Loss of Privacy

Channel 2 News in Atlanta went undercover to expose serious security holes at one of the nation’s busiest airports. After turning the video over to the TSA over a month ago, little has changed.

a whistleblower, who asked us to keep his identity a secret, claims things are much different behind the scenes.

Our whistleblower went undercover inside Gate Gourmet’s Atlanta operation. The video he shot on the way in shows a company employee swiping his badge to let others pass through a security door. Seconds later, it shows workers doubling-up in a turnstile down the hall.

Our source also shot video that shows him putting unauthorized orange juice containers onto several carts as inspectors from Gate Safe, Gate Gourmet’s sister company, stood nearby.

He said the carts that were sealed are the liquor carts to keep employees from stealing liquor.

The video even caught a Gate Safe worker saying, “All they care about is the liquor. It’s just… They don’t even care about the safety of the aircraft.”

As soon as Channel 2′s Aaron Diamant confirmed the undercover video nearly a month ago, he called the TSA. He gave the TSA several chances to watch the video. He wanted to know if TSA officials were as worried as the experts and what the TSA planned to do to make sure the problem gets fixed. All the TSA sent to Channel 2 was a generic statement reiterating that it does regular inspections of airline security operations to make sure everyone is following the rules.

Basically, the TSA doesn’t care about security. What you see as a passenger is simply security theater. So, while everyone is worrying about terrorists trying to sneak something through the security lines, we’ve got open access in the back, something that has been happening for years and will probably continue to do so for years to come.

The city of Atlanta, Georgia is home to the Video Integration Center, allowing city police to monitor over a hundred public and private CCTV cameras. This isn’t enough, however, for the police. They want more monitoring.

Talks are underway to link up with more cameras at CNN Center, Georgia State University, the Georgia World Congress Center and MARTA, along with cameras in Buckhead.

Officials say hundreds or thousands more private-sector cameras will eventually feed into the center.

“This is just the beginning,” said Dave Wilkinson, president of the Atlanta Police Foundation, which helped raise money for the center. “This is going to grow by leaps and bounds over the years. The goal, of course, is to have the entire city blanketed.”

Officials insist cameras linked to the center will only watch areas the public could already see. The city’s law department is drafting rules for the center, Ferguson said.

Unfortunately, officials are not talking to each other as you cannot blanket a city yet only have cameras where the public can already see. The two statements are incompatible. Yet, city officials are okay with tracking innocent people as they go about their daily lives.

“I should hope the public is not okay with it,” said Brett Bittner, executive director of the Libertarian Party of Georgia. “We’re talking about filming every aspect of people’s lives once they step out of the house.”

This is never acceptable and it doesn’t help fight crime. One only need to look at the massive test case of the United Kingdom where people are already on camera once they leave their homes. Crime hasn’t dropped there as a result of intruding cameras at all.

The city of Atlanta and a watchdog citizen group, Copwatch of East Atlanta, who monitors the police reached an agreement last week in which the city agreed that it’s okay to take videos of police in public.

The settlement, which also calls for the city to pay $40,000 in damages, requires city council approval.

The agreement resolves a complaint filed by Marlon Kautz and Copwatch of East Atlanta, a group that films police activity with cell phones and hand-held cameras. The group has volunteers who go out on patrols and begin videotaping police activity when they come across it.

Last April, Kautz said, he pulled out his camera phone and began recording Atlanta police who were arresting a suspect in Little Five Points. Two officers approached him and said he had no right to be filming them, Kautz said. When Kautz refused to stop, one officer wrenched Kautz’s arm behind his back and yanked the camera out of his hands, he said.

Kautz said that when he asked to get his phone back, another officer said he’d return it only after Kautz gave him the password to the phone so he could delete the footage. When Kautz refused, police confiscated the phone, he said. When police returned it, Kautz said, the video images had been deleted, altered or damaged.

APD spokesman Carlos Campos said the matter had been referred to the Office of Professional Standards, and three officers were disciplined. The two officers who confronted Kautz — Mark Taylor and Anthony Kirkman — received oral admonishments for failing to take appropriate action. Sgt. Stephen Zygai was admonished for failure to supervise.

APD will also adopt an operating procedure that prohibits officers from interfering with citizens who are taping police activity, provided individuals recording the activity do not physically interfere with what the officers are doing. The policy is to be adopted within 30 days after the Atlanta city council approves the settlement, and training is to be carried out during police roll calls.

Although the Atlanta police department and the city of Atlanta came to this decision after being sued, it is still a great outcome. Recording the police is not a crime. It is every American citizen’s right. The more people realize this, the better off we’ll be and more police will think twice before crossing the line into abuse.

Minnie Carey dared to ask the police why she had to move when the police ordered her to. She ended up spending ten hours in jail and, now, the city of Atlanta is expected to pay her a $20,000 settlement.

Carey’s suit was filed Feb. 17, claiming Dolson violated her civil rights and falsely imprisoned her. The suit also said the city had not given Dolson training that might have led him to respond differently in his encounter with Carey and her friends on a sidewalk outside a convenience store.

Dolson has been suspended without pay for most of this year, but not for the Carey case. APD said it was other, unrelated infractions that led to the disciplinary action.

The suit said APD had received more than 10 complaints against Dolson but had “failed to adequately investigate the claims and deter him from further misconduct.”

In another federal lawsuit against the Atlanta police department, a $425,000 settlement is expected for cabbies.

The suit says officers confiscated permits and insurance stickers and then immediately cited or arrested the drivers for not having those stickers on their cars. The drivers were targeted because their checks to APD’s Division of Taxicabs and Vehicles for Hire were returned; some of those checks were written as long as two years before they were deposited.

It seems the Altanta police department needs to get its act together and stop acting like a bunch of thugs.

Minnie Carey, then 61, was with three friends discussing funeral arrangements when police asked her to move. When Minnie asked why, she was arrested, handcuffed, and held by police for nine hours.

“I was blown away,” Carey told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I had heard about people in the community being harassed by the police … It really didn’t shock me as much as it probably would have if I had not heard of people going to jail for no reason. I figured I was just another one.

“But I had the right to ask ‘why’ I had to move,” she said.

The Citizen Review Board found that Atlanta Police officer Brandy Dolson had violated APD policies and had falsely arrested Carey.

In the meantime, Minnie had to go three times because the first time, there was no prosecutor, and the second time, the officer wasn’t there. This case should have been dropped the first time due to dereliction of duty on the part of the prosecutor.

Still, the board held back on its punishment recommendation to APD until the board’s investigator could gather more information about Dolson’s history with the department, how many public complaints had been filed against him, what kind of complaints have been brought and the outcome of those cases.

Kirschenbaum said in a hearing last week at least 18 complaints had been filed against Dolson since 2001, but only three – all those traffic issues – had been sustained while three other complaints are pending.

Currently, Dolson has 3 “sustained” complaints against him, 3 “under investigation” complaints against him and a dozen more incidents where someone filed a complaint which later were dropped because there was not enough evidence. He is presently suspended without pay for another unrelated incident. Yet, the APD wants more information before they can make a punishment recommendation?

I’m going to go ahead and ask WHY? It’s clear that this officer has a pattern of abuse, yet has been allowed to remain in the job. Why? Dolson willingly arrests people for no reason. Dolson skipped court so they judge couldn’t make a ruling, something Joe Citizen would have been found in contempt of court for. It is clear that Dolson cannot be trusted to perform the duties of a police officer correctly and should have already been dismissed.