Embarrassing And Dangerous
By Gary Aldrich (10/28/03)
It’s airport security again, and this case is really twisted. Twenty-year-old Nathaniel Travis Heatwole of Damascus, Maryland has been charged by the Feds with carrying deadly material onto commercial airliners. If proven guilty, the charges could result in a 10-year sentence.
He claims that what he did was an act of civil disobedience, designed to show the world just how weak our defenses still are with respect to keeping terrorists and their weapons off our planes. The embarrassing part is that he has been trying to confess to these federal crimes for a month, but it seems nobody at the Transportation Security Administration took him seriously.
On September 14, Mr. Heatwole sent emails to TSA telling them what he did and why he did it. He didn’t tell them exactly where to look on the up-to-six airplanes he had access to, but he claimed to have stashed bleach, box-cutter razors, modeling clay that resembled plastic explosives, along with matches somewhere on the planes. He claimed to do this just to show TSA that they couldn’t get the security job done. In fact, the weapons were found in the washrooms of two airplanes.
The federal judge hearing the case released this painfully young looking man back into society, with a warning that he best stay away from aircraft for awhile. This, after thousands of passengers’ bags were checked thoroughly when TSA decided something was up.
Mr. Heatwole got his 15-minutes of fame, but in doing so he really did everyone a service. Once again we are reminded that while TSA employees are extraordinarily careful not to offend young, Middle Eastern-appearing men (the description of every single terrorist for the last 20-some years) by searching this old man, that young tot and a Black grandmother sitting in a wheelchair – instead of the ones who really could be terrorists – indeed one home-grown domestic terrorist, also a young man, slipped by at least twice.
We must decide that when a 20-year-old man does something that frightens us all and causes threat levels to be raised – that it is, in fact, an act of terrorism. His motives may be different than the Islamic terrorists who are out to kill us, but if by your actions you threaten to kill the airline industry, you cause damage to the lives and jobs of millions of Americans – and that, my friends is terrorism.
We must take a hard line on this kid, even if he does have an innocent looking face, because if we don’t, we’re going to encourage every other nutcase to try to “one-up” him so that they too can have their 15-minutes.
This risk we cannot afford. I say, throw the book at him!
Terrorism is no joke, and the damage done to our airline industry with such actions can be deadly to our economy. This man should be used as an example. Gone are the “la la days” when thousands should sacrifice or suffer to protect the whimsical instability of one – at least I hope those days are gone. The United States Attorney – who works for the Attorney General - and the federal judge handling this case are about to let us know, one way or the other.
If they offer this domestic terrorist a cushy plea bargain, I guess we will know this government still does not take terrorism seriously.
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