I know that I was put on a list of one type or the other back in 2001, though I am not positive if it was before or after my arrest on organized crime charges. I was arrested on November 20, 2001. If I had to pinpoint a time, I'd estimate that I was placed on the radar in October of 2001. That is when the really strange things started happening in my life. The events of September 11, 2001 gave state and federal agents all sorts of power that they lacked prior to that day.
You sure wouldn't have wanted to be a passenger in a vehicle with me driving if I were getting pulled over. In both instances when I was pulled over for a minor traffic infraction in 2004, I was held for over 30 minutes with several officers with guns pulled ordering me to remain in my vehicle. In each case I was driving 5 mph over the speed limit at a late hour. I look like, and could be, a school teacher, and I also drove a relatively new car. So it wasn't me, but instead was what the officers saw when they ran my tag.
The one time since arrest that I have gone past the ticket counter/lobby area of an airport (OIA) was in late 2003. My son was 17, was flying to visit his father, and I was walking him to the gate. I was stopped and sent to the counter to get a gate pass. They almost didn't issue the pass, but I insisted as my son's father was near death and I had every right to walk my son to the gate.
Once in the checkpoint line, my son and I were directed to the side and into a special area for passengers that were "selected" for search. As a matter of fact, that is the term used by the TSA agent that directed us to the side: "You have been selected for search."
My breasts were literally fondled by a female TSA agent. Perhaps she thought that they were not real, but they are. I stood with my legs spread and my arms outstretched while she ran a wand of some type over every inch of me. All I had with me was my driver's license and my car keys – no purse and nothing in my pockets. Remember, I was only walking my son to the gate.
The only reason I have entered an airport since is to pick someone up or drop someone off, and I have never gone to the gate again. When I go to NY or to South Texas, I drive.
I would like to return to the EU some day, but I know that when I do I will not be allowed reentry into the US, regardless that I am a US citizen. I have been told that I am on the "selectee" list, and could indeed fly; however, should I exit the country, I would be placed on the "no fly" list prior to any intended return. Not that I want to return, but I do have an elderly mother and a son here.
You should have been a fly on the wall for the 5 months it took me to get my son's US passport renewed back in 2006, or at least for the last few weeks of the fight. Even the poor elderly woman at the US Post Office that processed and mailed the paperwork was stunned. Her job was far from over after she tossed it all in Priority mail. I only received the passport after fighting with a variety of people in the U.S. State Department for 2 weeks solid. I was relentless in my pursuit though, and indeed prevailed.
When I was originally put on a watch list there were less than 50K people on the lists. Today there are almost 1.5 million people that have joined me. Though I appreciate the company and the fact that being on these lists today is almost laughable, I will never forget a time when neither was the case. According to the TSA, the "selectee" list is still only around 50K, and if we are to believe the agency, then I am still almost alone.
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