DHS Motivation for harassing Yukari Miyamae?

First, I found this piece (which deserves its own post* but I'm going to bed, feel free ...) which discusses a pathetic memo Pissy reportedly wrote in response to last week's TSA numerous disgraces:

Becky Akers in LRC Blog: Memo From the Perv

I decided to double check her support group & web pages for new info. There isn't any current info but I did find this on the Facebook page for the Yukari Miyamae Legal Defense Fund:

CBP is also part of DHS and has been systematically harassing others who have had contact with Julian Assange. I suspect there may well have been a reason why Miyamae felt she was being singled out for harassment at the checkpoint.

* Read Becky's whole article. For those who were wondering where Pissy was hunkered down last week, the dirtbag has emerged.

 

I think you give DHS more credit than they deserve. They harass everyone -- no "extremist ties" necessary. Also, from what I remember, the charges were local. Perhaps DHS pressured local police, but...

Anyway, when I read the article earlier today it did ignite a rage. The prosecutor in Yukari's case bullied her into pleading, and the judge, quite simply, was a fool for his admonishment. I was tempted to write the judge a letter to admonish him, but I have a petition to the Supreme Court to write which must take priority.

--Jon

 

But I believe the early reports indicated she felt she was being singled out by TSA, which previously has show itself capable of harassing specific travellers, e.g. Stacey Armato.

The charges were local, but the harassment and complaint came from TSA.

 

The only reference I can find regarding an "assault" in Miami, is Negrin who beat up a co-worker. I do find a reference to an "assault" on a TSO in Boston but no charges were brought because there was no video of the incident.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2011/05/...t-tsa-officers-still-allowed-to-board-planes/

Interesting, that she interviewed Asange; there has to be a link to that act and the "assault" case.

A question: How many people are ordered into counseling after one assault charge? Talk about retaliation.

Somehow or another, I don't quite believe this memo came from Pissy.

 

I've seen people claim they were singled out for being black, white, Muslim, old, young, big breasted, you name it. Honestly, discrimination is the one thing I don't accuse of the TSA. They violate everyone.

The only trend I'm possibly willing to go with is that they seem more willing to abuse women than men, but that may be my own bias in that I more immediately recognize and more strongly reject abuse of women (for better or for worse).

--Jon

 

I always wanted to give Pistole some benefit of doubt. His memo crowing over the success of the abusive prosecution of Yukari Miyamae erases all doubt. Pistole is the lowest scum imaginable.

 

What I find strange is that he crows to his employees, but there is nothing in the press. He's so despicable that I am certain he would want to get the word out about the "successful" (in his eyes) outcome of these cases. Then again, maybe he doesn't want to remind people that in Miyamae's case at least, the TSA didn't get what it wanted: a felony charge against her.

 

Maybe the federal government is starting to figure out that Americans aren't as excited about their definition of terrorist as the rest of us are. Miyamae's loose association with Assange may be something they're holding over her head to gain her acquiescence. If more attention is focused on what's happened to her, I think the public backlash could be rough. Obama want's to be re-elected, and he's got a really good chance. He's just got to keep the left from waking up to his administration's civil rights abuses.

 

Whoever wrote this memo, no matter, Pistole put his name to it. What a pig. They have the nerve to say that Yukari Mihamae "groped" the TSA clerk?? Not only is it a bald-faced lie, but it's precisely, it's exactly, textbook doublethink. This is the (expletive deleted) definition of it. It's as pure as if it were written by Orwell himself. And it's projection: you project onto others the actions -- in this case, the crimes -- you yourself have committed.

(P.S. Mike or another coach, please change title to from "Mikari" to "Yukari.")

 

Thanks for the heads up. I just want to say that we upgraded our phones recently, and they're so awesome that I could actually update the thread from the new phone which was an impossible feat before.

Also, agree with Affection. There is no way Miyamae was targeted.I can certainly understand how Ager may have felt that way, but TSA abuses everyone. That's their out.

