I get a warm welcome Home….land Security.

I get a warm wel­come Home….land Security.

I just returned from a week in Mex­ico on Sept. 18, 2009. My flight landed in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas and I headed to Customs/Immigration. My wife was first through the check-in. Her pass­port was scanned with­out inci­dent; then it was my turn.

I handed my pass­port to the offi­cer. She scanned it and right way it appeared that there was some­thing not quite right. I remem­bered when I came through the air­port at the begin­ning of my trip that the offi­cer had prob­lems scan­ning my pass­port and had to enter the num­bers in man­u­ally. I thought it was because the pass­port is fairly worn, but the agent acted like it was odd that it would not scan. So, I thought the dif­fi­culty on the way back was no dif­fer­ent. How­ever, this agent exhib­ited an expres­sion that was more telling then I would know. She picked up a tele­phone and briefly spoke with some­one while I stood there. It was then that she said that I would have to go with her. She did not elab­o­rate any further.

We were escorted a short-distance to a wait­ing room where behind glass a num­ber of offi­cers were vis­i­ble. There were mon­i­tors and other equip­ment in their area. In the wait­ing room was a man who appeared of middle-eastern descent. He told me his name, but I can’t recall what it was. He said it is com­mon for him to be detained, since he was from Jor­dan. It hap­pens all the time, he said. While inside the wait­ing room the offi­cer who escorted had dis­ap­peared into the inner office area. There was another offi­cer sit­ting out­side the door. We waited for some time, real­iz­ing that there was less than an hour before our next flight left for St. Louis. My wife went to the win­dow to see what the hold-up was. She is told that there is a “prob­lem with my name”, and they had to get things straight­ened out. My wife told them that we had a flight to catch and they told her that it “was not about you” (my wife), and that it was to do with me.

We watched the offi­cers con­gre­gat­ing behind the glass. The offi­cer who escorted us back was dis­cussing some­thing with them and they were look­ing at some infor­ma­tion on a com­puter mon­i­tor. Watch­ing the expres­sions on their faces, it appeared to me that this was not some­thing out of the ordi­nary. Some of the agents looked puz­zled and curi­ous. The man from Jor­dan left at some point and other offi­cers came from the back office and left through the door. My wife and I waited, some­what impatiently.

Even­tu­ally, an agent came out to meet me who iden­ti­fied him­self as agent Brock. He explained that there may have been some mix-up with my name, or another indi­vid­ual named Mark McCoy, and they needed to find out if I was that Mark McCoy, who­ever that Mark McCoy was. He said they would try to get us to our flight, but they had to speak with me to find out infor­ma­tion that may be asso­ci­ated with the pos­si­ble mix-up of Mark McCoys. We were escorted down to the bag­gage claim where we picked up our bags and then to another area where they could be examined.

On the way down the esca­la­tor we dis­cussed some things. Agent Brock said he did not know exactly why they needed to inter­view me. He believed it may be due to some mix up. He asked if we had brought any con­tra­band into the coun­try. I admit­ted that the only thing I brought back were two apples, but those were apples that we had pur­chased at home and took to Mex­ico for eat­ing on the flight and that we brought them back for the same rea­son. They were not apples from Mex­ico. Agent Brock said that should not be a prob­lem. On the way down the esca­la­tor I made a remark about the detain­ment being a result of some­thing I had writ­ten or said. Agent Brock asked why I would think that and I replied that I am polit­i­cally out­spo­ken and may have made some­one mad.

We picked up our bags at the bag­gage claim and then pro­ceeded to an area for them to be exam­ined. At that point, agent Brock and another agent named Mur­dock assisted in exam­in­ing all or our bags. The apples were dis­cov­ered and con­fis­cated, as agent Mur­dock explained they were not per­mit­ted back into the coun­try after being in Mex­ico even though they were pur­chased in Amer­ica. In all, my back­pack, cam­era bag, and suit­case were exam­ined and my wife’s two bags were exam­ined. The net result was two apples.

Appear­ing sat­is­fied with the search, agents Brock and Mur­dock left for some time, leav­ing my wife and I at the exam­i­na­tion sta­tion. Upon return­ing, agent Brock asked me to accom­pany him to another room for fur­ther discussion.

I was led into a smaller, more pri­vate room, that appeared to be specif­i­cally for inter­views. I did not notice any micro­phones or cam­eras. In the room were agent Brock and another agent whom I don’t recall get­ting a name from, but who was younger and was not there for the whole time. Even­tu­ally, it would be agent Brock and Mur­dock who were present for the bulk of the interview.

The inter­view con­sisted of agent Brock mak­ing notes on a blank sheet of 8.5x11 paper. He had my immi­gra­tion form in front of him. He began by going down the form, ver­i­fy­ing the infor­ma­tion I had sub­mit­ted, such as my name, address, etc. He made a com­ment or ques­tion about my being a United States cit­i­zen. I said I pre­fer the word, “Amer­i­can”, and he too said that he was an Amer­i­can. Other ques­tions were such as where I worked, if I had ever been arrested, if I had my own business….etc. Agent Brock asked me about my com­ment com­ing down the esca­la­tor where I may be detained for some­thing I had said and he wanted me to elab­o­rate. I explained that I had ran for Gov­er­nor of Illi­nois and mayor of Collinsville, and in doing so I took the oppor­tu­nity to rail against the sys­tem and those in power; mak­ing pos­si­ble ene­mies in the process. That com­ment led to more ques­tions, such as how much money did I raise in my bid for gov­er­nor, what party I ran under, as well as for mayor of Collinsville.

