Mid-Flight Sexual Play Violates the Patriot Act

[Deborah]

This would be funny if the consequences this couple is facing weren't so serious: :rofl:

Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2006 19:48:15 -0600
==============
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/11/1 ... b8xln.html
Mid-flight sexual play lands US couple afoul of anti-terrorism law
Nov 14 6:53 PM US/Eastern

A couple's ill-concealed sexual play aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles got them charged with violating the Patriot Act, intended for terrorist acts, and could land them in jail for 20 years. According to their indictment, Carl Persing and Dawn Sewell were allegedly snuggling and kissing inappropriately, "making other passengers uncomfortable," when a flight attendant asked them to stop.

"Persing was observed nuzzling or kissing Sewell on the neck, and ... with his face pressed against Sewell's vaginal area. During these actions, Sewell was observed smiling," reads the indictment filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On a second warning from the flight attendant, Persing snapped back threatening the flight attendant with "serious consequences" if he did not leave them alone.
The comment was enough to have the couple, both in their early 40s, arrested when the plane reached its destination in Raleigh, North Carolina, and charged with obstructing a flight attendant and with criminal association.
They have been placed under legal surveillance until their trial on February 5. If found guilty, they both could be sent to jail for up to 20 years.
Persing's lawyer William Peregoy said his client was not feeling well when he placed his head on his companion's lap, and that he only threatened the flight attendant with reporting him to his superiors on landing.

[Oz girl]

please say this is a joke!

[Anonymous]

Okay, that HAS to be the most embarassing thing to happen to those people.. international coverage of one's face in a vagina.. priceless.

[Deborah]

Nope, not satire.

TSA makes a federal case out of, umm , 'country matters'
By John Bogert

Funny how a smutty little exchange from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" can link a Southwest Airlines flight from LAX to North Carolina, the Transportation Security Administration and a Lakewood couple who -- and I don't believe they invented this -- behaved like horn toads at 28,000 feet.

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
 
Ophelia: No, my Lord!

Hamlet: I mean, my head in your lap.

Ophelia: Ay, my lord.

Hamlet: Did you think I meant country matters?

It's always country matters, isn't it? That or money which brings us low.

Take the less-than-circumspect Carl Warren Persing and his live-in girlfriend, Dawn Elizabeth Sewell. Use of their middle names should be a criminal tipoff. It's not for nothing that we know the Harvey in Lee Oswald.

This amorous pair, according to a front-page story by esteemed colleague Doug Irving, are accused in a federal indictment of engaging in "overt sexual activity" on the Sept. 15 flight and with bullying a flight attendant. Persing, described as half of a 40-ish "run-of-the-mill" couple, allegedly embraced Ms. Sewell and pressed his face into her lap. Which I believe falls under Article IV, the "country matters" section of the Patriot Act.

If they had only left it at that and just obeyed the flight attendant, none of this would have happened. But no. Persing, a longshoreman, allegedly went on to commit a serious crime.

Mind you, it was a crime that until 9-11 might not have been considered a crime at all. In that bygone halcyon era, a man seen aboard an aircraft "nuzzling or kissing ... and acting in a manner that made other passengers uncomfortable" might have been dismissed as a jerk.

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Hear John read his column on his new podcast.
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By the way, this information comes from the FBI, which -- because they have caught all the murderers, extortionists and kidnappers -- finally has free time to work on cases of vital national importance.

The FBI report also notes that, "During these actions, Ms. Sewell was observed smiling." Face it. This is a frightening time, a time of zero tolerance and terrorism. Terrorism! That and wanton women wearing smiles on airplanes.

Despite the attendant's efforts to quell the smiling and nuzzling, the loutish Persing told the man to, "Get out of my face." Actually, I am assuming that he was talking to the flight attendant at this point and not his girlfriend's lap.
 
Anyway, Persing's attorney claims that his client was only trying to take a nap and became annoyed when the attendant kept rousing him. After a second reprimand, Persing reportedly said, "I'm going to give you one warning to get out of my face." Then, when he was refused alcohol, "There is going to be a serious confrontation between you and me."

