First Amendment Be Damned? TSA Threatens Bloggers

December 31st, 2009 13 Comments

13
Comments

This morning two black sedans with TSA special agents came to the Connecticut home of blogger Steven Frischling and walked out with his laptop computer. They promised to return it, but later claimed that there were “bad sectors” on the drive.

He is not sure when he is going to get it back.

The agents were looking for the anonymous source who leaked a TSA Security Directive which advised airlines to restrict passengers from getting out of their seats, concealing their hands, or accessing carry-on luggage an hour before landing.

Frischling, home alone with three young children, was intimidated by the armed agents who had driven from Newark and Boston to central Connecticut.

The agents threatened to get Frischling — a blogger for KLM airlines — fired from his job, confiscate all his electronic devices — phones, computers, and iPods — and declare him a security risk — which would get him on the No Fly list — unless he cooperated.

Frischling — who has worked for Life, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, and was embedded with troops in Iraq — didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t reach a lawyer.

The civil subpoena threatened a fine and up to a year in jail for failure to comply.

The TSA has been under fire lately for failure to stop the Christmas Bomber from boarding the NW flight.

Frischling told the Huffington Post that he didn’t know who sent him the memo and that it is not in any of his computers. The memo was hardly secret. It was sent to approximately 10,000 airlines, airports, and security firms around the world, including locations in Riyadh, Islamabad, and Lagos.

The agents also told him that there are no Federal Shield laws and that he was not a journalist anyway.

Frischling said that, as a photographer, his most thrilling photo assignment was his extensive long term coverage of Homeland Security that took him all over the world.

Department of Homeland Security special agent Nelson Minerly relayed a TSA statement about the agents behavior and the subpoenas, but didn’t comment further:

“Security Directives are not for public disclosure. TSA’s Office of Inspections is currently investigating how the recent Security Directives were acquired and published by parties who should not have been privy to this information.”

Yesterday evening Chris Elliot, another respected travel blogger — who works for MSNBC, National Geographic, and the Washington Post — was at home in Florida, when TSA Special Agent Robert Flaherty knocked on his door with a similar subpoena.

The subpoena demanded that Elliott turn over all documents, emails, or faxes and his hard drive by the end of business day, Dec 31, New Year’s Eve.

“Darrin,” a reader of Elliott’s blog said:

So instead of catching terrorists, they go after bloggers who got ahold of their stupid security procedures that make them look like idiots.

Standard big government.

How about they just act like professionals and admit their SD was crap and a knee jerk reaction. Rescind the worthless procedures and focus on keeping terrorists trying to kill us all off the plane in the first place.

Elliott told the Huffington Post that he had contacted an attorney and that he didn’t know what he was going to do. He said that he didn’t know the person who leaked the memo and that he didn’t ask for it.

Tom Johansmeyer, another reader wrote:

Chris- congratulations on the subpoena; the TSA has told you you’re doing a great job in the only way it knows how.

To all of you who talk about the “right” to protect a confidential source, you’ve chosen the wrong word: it’s an obligation. Period. If you have someone who is willing to talk about something sensitive so the rest of us can benefit, you have a duty to protect that person’s identity. “

With three young kids at home, Elliott said he doesn’t want to go to jail, but there are some things worth going to jail for, and this is one of them.

write: jfleetwood@aol.com.

Original Article: Blake Fleetwood: Exclusive: TSA Seizes Hard Drive from Travel Blogger – The Huffington Post

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13 Comments »

Anomaly100 said:

This is the craziest thing I’ve ever read. This sounds like it’s straight out of a novel. A novel of fiction. Are the TSA guys doing crack or what!

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Joe "UncaJoe" Cook Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 12:39 pm

I think it’s just the TSA entering CYA mode.

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# 31 December 2009 at 12:06 pm

Stanwick said:

This is definitely a false flag operation which is explained in greater detail and shows a sinister plot by our own government to subdue and eventually enslave it’s citizenry – prisonplanet dot com

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# 31 December 2009 at 6:59 pm

Kurt Evans said:

So some information got leeked to the public. Big deal. It wasn’t the kind of information that tipped anybody off about anything. Nobody got hurt and the agency found out that they need to be more careful about the security of their information. Enough said, now let’s get over it and move on.

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# 31 December 2009 at 7:21 pm

fairlyUnbalanced said:

This does sound like a governments I have read about before… Post WWII Soviet Union, North Korea, Facist Spain, Myanmar, China… you know reactionaries. I guess the full effect of the Bush Years is still reverb!

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Paul Reply:
January 1st, 2010 at 7:01 am

Bush Years!? Are you seriously falling back on Bush because you cant admit that your precious OBAMA can do wrong? He is the president now. It is under his control. Blaming Bush has got to stop somewhere.

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# 31 December 2009 at 7:42 pm

Anonymouse said:

This wreaks of a communist regime behavior. I can’t believe this happens in America…or is it the USSRA??

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# 31 December 2009 at 8:21 pm

Medisoft said:

The TSA are like glorified mall cops!

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# 31 December 2009 at 9:53 pm

Bob Hanson said:

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.

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# 31 December 2009 at 11:06 pm

FishHawk said:

“Progressive Nation” has been included in this weeks Sites To See. I hope you like the image I featured, and I hope this helps to attract many new visitors here.

http://asthecrackerheadcrumbles.blogspot.com/2010/01/sites-to-see.html

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# 1 January 2010 at 1:48 am

S said:

George Bush and Dick Cheney couldn’t stop the hijackers on 9/11.

Not even their pals (Bechtel) at the Fremont Group could stop Bin Laden.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Group

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# 1 January 2010 at 9:36 am

spectator said:

The guy should’ve just uploaded it to WikiLeaks, then been his own anonymous source by referencing the thing he “found”.

If you’re going to say or do ANYTHING online that is likely to piss anyone off, justifiable or not, legal or not, you do it anonymously. Especially if that someone has the will and ability to cause you harm. The rest of the internet figured this out years ago, but there’s always some newbie getting burned and crying about it.

To draw a very tired comparison, it would be like shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. No, you’re probably not technically breaking a law, but you’re still going to get your ass kicked before the night’s over, whether by the people you just scared, by security guards, or by the police.

Don’t be a martyr when you can have the same effect without the personal risk… especially over something so stupid.

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# 1 January 2010 at 12:04 pm

Jimmy Burnett said:

This is just what us bloggers would have needed, the government telling us what we can and can not publish on our blogs. I find it ironic how quickly TSA dropped the idea of Subpoenas.

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# 2 January 2010 at 8:43 pm