I want to add that the inter­view exhib­ited no dis­cernible struc­ture or objec­tive. It was more con­ver­sa­tional than any­thing. My arrest record and cur­rent issues with Fairview Heights were dis­cussed. He com­mented that the only times I had ever been arrested were while in Fairview Heights and asked if I had a prob­lem with Fairview Heights. I replied that I can’t have a prob­lem with Fairview Heights, since it is a polit­i­cal entity, but it was with two men act­ing as offi­cers with whom I have the prob­lem. I told him that one of the charges con­sisted of my not hav­ing a driver’s license. He asked if I did have a driver’s license; to which I replied no. I said I had no iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, per se, other than my pass­port needed to enter the country.

There were other ques­tions which were curi­ous. I was asked if I heard of or lis­tened to Alex Jones, if I liked Alan Keyes, and if I heard of Democ­racy Now (www.democracynow.org), and had I read a book by Amy Good­man. I replied that I don’t lis­ten to Alex Jones, liked Alan Keyes, and used to lis­ten to Democ­racy Now. I took the oppor­tu­nity to bring up my philo­soph­i­cal and polit­i­cal beliefs. I can’t remem­ber if agent Mur­dock com­pared me with Alex Jones, but I would dif­fer on that per­cep­tion. He did men­tion Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, both of whom I hold in high esteem. I also men­tioned Henry David Thoreau as being the prog­en­i­tor of civil dis­obe­di­ence, and that such an approach is my phi­los­o­phy. Agent Mur­dock did men­tion that Dr. King paid the ulti­mate price for his beliefs. I com­mented that I don’t believe myself to be so impor­tant or sig­nif­i­cant that I would be killed for my beliefs because the major­ity of peo­ple do not iden­tify with such beliefs and there­fore my threat to the sta­tus quo is neg­li­gi­ble, although, I would not fear fac­ing such a con­se­quence for my beliefs since they are non-violent, and well-reasoned.

I was also asked about my feel­ings on the Fed­eral Reserve, an un-Constitutional, unac­count­able pri­vate bank­ing car­tel; as well as on tax­a­tion. I informed them that I marched on Wash­ing­ton over tax­a­tion and that the gov­ern­ment exceeds its con­sti­tu­tional tax­a­tion pow­ers and wastes the tax­pay­ers money on for­eign aid and other waste­ful endeavors.

Finally, the inter­view ended and I was led back out to where my wife was sit­ting and the agents went to check on the sta­tus of my delay. They were wait­ing for a phone call from some­one in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. to clear me through. We chat­ted with agent Mur­dock for a while until agent Brock came back to meet us with his super­vi­sor, I believe, who was later iden­ti­fied as super­vi­sor Jack Cannon.

We were escorted to the Amer­i­can Air­lines counter where we were given new tick­ets for a flight, which resulted in about a three hour delay in total, includ­ing hav­ing to wait for the next flight.

So, what hap­pened, why did it hap­pen, and what does it mean?

I was detained. I was detained against my will. I would have pre­ferred not, but I under­stand the rea­son for it hap­pen­ing. Immi­gra­tion is actu­ally one of the few con­sti­tu­tion­ally autho­rized func­tions of gov­ern­ment. How­ever, I depart from that con­cept on this point; an indi­vid­ual born on this land has an unfet­tered right to exit and re-enter his home land with­out inter­fer­ence. I told the agents that I was a believer in no bor­ders. Polit­i­cal bor­ders hin­der the progress of mankind. They are a means for con­trol and hin­der­ing the free­dom of peo­ple who would evolve soci­etally if left to their own devices. But, the world being what it is at this time, if we desire an agency to keep unde­sir­ables out and limit immi­gra­tion, there has to be a pro­ce­dure in place for dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing between the two. As a result, we have to sub­mit to a level of incon­ve­nience in being sur­veyed in order to deter­mine who belongs and who do not.

