FW: A Real Head-Shaker

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Don't be a Menshevik: Clip all extraneous text before replying to a message
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


-----Original Message-----
From: Melodie Silverwolf [mailto:moonwise@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 8:06 AM
To: yerbanena@xxxxxxxxxxx; jcraven@xxxxxxxxx; volunteer@xxxxxxxx
Subject: A Real Head-Shaker


Is this UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE or what...


Novel Security Measures


                A local man was kept off a recent flight because of a book
he was
                carrying.


                                                              by Gwen
Shaffer


                                                Everyone knows it is a bad
idea to
                                                try and board a plane
carrying a
                                                box cutter, a flight manual
written in
                                                Arabic, or a sack full of
mysterious
                                                white powder. But with
                                                ultra-tightened airport
security, a
                                                book could also prevent you
from
                                                boarding that plane.


                                                No kidding. It happened just
last week in Philadelphia.


                                                Neil Godfrey arrived at
Philadelphia International Airport
                                                around 9:30 a.m. on Wed.,
Oct. 10. His brother's girlfriend
                                                dropped him off with plenty
of time to spare before his
                11:40 a.m. United Airlines flight. Godfrey was on his way to
Phoenix, where his father lives. From
                there, the family was planning to head out for a vacation at
Disneyland.


                It is fair to say that Godfrey - brother of City Paper
webmaster Ryan Godfrey - doesn't look
                unusual for a 22-year-old kid living in Center City.


                His outfit that day was typical: black Dockers, a T-shirt
with a logo for the now-defunct Phoenix
                Gazette newspaper and New Balance running shoes. He has a
medium build, recently dyed
                jet-black hair and a quiet demeanor.


                When Godfrey stepped up to the ticket counter, the United
clerk informed him he had been
                selected for a random baggage search.


                "No problem," he replied, going through the usual motions of
checking his bag and getting a
                boarding pass. Now toting nothing but a novel and the most
recent copy of The Nation magazine,
                Godfrey hiked through the concourse toward his boarding
gate.


                As he passed through the metal detector, an airport security
guard furrowed his brow at Godfrey's
                reading selections as they disappeared through the conveyor
belt.


                On the cover of the book, Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey, is
an illustration of a man's hand
                holding several sticks of dynamite. The 1991 novel is about
a radical environmentalist, George
                Washington Hayduke III, who blows up bridges, burns tractors
and sabotages other projects he
                believes are destroying the beautiful Southwest landscape.


                "For the first time, it occurred to me the book may be a
problem," Godfrey recalls.


                He proceeded through the security checkpoint and sat down to
read near his boarding gate. About
                10 minutes had passed when a National Guardsman approached
Godfrey.


                "He told me to step aside," Godfrey says. "Then he took my
book and asked me why I was
                reading it."


                Within minutes, Godfrey says, Philadelphia Police officers,
Pennsylvania State Troopers and
                airport security officials joined the National Guardsman.
About 10 to 12 people examined the
                novel for 45 minutes, scratching out notes the entire time.
They also questioned Godfrey about the
                purpose of his trip to Phoenix.


                The fact that Godfrey recently dropped out of Temple
University and has yet to find a job may
                have piqued suspicion of law enforcement officials even
more.


                "The fact that I don't work or go to school may have
contributed to them thinking I have nothing to
                live for," Godfrey speculates.


                Eventually, one of the law enforcement officials told
Godfrey his book was "innocuous" and he
                would be allowed to board the plane.


                "I was pretty shaken up," he says. "But I also felt guilty
that I hadn't realized bringing this book to
                the airport may cause a problem."


                Another 10 minutes or so passed while he sat in the waiting
area. A female United employee -
                Godfrey failed to jot down her name - came over and informed
him that he wouldn't be allowed to
                fly, "for three reasons."