At that point, Persing might as well have been waving a gun and screaming, "Death to America!" In a humorless time without gradations, a man (even a jerk) accused of "diverting and delaying" a flight attendant is automatically an enemy of the state.

Mind you, five years ago they missed the Arab men with the box cutters, but they're on the case now. Last week a woman on a Delta flight out of Burlington, Vt., claimed that she was removed from a flight because she was breastfeeding her baby. Meanwhile, Los Angeles comic Tom Irwin finds himself on the dreaded TSA watch list (he thinks) because his humor offended someone. This while my college-age daughter remains listed for carrying a small knife in her backpack. And never mind that the TSA knew immediately that it was there by accident. By the way, paying a TSA fine doesn't get you unlisted.

There used to be a saying in America, one used when somebody was blowing a small incident out of proportion. We'd say, "Don't make a federal case out of it!"

For tacky in-flight behavior, the government of the United States of America is putting two of its citizens on trial in February. The maximum penalty? Twenty years in federal prison. http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/columni ... page=2&c=y[/url]

On the leg of the Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to RDU, Newton said, Persing wasn't feeling well and laid his head in Sewell's lap and went to sleep.

Newton said a male flight attendant, who is not identified in court records, mistook that scene for something sexual and repeatedly roused Persing. Then, Newton said, the flight attendant humiliated the couple by loudly declaring they would not be served alcohol because of their previous behavior. Newton said Persing threatened to report the flight attendant to Southwest officials.

Newton said a fellow passenger will testify about overhearing the flight attendant say to another that they should call law enforcement to avoid a complaint being filed.

That was what happened, according to Newton: The FBI was called when the plane landed, Persing and Sewell were arrested and the couple spent three days in jail.

Federal authorities describe events much differently in court records.

The indictment says the couple repeatedly engaged in "overt sexual activity in the cabin of the plane to such an extent that the flight attendant had to direct them to stop."

An FBI agent's affidavit states that the couple was embracing and kissing in a way that made other passengers uncomfortable. The affidavit also states that Persing was seen kissing Sewell's collarbone, neck and near her breast, as well as placing his face in her lap. After the flight attendant again asked the couple to stop, Persing told him to "get out of my face" and called him a "punk."

The flight attendant refused to serve them alcohol, and Persing retorted that they were going to have a "serious confrontation" when they got off the plane, according to the investigator's affidavit.

Newton said she doesn't deny Persing might have been affectionate to Sewell during the flight but wonders why that is a crime. Newton said Persing has no previous criminal record and served in the U.S. Navy, including during the Persian Gulf War.

She said she and co-counsel Bill Peregoy of Wilmington plan to ask a judge to dismiss the charges because the trial was delayed. http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/510606.html

The Affidavit and Indictment
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/crim ... 06ind.html

[Oz girl]

it truly is a world gone mad!

[Deborah]

They're abusing the power given them under the "Patriot Act".
This woman was kicked off for breastfeeding.

Mums begin 'lactivism' after airline bans breastfeeding
Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent
November 23, 2006
IT'S ironic that since a lot of US airlines - airlines everywhere, actually - treat you like cattle that they also might get a bit squeamish over the thought of a dairy.
But last month a nursing mother was ejected from a plane about to take off in Vermont because she was trying to breastfeed her baby

The extraordinary tale has sparked a discrimination complaint from the mother, Emily Gillette, and a huge embarrassment for the airline, Delta. The brouhaha here has also sparked a form of protest being dubbed "lactivism".

Over the past week there's been rolling breastfeeding sit-ins where dozens of nursing mothers position themselves in front of the Delta airline counters in protest and, like maternal gunslingers, unleash their bosoms and latch on their babies.

Ms Gillette, her husband Brad, and their then 22-month-old daughter, River, were removed from an October flight from Burlington to New York after a flight attendant asked Ms Gillette to cover up while she was breastfeeding the girl.

Freedom Airlines was operating the flight on behalf of Delta Air Lines.

Ms Gillette, 27, filed a complaint against both airlines with the Vermont Human Rights Commission alleging that the airline violated a state law that allows women to breastfeed "in any place of public accommodation". Ms Gillette told USA Today she took a window seat in the second-last row and her husband took the aisle. She began nursing River, using one hand to hold her shirt closed. She told the newspaper: "I was not exposed."