I was inter­viewed. I was not inter­ro­gated. I was not fin­ger­printed. I was not per­son­ally searched. I was not cuffed or shack­led. I was not touched in any way against my will. I was not pho­tographed, unless if pos­si­bly by sur­rep­ti­tious means. The expe­ri­ence was not con­tentious, adver­sar­ial, antag­o­nis­tic, or unpleas­ant. Most of the ques­tions involve infor­ma­tion read­ily avail­able through pub­lic infor­ma­tion. I was not asked for an SSN or other num­ber. It seemed more like there being some hold or other flag on my name or pass­port that made some­one some­where uneasy or curi­ous; pos­si­bly after hav­ing read some of my writ­ings posted on the inter­net or else­where, and my being an unknown quan­tity, they wanted to pos­si­bly assess just what the “man” was like and what threat, if any, I may pose. To be hon­est, after all my chal­leng­ing to gov­ern­ment to engage me; and all of the silence and avoid­ance result­ing there­from, I finally had the atten­tion of agents of that gov­ern­ment with whom to engage in civil dis­course and dis­cus­sion. Even the agents said that they were not sure as to the pur­pose for my deten­tion, and that they were merely fol­low­ing stan­dard inter­view pro­ce­dures. I believe they were just killing time, hav­ing me within reach just in case, and dis­cern­ing any pos­si­ble threat or ille­gal pur­pose. Who­ever was pulling the strings was not in Dallas-Fort Worth, but in Wash­ing­ton and the agents was some­what in the dark regard­ing the pur­pose for my detention.

Why did this hap­pen? I don’t know. I can spec­u­late, but I was hop­ing for the agents to broach the sub­ject. I was never directly approached about any­thing in par­tic­u­lar. The spec­u­la­tion from the agents encom­passed every­thing from an iden­tity mix-up to “I don’t know”. I believe that some­thing attrib­uted to me caught the atten­tion in Wash­ing­ton and they needed to put a “per­son” to the words. They wanted to know if I was pos­si­bly vio­lent, trea­so­nous, dan­ger­ous, bel­liger­ent, uncooperative….etc. Depend­ing on the cir­cum­stances, I could be unco­op­er­a­tive and bel­liger­ent, if that be how I am approached. These men were respect­ful and rea­son­able. Even I do not accept the “I am just doing my job” excuse for injus­tices being per­pe­trated; men can exer­cise rea­son and dis­cre­tion in achiev­ing a peace­ful and law­ful objec­tive with­out infring­ing on the life and prop­erty of oth­ers. I saw no rea­son to be any­thing other than what I always aspire to be, viz, a peace­able and rea­son­able man who longs for the evo­lu­tion of mankind in tran­scend­ing war, divi­sive­ness, mis­trust, vio­lence, and suffering.

What does this mean? Some­one is lis­ten­ing, or has lis­tened. I may be dis­missed as incon­se­quen­tial. I hope to be dis­missed as being non-violent, and not-consenting to the author­ity of gov­ern­ment over my per­son. I can do with­out it just fine. Will I be detained again? I can’t say. Agent Brock said he will write a report that will hope­fully resolve any uncer­tainty and avoid this from hap­pen­ing again. I can say that had it not been for my wife being with me I may have taken a dif­fer­ent tact. I did not want to elab­o­rate too much on some things so as to con­tinue the inter­view to the point of delay­ing her from get­ting home. I actu­ally told her that if I were to be detained for a time that she should con­tinue home and make appro­pri­ate con­tacts. Is that to say I would have been less than civil? No. I would have taken the oppor­tu­nity to go fur­ther into depth on my his­tory with chal­leng­ing gov­ern­ment, remov­ing my con­sent from same, ten­der­ing my Dec­la­ra­tion and many other things. I would have taken the oppor­tu­nity to talk them to deaf. I finally had a “cap­tive” audi­ence who dared ask, “Who are you?”

At the con­clu­sion, we shook each other’s hands. I com­mented on their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and civil­ity. I har­bor no malev­o­lence or dis­con­tent as a result of the expe­ri­ence. Have my opin­ions about gov­ern­ment changed? No. I did not deal with gov­ern­ment. I dealt with men. Even though I believe the office they occupy to be sub­or­di­nate to that of a man, I was not assaulted with the per­sona of the offi­cial, but engaged by men act­ing in that capac­ity. Maybe they were very well trained and shrewd in fur­ther­ing an ulte­rior agenda by appear­ing respect­ful and civil. My responses were gen­uine, hon­est, non-violent, and law­ful. I kept telling my wife she had noth­ing to fear for I had com­mit­ted no crime. If my expe­ri­ence was a sum of gov­ern­ment agents seek­ing to know the truth about me then I have no issue with their tac­tics. We will see what hap­pens next time, but for the time-being, I have to give credit to these men for treat­ing me the way they did.

I do plan on fol­low­ing up with a com­ment card and fil­ing a DHS TRIP inquiry. I will update this mail­ing list with the ensu­ing results, if any. There were other things said that essen­tially reit­er­ate much of what I usu­ally espouse and many of you would rather not hear again, so I will dis­pense with the redun­dancy. Hope­fully, I will be left alone or they will want to know more. Either way, I win.

PS.
Upon check­ing my Google Ana­lyt­ics after return­ing home I find that Home­land Secu­rity vis­ited my web­site on Sept. 18 and 19.

UPDATE

On April 5, 2011, I received a response to my Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act request for doc­u­ments related to my detain­ment at Dallas-Fort Worth Air­port by TSA. They failed to find any doc­u­ments respon­sive to my request. This is their response.

FOIA response from TSA

On April 7, 2011 I wrote an appeal to the FOIA response. That appeal is here.

TSA FOIA Appeal