Terrorist profiling isn’t just for Middle Easterners anymore.
A young whitebread American professional was recently held by TSA agents in the St. Louis airport. Did he mistakenly leave a screwdrivier in his carry-on? A pocketknife in his suit pants? He did verbally threaten someone or carry prohibited substances? No. Nothing of the sort. He was detained, his possessions searched, and threatened with arrest because he had roughly $4700. In cash.
Maybe you’ve already heard about this. But probably not. The news broke at least four days ago but I didn’t catch a whiff of it until today. There was no mention of it on Good Morning America, our local news broadcast, or even my Rueters and AP news feeds. And you may be asking yourself why you should care in the first place; what’s the big deal? My reasons for mentioning it here are two-fold.
First: I don’t find $4700 to be an exorbitant sum to be in the hands of a young professional. He was polite, compliant, well-dressed, a United States citizen, had proper identification … and yet they detained him. Why?
Second: Not long before this young man was detained, a state-and-federal joint organization had distributed a confidential report to law enforcement officials across the state, a report which “depicted Christians, anti-abortionists, advocates for protecting our borders and supporters of certain political candidates as potential ‘threats’ to public safety,” according to Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (the report, titled “The Modern Militia Movement,” can be read in full, as released, at the bottom of this post). Forgive me, but those delineations seem broad enough to condemn just about anyone.
The young man detained had the misfortune of falling into several of their “threatening” categories: being an aide to Texas Republican Representative Ron Paul, who was on the “certain political candidates” list; being the Director of Development in the politically-involved organization Campaign For Liberty; carrying “political paraphenalia” for both previous entities, in the form of fliers and bumper stickers; and possessing $4700 in cash. Trouble is, that report was supposed to be rescinded, its content disregarded. Though originally distributed as a sensitive “Law Enforcement Only” document, an unidentified officer leaked the report to the media on March 11 and the cat was out of the bag. The following public outcry led to apologies, public condemnations of the material, and supposed retractions of the report. And yet a young man who fell into several of the categories outlined in that report was detained, with no explanation except that the cash he carried somehow made him suspect.
I’m sure a lot of shady drug and/or terror-related deals go down between the St. Louis underworld (mafia, Al Qaeda, etc.) and a twenty-five year old Christian Republican who is well employed and politically active. Yes sir, I believe someone fitting that description proves a threat to our public safety. Sounds like a terrorist to me. Looks like one, too …
Yup, that’s the face of evil if I ever saw it.
His name is Steve Bierfeldt. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, in 2006 and then spent two years in Virginia working for a non-profit and an election campaign. Prior to the TSA intervention, he had been in St. Louis helping at a Campaign For Liberty convention where they had sold tickets and merchandise, with roughly $4700 in cash transactions. Yes, yes, I see a threatening pattern emerging … It is my belief, ladies and gentlemen, that his problems stemmed from being a conservative, working for another conservative, supporting a conservative organization touting the need for antiquities like Freedom and Liberty. Oh and he’s a Christian, too.
Tie him to the stake! Light the kindling!!
This sounds eerily like a witch-hunt. During questioning, he repeatedly asked the TSA agents if he were required by law to answer. It seems a legitimate question to me, especially if they are looking to peg me as a militant extremist of some sort, but none of them responded except with condescension, threats of arrest, “going downtown,” and confrontation with the DEA and/or FBI.
Witch! Witch!!
Bierfeldt recorded much of the interaction on his cell phone, part of which can be heard on the embedded video at the bottom of the post. And while he was eventually released, catching his plane without further hassle, I still find this story very compelling. The fact remains that he was singled out and held without good reason. It was, purportedly, because of the cash, but on no flight rules list or FAA regulation anywhere does it even hint that cash is an article to be carried in limited quantities, or that substantial quantities of it could make you suspect and a likely candidate for detention. (And what would be considered a “substantial” quantity? Where do they draw those lines?) Young Bierfeldt would have been arrested, or at least held for further questioning, if not for an apparent plain-clothes FBI agent who ordered his release. Without once checking his documents, asking him a single question, or even inspecting his possessions.
A government document advised that someone like Bierfeldt – a Christian, a Republican supporter, a political citizen – could be a threat to public safety and so he was pulled aside. I’ll be honest with you … this kind of stuff scares me. Our rights and liberties and freedoms have been so thoroughly stripped away that, truly, nothing remains but their memory. And this is only the beginning. Tighten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a long, hard ride.
A few parting thoughts and links…
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“I realize that there are people who will dismiss this kind of story as insignificant. They shouldn’t. This is very serious and should be treated as such. Anyone who knows anything at all about history knows that before a state or national government can persecute – and commit acts of violence against – a group of people, they must first marginalize the group from society’s mainstream and categorize it as dangerous. Rome did exactly that to Christians, as did Mao’s China; Hitler’s Germany did the same thing to Jews; Stalin’s Russia did the same thing to political dissenters, etc…
…This is very serious business! We are not talking about private opinions. We are talking about law enforcement agencies. And remember, most law enforcement agencies share these types of reports; therefore, how many other state police agencies have similar reports floating around?”
A quote from Chuck Baldwin’s article Missouri State Police Think You And I Are Terrorists.
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“The show-me state made the news recently when the Missouri Information Analysis Center, a state-federal law-enforcement partnership, released an inflammatory report alleging that libertarians, constitutionalists, supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, and other people skeptical of powerful government should be considered as potential terrorists-in-the-making.”
A quote from the Examiner article Political activist detained by TSA for carrying cash.
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“We believe that freedom is an indivisible whole, and that it includes not only economic liberty but civil liberties and privacy rights as well…”
A quote from the Campaign For Liberty website.
You can also visit Steve Bierfeldt’s profile page and weblog on their site.
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Life Obscure 