woman could conceal quite a lot in a fake stomach
cavity, and even a truly pregnant Woman could conceal more explosive in
the breast area than a shoe heel could take. It sounds absurd, but it's
not, and it is the job of the security people to assume that explosives
or weapons could be concealed ANYWHERE where there is room. Contrary to
Mr. Monahan's irritation at having to remove his baseball cap, because
he didn't consider anything could be concealed there, anyone can try at
home and see that items like boxcutter knives (whose blades are short and
flexible) can easily fit snugly under a cap. Plastic explosives are like
Play-Doh, they can be battered into thin flat slabs or strips that could
easily be placed under a wig or cap.
-
- It is unfortunate that his Wife had to undergo such a
search, but it certainly wasn't unreasonable in this current climate, nor
was it excessive. Some people have been required to undergo strip searches,
merely having to reveal undergarments is getting off lightly.
- If you've been stopped by a Cop doing a routine check,
you don't pick a fight. They do their job and you are on your way - and
they are doing it for a good reason. Mr. Monahan took exception to what
is a routine inspection for the safety of him, his Wife AND their unborn
child, as well as all the other passengers that fly daily. From his piece,
it is clear that his anger was surfacing even before his Wife's tears.
He objected to being chosen for a search - period. Get over it.
-
- Regards
- Aonghus de Barra
|