                The first reason, she said, was that Godfrey was reading a
book with an illustration of a bomb on
                the cover. Secondly, she said, he purchased his ticket on
Sept. 11. (Godfrey bought the ticket on
                Priceline.com shortly after midnight, at least eight hours
before the World Trade Center was
                attacked).


                And the final reason cited by the United employee was that
Godfrey's Arizona driver's license had
                expired. The employee pointed to a date to substantiate this
allegation.


                "No," Godfrey told her. "That's the day the license was
issued."


                The woman then pointed to another date on the card, Feb. 17,
2000, contending it was the
                expiration date. Godfrey countered that the date identified
him as "under 21" until then.


                "Too bad, it's too late," the flight attendant informed him.



                A defeated and disappointed Godfrey reclaimed his luggage
and was escorted out of the airport.


                When he got home, Godfrey did what a lot of guys do when
they need consoling - he phoned
                his mom.


                Godfrey's mother offered to call United and attempt to
straighten things out. A central reservation
                clerk assured her that her son was not banned from ever
flying United again. She booked him on a
                different flight to Phoenix, this one departing Philadelphia
at 3:04 p.m. that same afternoon.


                Godfrey scurried back to the airport, leaving the Abbey
novel at home. He exchanged it for a
                seemingly benign novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban.


                When Godfrey arrived at the airport around 1:15 p.m., his
luggage was again searched. But as
                Godfrey passed through the metal detector, a police officer
recognized him from the commotion
                just a few hours earlier. The cop pulled Godfrey aside and
made a few phone calls. Ultimately, he
                declared that everything checked out fine. But a National
Guardsman standing nearby vetoed that
                decision.


                "This time, they took my Harry Potter book and about four
people studied it for 20 minutes,"
                Godfrey says.


                Finally, at about 1:45 p.m., officials apparently felt
reassured that Godfrey was not a security threat.
                They told Godfrey he would be permitted on the plane, but
that he couldn't pass through security
                until 2:30 p.m.


                At the appointed time, an escort took Godfrey through
security, while at least 15 law enforcement
                officials looked on. Rather than taking Godfrey directly to
his gate, however, he was ushered into a
                private interrogation room.


                "They patted me down and found nothing," Godfrey says. But
when he emerged from this room,
                Burt Zastera, supervisor of airport operations for United,
told him he would not be allowed to fly.


                "He told me he didn't know the reason why, that he was 'just
conveying the information,'" Godfrey
                recalls. Zastera gave Godfrey a contact number he could call
for a full explanation.


                Godfrey's father called that number and was told his son was
banned from flying United because
                he cracked "a joke about bombs."


                "That is totally false," Godfrey says, pointing out that no
one at the airport ever mentioned this to
                him. Plus, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations
stipulate that any passenger who
                jokes about explosives be arrested on the spot. By contrast,
Godfrey was never charged or even
                accused of breaking the law. In fact, Philadelphia Police
officers didn't even file an incident report,
                according to department spokesman Cpl. Jim Pauley.


                Other airport and law enforcement officials have very little
to say about Godfrey's treatment.


                Zastera says he is "not allowed to comment" on what happened
because it is a security matter.
                United Airlines spokesman Chris Bradwig says he is "unaware"
of the Oct. 10 incident.


                "Even so, we don't comment on security matters," he says.


                A supervisor with Aviation Safeguard, the company United
contracts to man security checkpoints in
                Philadelphia, denied responsibility for detaining Godfrey.


                "The only ones who determine who can't get on a flight is
the airline," says an Aviation Safeguard
                supervisor, who refused to provide her name. "We don't stop
any books."


                Philadelphia International spokesman Mark Pesce agrees that
only individual airlines determine
                whether to permit a passenger to fly.


                "When a passenger passes through security, it is under the
jurisdiction of the airline. We don't get
                involved," he says, adding that stories like Godfrey's are
likely to become increasingly common.


                The FAA has no policy regulating "specific types of reading
material," says spokeswoman Arlene
                Salac.

[Craven, Jim]