TSA targets Gulf filmmakers at check-point (video)

.TSA targets Gulf filmmakers at check-point (video)

December 31st, 2010 2:58 pm ET.



At California's Ontario Airport this week, TSA targeted three of the most active filmmakers documenting the crime of the millennium, the Gulf of Mexico operation. After working in Los Angeles where they are residents, in trying to board a plane to return to the Gulf region, the three young human rights defenders were pre-selected for harassment and intimidation at the check-point.







"It started the minute we got to the airport,” Project Gulf Impact film director, Matt Smith said in a telephone conversation Thursday from Orange Beach, Alabama.



When Smith and his crew members, Gavin Garrison and Heather Rally arrived at the nearly empty Ontario Airport on Tuesday evening, heading back to document ongoing atrocities along the Gulf Coast, they were soon alerted they were in for a rough ride – not on the plane but instead, in the terminal with TSA.



Tuesday was the first day the three have traveled together, explained Smith, saying,



"The three of us are careful to never travel all together.”



Like other film crews, Project Gulf Impact filmmakers take precautions to secure their footage. They take two copies of their work, one carried by two of the filmmakers and the other by one, on separate flights. Tuesday was their first exception to their rule.



As usual, they used the automated self check-in machine in the quiet airport.



Smith reported, “We'd purchased the three tickets together. After I put the confirmation code into the machine, I saw a big message on the screen saying that TSA needs more information on each passenger.”



"It's like they were waiting for us. They are assigning redress numbers to people they see as terrorists.



"I've been looking for the SSSS code on our tickets,” Smith said, referring to the code scrawled in red on tickets of flyers on a watch list, flyers like human rights defenders and peace workers viewed as a threat to alleged high-level criminals running the airline industry gagging airline industry whistleblowers who know what the real threats are.



In the article, Delta black op bomb gave neocon Christmas gifts of nudity and fear, Dupré reported over a year ago that the incident that catapulted the nation to an all new level of fascism was executed by a black operation for that purpose:



"The Christmas day Delta flight 253 bomb attempt was another black operation, similar to the false flag 911, 2001 black operation, this one involving the CIA, Mossad and India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) according to investigative journalist, Wayne Madsen reports based on Asian intelligence that closely monitors activities of the three agencies in India and Southeast Asia." (The reader could also read her article: Bogus Christmas airline terrorism. Bogus war on terror. Got it?, except it has disappeared off of the internet.)



Smith knows that he and his crew likely fall into the bogus terrorist category since they are exposing truth. He reported, however, that Tuesday was the worst travel experience they have ever had. (See: Fake DHS airline security. Real American suppression, Dupré, D., Examiner, Dec. 18, 2010)



"We work so well together,” said Smith. “Usually when something happens, I get freaked first, then Heather and then Gavin.



"As soon as I walked through, the TSA agent looked at us like we were criminals. Heather got pulled out first and then Gavin. When Heather went through, other agents started arriving... It was like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”



"They put Heather in the holding prison. Then four agents were there. One marched over and said, 'You've been preselected.”'



Although most American air travelers are choosing to walk through the dangerous new scanners, Garrison said he values his future and ability to have children more than the temporary sexual assault. (See: Travelers choosing TSA cancer over TSA sex assault, Dupré, D., Examiner, Dec. 17, 2010)



They were told to go through the new backscatter machine instead of the old machines there.



"Those machines interfere with the endocrine system and that's permanent. TSA's sexual assault won't stop us from having babies,” Garrison said.



Earlier this year, the young filmmakers took a near direct hit of Corexit while filming from a boat in the Gulf. Officials had announced the chemical spraying had stopped two months earlier, but as the three in their boat traveled to their pre-planned destination, they were suddenly alarmed to see fresh, bubbling orange Corexit and knew their path had very recently been just sprayed before their arrival. They were breathing poison, soon all three very ill they have reported.



"The doctor said if I wanted a future, stay away from the Gulf and never bring my wife here.”



Garrison said that when he told the TSA agents, “I don't want to go through that machine,” the female agent suddenly began shouting, “Opt out! Opt out!”



At that point, Smith, seated and observing the scene, noticed the airport getting crowded and more agents suddenly appearing near them.



One agent said about Garrison, “Oh, he only needs a minor pat down.”



Smith said he looked around, saw Heather still in the cage, all kinds of agents appearing and began filming from the bench where he quietly sat.



"We were all trying to remain calm.” Garrison said.



A TSA agent then explained what they were going to do, including feeling the bottom of his naked feet and continuing to feel him all the way up to his pubic bone until they “felt resistance.”



"By that time, everyone was watching,” Garrison said.



He said he was working hard to remain calm but looking at the scene over three innocent filmmakers, Garrison said to the agents, “This is intense! This is intense, isn't it?”



"The agent was heavily perspiring. Then he started talking about surgery he'd just had and that he'd just returned to work, saying tThings had changed there since Thanksgiving.”