But the flight attendant approached, tried to hand her a blanket and asked her to cover herself, she recalls. "You're offending me," Ms Gillette quotes the woman as saying.

"I'm not doing anything wrong and I will not cover up," Ms Gillette says she said in response.

Ms Gillette says the flight attendant walked away and a few minutes later, a ticket agent boarded and said the flight attendant had ordered them removed. The airline arranged for a hotel for the family for the night and a flight with a different airline the next morning.

"No woman should ever be ashamed of breastfeeding," Ms Gillette says. She wants "both airlines to create policies that protect a woman from being harassed for feeding her child on an airplane".

Freedom Airlines spokesman Paul Skellon says breastfeeding on a plane is OK if it's done in a "discreet way".

Forty-three states in the US have instituted rights for women breastfeeding.

This reporter's wife was told last year to cease breastfeeding in a public hall of a federal office, despite laws saying it is legal to do so. Congress passed a right to breastfeed in 1999, which governs all federal buildings and parks.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 03,00.html

Nurse-In
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Mothers in airports across the country held a nurse-in Tuesday to support the cause of breastfeeding rights.
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/loca ... ryid=69633

Airline apologizes
"We concluded that the flight attendant in question acted contrary to the Company?s expectations," spokesman Paul Skellon wrote in an e-mail. "We believe our disciplinary action was appropriate and was taken after considering all of the facts leading to this incident."

Skellon also said that the captain of the flight apologized to the passenger and her family and "immediately requested that they be re-boarded for their flight," which the family refused.

Contacted Friday, Gillette said that is untrue. She said the airline "never offered" her to get back on the plane.

"I would have jumped at the opportunity," Gillette said.

Skellon said he initially misstated the company?s breast-feeding policy. In a Free Press story which ran on Tuesday, Skellon said, "A breast-feeding mother is perfectly acceptable on an aircraft, providing she is feeding the child in a discreet way."
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps ... /-1/NEWS05

A humorous blog: My Tits and My Toddler Fly the UNfriendly Skies
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erin-kote ... 34643.html

For the second time in less than a week I will board a now infamous Delta partner flight and lift up my shirt. Some passengers will turn away in disgust. Some passengers will nod in approval. Some passengers will do a double take in the hopes of seeing some action. And while I breastfeed, some passengers will dare to tell my daughter to eat her meal in the toilet.

In the end, it's not the passengers I worry about- I can handle those of you sitting alongside me in coach. I'm wondering if the power hungry flight attendants will see my breasts as a threat to national security or a disruption to the carrier. Will I, or won't I, be allowed to feed my 19-month old on a plane? Just what exactly is Delta's position on public breastfeeding?

Delta, and its subsidiary Freedom, are backing off their "use your own discretion" policy after a mother did just that. Instead of quieting the storm they ended up with millions of pissed off nursing mothers (this one included). Those of us encouraged by massive government ad campaigns. Those of us encouraged by pediatricians, the World Health Organization, and every other sane person on the planet to breastfeed our children. Yet here we are, doing what is best, and because it gives someone the willies, we and our families are escorted off airplanes. Let us not forget you may be sitting next to Barbara Walters, and she would rather you use a bottle.

Program parent, Barbara Wa-Wa, said the sight of a breastfeeding mom next to her on a flight "made her uncomfortable" which prompted a protest.
http://tinyurl.com/asu9n

Freedom Airlines has revised its initial stance on the boob that rocked an airline incident. I think they are apologizing, but I'm still not sure. When I fly tomorrow, do I have to use a blanket? You know, the ones they leave on the seats for you, used and smelly from the passenger before you. Do I have to make some sort of attempt to cover the top part of my tit? The bottom part? What about the side...can I show the side of my boob? What if my daughter falls asleep and unlatches from my nipple, and there is a half second before I can pull my shirt to cover? Will I get kicked off the plane? What if I open my bra and lift my shirt in anticipation of her feeding, yet she gets distracted by the wonderful smell of airplane snacks and leaves me hanging out? Will they make me parachute out over the next major city, or can I just leave my tits in the wind while I wait for her to turn back around? What if the one guy, three rows ahead on the right, gets all uppity about my nursing? Does he get to ask I be removed?

