[Dryerase] The Alarm!--Eye on the INS--Eavesdropping

[The Alarm!Newswire]

Eye on the INS
A forum addressing the INS and immigration policy

Welcome to Shoney’s. Our Special Today is American Pie. Would You Like 
the Eavesdropping or the Non-Eavesdropping Section?

 By Michelle Stewart
The Alarm! Newspaper Collective

Welcome to the new America, where security is the bottom-line and the 
ends always justifies the means—in fact, the means create “National 
Heroes.”

An America where you might find yourself sitting beside Eunice Stone or 
someone who thinks like her. Where a breakfast stop on a roadtrip might 
find you pulled over the next day, detained for 17 hours and made a 
national spectacle. An America where the hearsay of one woman in a 
restaurant might cost you your job.

You see, for Eunice Stone, President Bush’s speeches about Homeland 
Security, the Citizen’s Corp and TIPS (Terrorism Information and 
Prevention System) resonated and she believed it her duty to stay 
alert, always taking due notice of things that seem out of place. And 
things were decidedly out of place for her when she went to a Shoney’s 
Restaurant in Georgia on September 12, 2002. Just one day after the 
anniversary of 9/11, perhaps Eunice’s ears were a wee bit too pricked 
as she honed in on a discussion at a neighboring table that hosted 
three men of apparent Arab descent.

According to Eunice she felt compelled to call 9-1-1 after she heard 
them utter statements like, “they think they were sad on 9/11, wait 
until 9/13,” and “do you think we have enough to bring it down?” 
Convinced she was dining with al-Qaeda, she immediately called the 
police despite the comment by her own son that perhaps the men were 
pulling her leg. After calling the police and reporting her 
eavesdropping, Eunice went about her day, as the authorities began a 
manhunt for the two vehicles carrying the three men.

At 1 a.m., Florida police pulled over the two vehicles and took the men 
into custody—thus beginning the melodrama in Alligator Alley, a stretch 
of I-75 in southern Florida. Cop car after cop car descended upon the 
scene as the men were detained, police dogs reportedly sniffed for 
explosives, the “suspects” emphasized they were medical students, the 
bomb squad  came out, the media jumped on the story, the men continued 
to demand what they were being charged with, police reported the plates 
on the car were stolen and the men were uncooperative, the family of 
one man held an impromtu press conference demanding the release of 
their relative, the police bomb robot came up empty-clawed and the news 
continued to run live coverage of the men’s cars being systematically 
dismantled in search of bombs or other devices. For 17 hours this went 
on. Eunice Stone became a celebrity as people called her a national 
hero for saving us from the three suspicious Muslims—as the men were 
held in detention with no evidence of wrong-doing.

But the next day, Eunice was quick to note to Fox News reporters that 
she doesn’t have a “habit” of eavesdropping—great to know, thanks 
Eunice! As Eunice was being interviewed on shows like Fox News, calls 
and emails began to flood into Larkin Community Hospital, the 
institution that confirmed the three men were signed up for the 
nine-week course. On Saturday, as Eunice’s face and voice began to fade 
from cable news shows, Dr. Jack Michel, the president of Larkin 
Community Hospital stepped up to prove the story could become more 
ludicrous.

Stating that the hospital had received over 200 “threatening, ethnic, 
racial emails directed at Muslim-Americans,” the good doctor announced 
the school is asking the three men to transfer to another hospital. 
Saying it would be in the “best interest” of the students to move on to 
another hospital, Michel noted he was concerned about the health and 
safety of the staff and patients of his hospital after receiving the 
threatening emails and phone calls.

So, from a roadtrip that began in Chicago bound to a hospital in 
Florida, it takes but one phone call from a worried citizen to cause 
three men to be detained for nearly a full day, to be demonized on 
national TV and lose their jobs by the end of the weekend. Fairly 
impressive, this new America we live in. As Ayman Gheith points out, 
“how many other people witnessed this event that supposedly took 
place?” But what does he know, he was just one of the three men in 
question.

Although some phone calls have come into Larkin Community Hospital in 
support of the men, very few people are going to bat for Ayman Gheith, 
Kambiz Butt and Omar Choudhary. Very few people care if the careers of 
these future medical professionals are forever altered because one 
woman chose to make a phone call. Perhaps fewer people are wondering if 
Eunice Stone’s intentions were in the right place when she picked up 
the phone—did she think, hmmm, this could get me on TV? That the men 
involved say she fabricated the whole story seems to be lost both in 
the news and in the minds of a majority of news viewers.

Do we look around the restaurant and choose a booth based on who we 
think won’t listen in on our conversations, or better yet, do we look 
around a restaurant and chose a booth based on who we think has the 
best “listening skills?” Eunice was quick to tell us all that she isn’t 
a professional eavesdropper.  Maybe things would be a lot different for 
three medical students today if she were.

This is the America we are asked to embrace. Where TIPS guarantees you 
the right to point at your neighbor and cry foul, where the Citizen’s 
Corps asks you to become more familiar with police policy and volunteer 
to assist, where the Office of Homeland Security joins hands with the 
Justice Department to hide hundreds of people in detainment for the 
sake of national security.

What ever happened to the days when we made fun of the weird lady who 
spied on people and eavesdropped—where she was socially marginalized 
for being a snoop? All I know is that she has been replaced with the 
same model, but we call her a national hero.

Why would someone call Eunice Stone a national hero? What did she save 
us from, as a nation? Will she be turned into a stamp to commemorate 
her actions? I hope so, then we can officially regard her as a National 
Reminder of how ludicrous and troubling these times truly are. I will 
lick Eunice and plop her on my letters and think about how backwards 
we, as a nation, can get. And as I mail Eunice off, years from now 
(since it takes a while, and you must be dead, to become a stamp) I 
will reflect on Ayman Gheith’s statement to the press when he was 
released. “I have one message, I think it’s time for us as Americans to 
put down our big sticks and pick up our books and read about other 
people and read about what they believe before we jump to conclusions.”

Indeed, there was something suspicious lurking about in that restaurant 
last Thursday, but between you and me, I don’t think it was three 
medical students—I think it was one woman with an overactive 
imagination, coupled with a wee bit of…well, you fill in the rest.

       All content Copyleft © 2002 by The Alarm! Newspaper. Except 
where noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed 
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