[Milsurplus] Homeland Security (Dead Horse Walking)

[Tom Norris]

Trouble is, it came directly from the victim, Chance Wolf chance_wolf at shaw.ca

It does sound far fetched ,but many years before the Ministry Of Homeland
Security was even thought of I have had a similar thing happen to me involving
overzealous law enforcement officer just over ham radio gear. Mildly extreme,
as I was "arrested" and taken into custody as a student at WKU in Bowling Green
Kentucky back about 20 years ago. After coming out of a campus ham 
club meeting,
one of the campus police approached me after seeing that I was carrying an HT.
He asked, seemingly out of sheer interest, if I had access to a phone patch. I
showed him how to bring up the patch using the DTMF pad. Then  he said "That
was all I wanted to know, give that radio to me RIGHT NOW sir!" and started
to read me my rights. He confidently called on the radio that he had the
subject they had been looking for for several days.

He apparently didn't notice the other dozen hams with HTs that were
also leaving the meeting. I apparently fit some sort of "profile"

I had just bought the radio at that meeting that I just left!!!!!

I endured an almost comical "we finally got our man" round of questioning,
and several hours of detention, then was physically pulled out of the
cell and shoved out the door and told "we'll be watching." I was called in for
questioning a half dozen times over the next several weeks.
 From the questioning, it seemed that there had been harassing phone calls
on campus, and the caller was calling from a touch tone phone and playing
with the tones during the calls. "All the dorm phones are touch tone," I
reminded them when questioned, they just told me to shut up and that
"they are the ones asking the questions here."

I was never actually charged with a crime. My lawyer was not able
to find any record of my having been detained, only questioned.
I never saw the radio again, despite my lawyers help with that.
There was no record of a radio having been taken as evidence,
despite the hams who were with me -- especially the guy who
just SOLD me thing -- watching as the officer yanked the radio
out of my hand, handcuffed me and shoved me into his car.

Not an urban legend in my case, just a really mad ham who just paid
good money from a radio that vanished without a trace. As far
as we were able to find out, none of the campus cops were
hams so I don't think it was a scam for a free radio.

This was waaaaay before 9-11, this was some time in 1982

I have never met an enforcement officer that was even *rude*
since, every police or SP/MP I've had any dealings with around
here has always been polite. Even when I was into mil vehicles -
specifically my old German unimog - outfitted with a working
R&S /Seimens/Telefunken RATT setup and such, any LEO inquries
were along the lines of "where can I get one, this is really neat
looking" or "gee, my wife would NEVER let me have one of those"
even if I drove it on base! They just thought it was cool.
I would usually get pulled over at the gate in the afternoon
every month or so with an apology, "but Sgt so and so REALLLY
wants to see your truck" Even got few rounds of beer from
the SP's for being so "cooperative" (Hey, it was licensed, I
had a DoD window tag and "pass and registration" approved it
and with my ham license I could legally operate the radios!)
Even some of that time the base at some level of threatcon
of another, the most I ever got was a routine inspection of the
back and under the hood, etc. Guess a 1970's model Mercedes
radio truck was not seen as much of threat with all the old
tube gear in it.

Darn it, I miss that truck, had to sell it back a year or so ago.

What bothers me about Chance's experience is that the guys
didn't stop the think that a real subversive would be traveling
in a way to attract the least possible attention to himself and
his motives. That sometimes doesn't enter some folks minds
though. Why would a terrorist need a 100 pound mil radio when
he can go to a radio store and buy a nice do-all Icom,
or simply go to a computer store and buy a system to send
easily available PGP encrypted mail back and forth, or use a
fairly secure modern digital cell/PCS phone or the text messaging
many mobile phone companies now provide? I think a mil
radio is the last thing any terrorist with any sense would
want, it would call waaaaaaayyyy too much attention to them.

It's was well dressed normal looking folks that pulled off
the WTC and Pentagon incidents. It was a clean cut Tim McVey
that pulled that truck up to the federal building. The loonies
will always try to blend in - loonies are much smarter these
days. Do they not teach this to OHS officers and such?

After many years of emergency management work and
the WMD training that went with that - pre Homeland
Security - we got a lot of the things mentioned above
drilled into our heads.

Anyway, I think we have beat this dead horse to a pulp.
Visitation at noon, burial when the thread ends.


Tom NU4G



>Before this gets going too far, I suggest we consider that this is 
>really just the figment of someones imagination and their 
>(il)literary skills.
>
[snip]


>Ray W2EC
>