I'm curious as to why those of you squeamish types can't seem to handle a little boob. Is it because you want it to stay stuffed in a Victoria Secret bra instead of in a baby's mouth? Does it make you uncomfortable to see what God clearly intended as man's plaything and not a tool of nutrition used in such a vulgar manner?
Now that my daughter is verbal, she can publicly demand to nurse and lift my shirt.
I give it to her.
Tomorrow I will give it to her on two Delta flights.
Go ahead, cringe. No one can see you.
I know many of you are all pro-breastfeeding until the child can ask for it. Maybe it's the age of the children you see breastfeeding that bothers you. If the best you can come up with is "it makes me uncomfortable" sounds like YOUR problem, not mine.
So I'm just asking here, out loud-what is your problem? I'm doing what the WORLD agrees is FANTASTIC for my child.
Tell me.
Better yet...tell her.
...and it's a good thing I don't simultaneously pray and breastfeed. Then you know I'm getting kicked off for sure.

[Oz girl]

yeah I read about this. Hilarious.

[try another castle]

God damn patriot act! It is jeapardizing the MILE high club!

fuck. You said it before I did.

Looks like I won't  be sucking any cock in an airplane lavatory anytime soon. There might be a BOMB in his pants!

Although I have been known to make men explode. Or at least, that's what they said.

"The captain has turned on the too much information light."

[Anonymous]

Although I find the strory of the woman that was kicked off for breast feeding ridiculous, I've got to say that you have to be an idiot in todays world for not following all crew member instructions.(It's a federal requirment.. that's the part of the announcment no one listens to.) If you really have a problem with someone, complain AFTER you get to where your going, cause picking a fight or creating a scene will only get you kicked off, period.

I'm not saying it's right, it's just the way it is, so you've got to be just plain stupid to think you'll be the exception. There are plenty of power hungry FA's and their decisions are not always right, but a letter from you or your attorney to the CEO will go a lot farther cause if your removed from a flight, they'll always back the crew. Company policy kids.

[try another castle]

What if the FA happens to be the one you are fucking in the lavatory?

Lord, do I miss the Southwest Airlines that I grew up with in the 70s. Hot pants!

[Anonymous]

What if the FA happens to be the one you are fucking in the lavatory?

Lord, do I miss the Southwest Airlines that I grew up with in the 70s. Hot pants!

Well like I said Castle..if the FA tells you to get into the lavatory and bend over, well than you had better do it quick! You don't want to be arrested when you land for failing to comply!
and yes darling....flying is not what it use to be.

[Anonymous]

They're abusing the power given them under the "Patriot Act".
This woman was kicked off for breastfeeding.

Mums begin 'lactivism' after airline bans breastfeeding
Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent
November 23, 2006
IT'S ironic that since a lot of US airlines - airlines everywhere, actually - treat you like cattle that they also might get a bit squeamish over the thought of a dairy.
But last month a nursing mother was ejected from a plane about to take off in Vermont because she was trying to breastfeed her baby

The extraordinary tale has sparked a discrimination complaint from the mother, Emily Gillette, and a huge embarrassment for the airline, Delta. The brouhaha here has also sparked a form of protest being dubbed "lactivism".

Over the past week there's been rolling breastfeeding sit-ins where dozens of nursing mothers position themselves in front of the Delta airline counters in protest and, like maternal gunslingers, unleash their bosoms and latch on their babies.

Ms Gillette, her husband Brad, and their then 22-month-old daughter, River, were removed from an October flight from Burlington to New York after a flight attendant asked Ms Gillette to cover up while she was breastfeeding the girl.

Freedom Airlines was operating the flight on behalf of Delta Air Lines.

