Slightly Off-topic: Cell Phone Suspicious at the Airport?

[ZaphodB]

This touches somewhat tangentially on cell phones, but most I just need to rant.

So today, I had gone through security at a major California airport which I will identify only by the code name "Macrasento". I was sitting near my gate and patiently awaiting my flight to another California airport, and talking to a friend on the phone when a security guard came up and told me I'd have to hang up.

I learned that apparently, I was acting suspiciously, sitting near the check-in kiosk, talking on my cell phone, gesticulating and speaking a foreign language loudly and excitably.

I stared at the security guard. "Um, what?" I said.

He said someone had pointed me out as behaving suspiciously and would I consent to answer some questions (and endure a patdown and a thorough inspection of the only luggage I had with me, a design document for an electronic library and my leather portfolio). I pointed out during the interview that (a) if they don't want people sitting near the check-in kiosk, they should remove those seats, (b) I don't see how talking on a cell phone counts as suspicious behaviour, and (c) YOU try to speak Italian calmly and without gesticulating. They then proceeded to take apart my cell phone and ask me to identify the parts. ("That would be the battery. That would be the SIM card which stores my phone number and address book.")

There weren't any further repercussions, other than the guard requesting that I not speak on my cell phone any more (though that security guard needs to learn that a 6'2" obvious ex-football player cannot easily lurk and he might as well just come out in plain sight), but I'm still confused.

I'm stumped, actually. What would I have been saying?! And how many hundreds of other people at Macrasento Municisniffle Airport were on their cell phones at exactly the same time?

[ILUVSOCAL]

You can thank the terrorists for that. Do I think that person that reported you was right in doing that? No, but people are scared right now, and when people are scared they sometimes do stupid things. I am sure whoever it was had the best of intentions, but as they say she/he "did the wrong thing for the right reasons". Also, that officer has to check all those things out, no ifs, ands or buts, so bear with them when they do things like that.

[bobolito]

Would that be Macrasento, or Sacramento? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]
Were you able to board on time or did you miss your flight?

[Kenster]

Wow, ZaphodB has now been tagged as a potential terrorist based on his suspicious activity! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]
Man, the CIA has got you monitored now! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]

[Airb330]

Apparently not speaking English or looking different is suspicious now. It is BS. When I flew outta BWI to PHX last month for the weekend, they had an arab man stopped with his daughter. Well I said something to the security guards along the lines of "This is racist BS, and is not what the US stands for" then my dad pushed me away before I could get into trouble. Grr...airports p-i$$ me off now.

EDIT: I LOVE the fact that the airport luggage scanner people talk on their dang phones the whole time. There at BWI someone was talking on their N400 instead of looking at the luggage, well they recieved a piece of my mind, and no one cared. He should be checking for bombs, not talking! So apparently Za cannot talk, but the security people can.....that's stupid.

[CaliphoniaBoy]

If you would have spoken French or German... that may have been suspicous but Italian... they are part of the "coalition of the willing"...

[Codepyro]

one of my friends....he's spanish may look like an arab...i don't know anyways...here is a true story...he was with his girl friend...and they were talking an he said...."thats da bomb"....but the check in counter lady heard it and thought he said...i had a bomb...so he was detained...searched and questioned....for like 5 hours before he was released...

[TProphet]

As a frequent flier, I think that most of the TSA Gestapo are incompetent buffoons who couldn't properly identify a terrorist if one bit them on the leg. After all, they can't even keep track of which people on their terrorist watch list are already in custody! People who want power are generally the ones who shouldn't have it... starting with John Ashcroft and his gang of thugs. Strong words, but I think that's really what federal law enforcement has become in the age of Ashcroft; thugs who harass law-abiding citizens, secretly detain individuals for months, and even propose to strip native-born Americans of their citizenship. This insatiable appetite for power and control looks to me like the beginnings of a Soviet-style police state.

fas·cism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fshzm)
n.
often Fascism
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
Oppressive, dictatorial control.

[ILUVSOCAL]

That is a highly inflammatory statement, and I would ask the mods to edit that out, it really doesn't belong in a forum like this. By the way false prophet, my dad is a federal law enforcement officer, and he is NOT A THUG, nor does he engage in harassment of innocent people, kill the generalizations!!! On a side note, I dislike John Ashcroft as well.

[ZaphodB]

Wow, okay, time to close this one.

Everybody back into your respective corners, have a stiff drink, and breathe deeply fifty times.