 

I also think the rank-and-file TSA are too clueless to target anyone for political reasons -- at least now they are; no telling what they'll do in the future -- and they just abused Mihamae because they abuse almost everybody. Still, it's an interesting tidbit that she had translated anything to do with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

It's like people who are afraid that if they complain, they'll be put on some kind of list. The TSA at the checkpoint, especially the clerks who make a big show of writing down people's names, are all bluster. I don't believe the agency has its act together anywhere near enough to track such people and compile a list. Again, not saying they won't in the future, but for now, it's all (expletive deleted). Otherwise, people such as Bruce Schneier and Glenn Greenwald and Chris Elliott and Charlie Leocha and Becky Akers (if she still flies) would be getting (expletive deleted) left and right. And they're not. If they're harassed, it's the routine harassment that anyone else gets.

 

That does not preclude specific people from being targeted.

If the people in Lisa's list were systematically harassed, they would write it about it. The bad press would start immediately.

Associates of Julian Assange are in a different class, targeted much higher up in DHS. I would not be so quick to dismiss the connection.

 

Pistole's place in history is assured. He'll be another minor putz that'll get mentioned in histories about the last days of the republic when the federals lost the citizens over behavior like this. An empty suit with an empty smile and an emptier soul.

 

Well, this is a good point.

 

What I'm noticing is that TSCs target who they perceive to be least capable of defending themselves. Most, if not all, of the women they target are small in stature and not physically imposing. Most of the men they target are disabled, elderly, have medical problems, or are otherwise unlikely to be able to rip a TSC's face off and wipe their (expletive deleted) on it.

What else are we seeing? People with kids. People with families. People who TSCs know can't afford to make a stand, due to social, familial, or financial pressures. I saw it written somewhere (not sure if it was here or on a news article, other forum, comments page...) that TSCs normally avoid selecting "buff dudes, or women traveling with buff dudes" for harassment - they operate by base schoolyard-bully logic and don't care at all about their job when it comes to the chance they might piss off someone who could lazily dismember them with their bare hands.

I'm personally waiting for the day they pick out a martial-arts sensei or shihan, someone who's a master of Jiu-Jitsu or something nasty like Hapkido, who snaps three of the smurf-clerk's bones before the smurf-clerk hits the floor. Oh, sure, criminal charges, lawsuits, arrests, but that smurf-clerk is going to have a really rough few months ahead of it, no way around that.

 

Classic Zimbardo/Stanford Prison Experiment.

 

I don't disagree.

Did DHS bring to bear threats to Miyame so that she would plead guilty? Probably.

Did DHS put the full force of their resources behind pushing for an aggressive prosecution of her? I don't doubt it one bit.

Is a TSA screener smart enough to single someone out in line because of a loose connection to an unsavory character? Doubtful

Sure, screeners single out people all the time. The people they single out are cuties, or frequent travelers who make their jobs hard.

I find it difficult to believe that a useful idiot like TS"O" Barbara O'Toole could've identified Miyamae in a checkpoint line and singled her out for extra abuse outside of the usual egregious abuse she would provide to any other traveler going through the line. Remember, to the vast majority of these O'Tooles, they're "jus doin' mah job!"

 

They would know her travel patterns (remember that DHS has all your PNR data) and could easily just look for her name in the screening line. I've never deciphered the indecipherable squiggles, but I do know that CPB, for example, has one indecipherable squiggle that sends you to secondary and one that doesn't. You people are trying too hard to let TSA off the hook.

Obviously, there is no solid evidence to support this, yet we do know with certainty that quite a few others who have had interactions with Julian Assange have been harassed, most often through warrantless searches conducted by CBP, another agency with DHS.

 

I think you're trying too hard to give TSA credit.

I have never had to show my boarding pass as a matter of course going through the checkpoint, except for a brief period sometime around 2005. It certainly isn't common practice today. Of course, at PHX they could have required it that day as part of their unpredictable measures.

Again, TS"o"'s can't get their collective sh*t together enough to determine shoes in or out of a bin. To think they could single someone out of a line on sight is preposterous.

This incident happened in the same short time period as the Andrea Abbott event, and a few other incidents where the smurchen were being overly aggressive. Whatever the reason, I'd chalk it more up to the smurfchen being more unpleasant than usual.

 

Tell that to Stacey Armato. This was a round trip that Yukari Miyamae was making weekly for an extended time period.