Hamid-

As the guy who was searched upon landing, I can assure you that what you surmise is incorrect.  First of all, if you were at your home airport and saw a guy that looked like a guy, etc...who would you call - customs and border patrol?  I think not.  Probably the local police, maybe the FBI if you were feeling brash. Additionally, why would CBP have any jurisdiction whatsoever on a flight that started and ended well inside the US border?   Are they tracking families in RV's traveling from Phoenix to St. Louis too?  Thirdly, on the wild assumption that anyone was present, surveilling me, and convinced enough to assume I was carrying a male fugitive (which was the accusation from CBP, even though my wife was the only passenger), the local or federal authorities would certainly have not let me take off or even get in an airplane.  The fact is there was no local tip.  As it was, the CBP office contacted the local police 10 minutes prior to my filed landing time (a 4 hour flight)  and faxed them the bogus info, with no other awareness of my flight other than my flight plan data.   And CBP certainly does not have persons who travel inside our own borders searching people out like this on a whim, else we might have turned into the soviet union.  So the fact remains that they are totally caught in a lie, and we should try to do something about it as a community.  I would agree with your point in principle if there were not mitigating circumstances, but it's pretty clear in this case.

Bob R



On Apr 26, 2011, at 7:37 PM, Hamid Wasti <hwasti@lm50.com> wrote:

> vtailjeff@aol.com wrote:
>> How would a Federal CBP officer in California know a Lancair pilot taking off from an airport in Phoenix had a fugitive onboard? Answer -- he didn't-- he just made it up to justify an unlawful search to the local police in St. Louis.
> While the story being totally made up is quite possible, do not discount the possibility that the CBP may be acting on a tip and may have initiated the action.
>
> One of the down sides of the increased emphasis on recruiting the general public as the government's eyes and ears and offering rewards is a lot more false and misleading tips. While many of these are offered in good faith by people who do not know any better, some are offered on the slim chance of scoring a reward.
>
> It often starts out as "That guy I caught a glimpse of 100 yards away may look like the one they showed on TV last night" followed either by "Better call it in and let the police make sure" or "Better call it in because in the remote chance I am right it will get me $$$$$"
> When the police get involved, their primary objective is self preservation. The officer that handles the report knows that if it turns out that a vigilant citizen turned in a wanted person but he is the one who did not follow it up, his career is over.  He will therefore pass it up the chain with only minimal investigation and the process will repeat a few times till the case falls in the lap of the officers that meet the aircraft after landing.
>
> At every step that the information gets passed from one person to another, it gets embellished to justify the escalation, so that what started out as "Did the guy glimpsed from 100 yards away look like the picture I saw on 23:00 news as I was dozing off?" turns into "Person was positively identified getting into the aircraft armed with a dozen rifles and 2,000 pounds of drugs"
>
> But the truth in these specific incident will never be known unless someone actually get charged with something or someone is willing to file a civil suit and fight it to the point of getting into the discovery process.
>
> Regards,
>
> Hamid
>
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