"We're always polite and cordial, so I was asking him about his surgery,” Garrison explained.



Garrison told the writer, “They talk about racial profiling. That's not what this is. I was thinking, 'I'm just a skinny young white boy going through this. They were ravaging and touching every part of my body.”



The Intel Hub reported, “These procedures are much more than Orwellian scanners; they are being used to break the will and spirit of the American people. If the government is able to to force the public into accepting these intrusive measures than society as we know it will come to an end.” (Gulf Activists Harassed by TSA Agents Who Claim Filming is illegal, Thomas, A., Dec. 29, 2010, Online: http://theintelhub.com/2010/12/29/gulf-activists-harrassed-by-tsa-agents-who-claim-filming-is-illegal/



A TSA agent then noticed Smith filming and yelled over to him, “Are you filming? We don't want this on Youtube or the Internet!”



An agent then walked over to Smith and said, “It's a federal offense to be filming here. You can't film the check-point!”



Smith told the writer he knew better. The agent was either ill-informed or dishonest.



Having learned about his travel rights, Smith told the agents that it is legal to film public places and kept filming, noticing the agent who was saying it was illegal to film there was subtly and strategically covering his badge so it could not be documented on film.







(Photo: Firedoglake)



"The agent again said filming there was illegal,” Smith said.



"When Heather and Matt challenged this, [the agent] grew increasingly angry. He continued repeating that it was a federal offense. (Intel Hub)



“The only thing that saved me at that point,” said Smith on Thursday, “was Heather asking, 'Since when?'”



That seemed to stump the agent. He could not answer her.



“They don't like it when people know their rights, when they know you're monitoring them monitoring you,” Smith said.



But then, one of the agents radioed into someone else about what was going on according to Smith, saying, “They all wear ear pieces, you know,” adding that they are seemingly getting their orders remotely.



“At that point, I knew I had two options. I could sit and wait for more agents to arrive and possibly lose what I had videoed – or make a dash away from the scene.



“They could take my phone I was using to video and delete what I had on camera, or I'd have on camera what everyone has been complaining about,” Smith said, referring to the recent giant step in fascism through airports.



"I looked around and saw two bathrooms.”



Smith said he made his dash into one of them, further shocked upon realizing he was in the women's bathroom. He had to slip out and into the men's room.



"We now live in a country where traveling American citizens are subject to a Stazi type TSA that believes that it completely legal to fondle attractive women’s breasts yet illegal to film their intrusive security procedures.” (Intel Hub)



Ted Nicholson reported on December 29 and 1:43 p.m that he tried to share the Intel Hub article on his Facebook page but was blocked from doing so.



"I filed a complaint and am waiting for a response,” he wrote on the Intel Hub site.



Project Gulf Impact film crew, minus Heather Rally who returned home due to illness, are back on the scene today, filming along the Alabama Coast today.



In these final days of 2010, front-line Gulf coast workers are noticeably wearing down, breaking down, and weeping more than usual according several reports to the writer this week. They say they that they know the pain and suffering is mounting because they can see it and they know that really, although they have seen death and dying, it is only the beginning.



"It breaks my heart,” said Smith. “I'm down here watching this. Nobody knows how bad it is unless they see it first-hand. The hardest part is the apathy and complacency of the rest of the nation."



"There's chaos and confusion down here.”



Agreeing that chaos is the work of Satan, Smith said that he was lucky to have great parents, a mother who explained ugly reality about the world to him, but he'd not fully appreciated her words of wisdom until the Gulf explosion.



"I kept seeing in the news, 'BP, BP, BP.' and asking myself, 'Where are the people? Why isn't media reporting what's happening to the people?' That was like a siren for me. I knew I had to go film and document the people.”



After what he's been through, Smith says he's afraid to have children. He said that the toughest part of his work is seeing so few other people working to prevent a dismal future.



"If things look this bad now, from airports to the Gulf situation, what will they look like when I'm 80? What do children have to look forward to? Being totally controlled robots?”



Monday night, January 3rd, Mr. Jeff Rense will interview the Project Gulf Impact filmmakers from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. PST on the Rense Radio Network, heard nationally and internationally.



Anticipated to be another enlightening program about the TSA and Gulf of Mexico people, accessed at www.renseradio.com/, it is destined to provide a rare glimpse of the life of young warrior reporters, filming human rights abuses from the trenches in the undeclared Gulf of Mexico war on humanity and planet.



Copyright © 2010 Deborah Dupré. All rights reserved.



Deborah Dupré, B.Sci, MA. Sci, DipContEd, QMHP from U.S. and Australian universities, human and environmental rights advocate over 25 years in U.S., Vanuatu and Australia. Support her work by subscribing to her articles and forwarding the link of this article to friends and colleagues or reposting only title and first paragraph linked to this Examiner page. Email info@DeborahDupre.com with targeting and Gulf illness news tips, with name or anonymously. See her Vaccine Liberty or Death book plus Compassion Film Project DVDs at www.DeborahDupre.com.



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