[South Florida DX Association] Interesting Story -

[NPAlex at aol.com]

This is a story worth reading - your government in action.  I'm for profiling-
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I got this from Vince, K5VT earlier today:

>Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 03:39:42 -0500 (EST)
>Subject: Post Timbuktu amazing events!!
>To:  mcgirr at interaccess.com
>
>I got off from Bamako without a hitch.  Developed violent diarrhea 
>shortly after boarding the plane to Paris.  This continued even 
>after I got home.  Landed in Houston and cleared customs without any 
>problems, found my gate for the Houston/Phoenix trip and found some 
>Imodium for the diarrhea and sat to wait for my final flight to home 
>and my own bathroom to suffer in!  After clearing customs I had 
>about a 2 hour wait, my flight due out at 5:30 local time and arrive 
>Phoenix around 7:30.  About an hour before my flight was due to 
>leave there was an overhead page for me to report to the ticket 
>counter.  It was outside security check point and a long walk.  I 
>went to the service counter across from my gate and ask them to call 
>and see what they wanted.  Of course they couldn't get thru so off I 
>go out to the counter.  When I get there a lady tells me there is a 
>problem with my luggage.  I tell her the combinations to the locks 
>on my suitcases but a moment a Houston Police Officer comes up and 
>starts asking me questions and wants my drivers license etc 
>etc.  Then he tells me that I won't be able to make my flight home 
>because the TSA people believe there is a bomb with a detonator, not 
>in my suitcases, but in the big box (amplifier)!!!  They are 
>considering evacuating the airport because of it and the bomb squad 
>is on their way!!  They then take all my carry-on baggage from me 
>and a policeman stays with me for the next two hours.  I was 
>basically under house arrest until the bomb squad finished with my 
>box!  I told them they were over reacting, that the box in question 
>had been screened multiple times on the trip to and from Mali and if 
>they evacuated the airport they were going to have egg on their face 
>over it after I wrote my Senator McCain, the mayor of Houston, the 
>Air Port management, and the Houston Newspapers with my story.  They 
>decided not to evacuate until the bomb squad got there.  They came 
>in a SUV with a trailer behind it with a huge vault on it that had 
>walls about 2 feet thick!  The TCA people had already taken the amp 
>out of the box and looked at it.  I told them they could clear the 
>area and I'd take the cover off my self and if it blew up it would 
>save the public money for my jail, and if it didn't blow up they 
>could see for themselves their machines were screwy!  They didn't 
>take that too well and had the police take me back to the outside of 
>the building.
>A guy from Continental Airlines Security showed up....looked at it 
>and told the TSA guy "It's a fucking amplifier!  I've seen them 
>before!" But the TSA guy just looked at him and waited for the bomb squad.
>
>They took the amp in the big vault out to the far end of the runway 
>and there the bomb guys got the top off the amp without it blowing 
>up.  I didn't get to go out there so I don't now how they took the 
>top off it.  I haven't reopened the box as yet!  After a 3 hour 
>house arrest they finally brought my carry on luggage back, told me 
>it was a false alarm and they were sorry that they had 
>inconvenienced me but they "had to do what we had to do"!  I ran to 
>get the last flight out to Phoenix at 9:30 or I would have had to 
>spend the night there!  I had 3 surgery cases and would have had to 
>cancel them.  But my box and my two suit cases didn't make the 
>flight and didn't come in until this morning.  Now I'm probably on 
>the TSA list as suspicious individual and every time I try to check 
>in early it will deny me and I'll have to petition TSA to take me 
>off the list.  I can just see the headlines in the Houston paper...
>"Air port evacuated because of bomb in Phoenix physicians luggage"
>I got home finally at 1am...then had to go to the office and pick up 
>the patients charts for the surgeries on Tuesday and then dictate 
>the history and physical exams before I finally got to bed at 3am, 
>just to get back up at 6 for work!  God, what a day
>
>
>This amp deserves a full chapter in Roger's next book!!
>
>73/vt
>
>Life is not measured in the number of breaths we take, but in the moments
>that take our breath away!

Regards,
Norm W4QN