As most of you on the list know we had an incident in April here in St. Louis where one of our own was "stopped" by local police based on a "tip" from Customs and Border Patrol. Here is an update to that story:

 

Bob Rickard (who was the individual stopped) and I have received more emails from other Lancair pilots who have been stopped as well based on "tips" from CBP. So this is not an isolated incident. I contacted AOPA, my congressman's staff, and CBP themselves. AOPA's Craig Spence is presently working this issue on our behalf. He already had ascheduled  meeting with CBP on Wednesday, so he brought this subject up. He said that CBP wants to be the new "skycop".  He conveyed our concerns to them --targeting GA for poloce searches and the issue of the fax that is sent to police agencies justifying detaining pilots. Mr. Spence told them that the fax has errors on it and agreed to help them correct those. On the issue of tracking GA flights and detaining pilots, Mr. Spence said the CBP is not budging. He believes we need to take this to Congressional leaders --he said we are in for a long battle with CBP.

 

The day after Mr. Spence's meeting I received two phone calls from CBP (so it is true about smelly stuff rolling downhill). The first call was from "Carlos" at CBP HQ. Carlos works in Gen. Mike Kostelnik's office in DC. Kostelnik, a retired AF two star,  is the head of the CBP Air and Marine Center. Carlos wanted to know what our concerns were and I repeated that we did not like getting stopped based on bogus information. He wanted to know how I was certain CBP was behind these stops (he implied they had nothing to do with it) and I said it was from information from the local police and the fax AMOC sent to them. (Ah, the truth and evidence is so great)  He was pretty agitated during our conversation and said if we were stopped and the police questioned us then we should tell them what they wanted to know. I said I disagreed (Fifth Amendment) . I gave him the specifics of Bobaloos stop two weeks ago and he agreed to look into it.  I said that in the best light their intell is either unvetted or their analyis is poor. He disagreed (of course) and gave many other reasons (all bogus) as to why their intel was good. He said it could have been because the aircraft was a prior drug aircraft. I replied that would be pretty difficult since I built it, flew it and then sold it to Col. Rickard. I said that in the worst light --their folks are making up stories to get the local police to stop GA pilots--for the crime of ....flying. Of course he about blew a gasket. I asked him to  tell me where CBP got this information about Bob carrying a fugitive. He replied that is a matter of national security and could not tell me.

 

A couple of hours later I receive a phone call from Tony C. at the CBP AMOC in Riverside, CA asking again about my concerns. Again I expressed the same and while he was very polite and cordial and appears to be a dedicated public servant doing a tough job I reiterated that law abiding GA pilots do not enjoy getting stopped by law enforcement based on seemingly bogus information. Tony said they are just trying to "put their eyes on people"--meaning us. I remarked that there has to be a better way of doing that than surrounding a pilot with 6 police cars and ten officers. He said they have  tough job catching bad guys. I said that  that they need to do a better job screening their intel. It seemed both he and Carlos went back and forth on whether the intel came from internal sources or external ones. At one point he said people were calling their hotline with tips -- so I challenged him as to how someone would know the Mr. McCrae was on Bob's airplane and then called them in Riverside to report it. The story seemed to change to they had strong intel internally. Never an admission that they screwed up. Just more reasons why their intel is solid. Even at one point denying it is their intel-- "it comes from somewhere else-- they are just the middle man." Tony said they are all ex military and are all pilots so I pointed oujt that the fax has numerous errors and the FARs contains no language allowing detention of  a pilot for failing to have his medical or logbook on his person (look for that to change as CBP will probably write criminal regulations re: pilots) . The whole time I could hear a  beep every ten seconds or so probably indicating I was being recorded. Althoug Tony was pleasant there was no progress on this issue. None.

 

I spoke with my congressman's senior staffer as well. I relayed the details of the issue to her and she seemed sincerely interested. She said it is best to generate a letter from our organizations (we are) and forward that with a personal note to all of our congressmen.  She said I should be carefull so that I don't become a target.

 

All for now.

 

Jeff "Bullseye" Edwards