Ms Gillette, 27, filed a complaint against both airlines with the Vermont Human Rights Commission alleging that the airline violated a state law that allows women to breastfeed "in any place of public accommodation". Ms Gillette told USA Today she took a window seat in the second-last row and her husband took the aisle. She began nursing River, using one hand to hold her shirt closed. She told the newspaper: "I was not exposed."

But the flight attendant approached, tried to hand her a blanket and asked her to cover herself, she recalls. "You're offending me," Ms Gillette quotes the woman as saying.

"I'm not doing anything wrong and I will not cover up," Ms Gillette says she said in response.

Ms Gillette says the flight attendant walked away and a few minutes later, a ticket agent boarded and said the flight attendant had ordered them removed. The airline arranged for a hotel for the family for the night and a flight with a different airline the next morning.

"No woman should ever be ashamed of breastfeeding," Ms Gillette says. She wants "both airlines to create policies that protect a woman from being harassed for feeding her child on an airplane".

Freedom Airlines spokesman Paul Skellon says breastfeeding on a plane is OK if it's done in a "discreet way".

Forty-three states in the US have instituted rights for women breastfeeding.

This reporter's wife was told last year to cease breastfeeding in a public hall of a federal office, despite laws saying it is legal to do so. Congress passed a right to breastfeed in 1999, which governs all federal buildings and parks.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 03,00.html

Nurse-In
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Mothers in airports across the country held a nurse-in Tuesday to support the cause of breastfeeding rights.
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/loca ... ryid=69633

Airline apologizes
"We concluded that the flight attendant in question acted contrary to the Company?s expectations," spokesman Paul Skellon wrote in an e-mail. "We believe our disciplinary action was appropriate and was taken after considering all of the facts leading to this incident."

Skellon also said that the captain of the flight apologized to the passenger and her family and "immediately requested that they be re-boarded for their flight," which the family refused.

Contacted Friday, Gillette said that is untrue. She said the airline "never offered" her to get back on the plane.

"I would have jumped at the opportunity," Gillette said.

Skellon said he initially misstated the company?s breast-feeding policy. In a Free Press story which ran on Tuesday, Skellon said, "A breast-feeding mother is perfectly acceptable on an aircraft, providing she is feeding the child in a discreet way."
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps ... /-1/NEWS05

A humorous blog: My Tits and My Toddler Fly the UNfriendly Skies
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erin-kote ... 34643.html

For the second time in less than a week I will board a now infamous Delta partner flight and lift up my shirt. Some passengers will turn away in disgust. Some passengers will nod in approval. Some passengers will do a double take in the hopes of seeing some action. And while I breastfeed, some passengers will dare to tell my daughter to eat her meal in the toilet.

In the end, it's not the passengers I worry about- I can handle those of you sitting alongside me in coach. I'm wondering if the power hungry flight attendants will see my breasts as a threat to national security or a disruption to the carrier. Will I, or won't I, be allowed to feed my 19-month old on a plane? Just what exactly is Delta's position on public breastfeeding?

Delta, and its subsidiary Freedom, are backing off their "use your own discretion" policy after a mother did just that. Instead of quieting the storm they ended up with millions of pissed off nursing mothers (this one included). Those of us encouraged by massive government ad campaigns. Those of us encouraged by pediatricians, the World Health Organization, and every other sane person on the planet to breastfeed our children. Yet here we are, doing what is best, and because it gives someone the willies, we and our families are escorted off airplanes. Let us not forget you may be sitting next to Barbara Walters, and she would rather you use a bottle.

Program parent, Barbara Wa-Wa, said the sight of a breastfeeding mom next to her on a flight "made her uncomfortable" which prompted a protest.
http://tinyurl.com/asu9n

Freedom Airlines has revised its initial stance on the boob that rocked an airline incident. I think they are apologizing, but I'm still not sure. When I fly tomorrow, do I have to use a blanket? You know, the ones they leave on the seats for you, used and smelly from the passenger before you. Do I have to make some sort of attempt to cover the top part of my tit? The bottom part? What about the side...can I show the side of my boob? What if my daughter falls asleep and unlatches from my nipple, and there is a half second before I can pull my shirt to cover? Will I get kicked off the plane? What if I open my bra and lift my shirt in anticipation of her feeding, yet she gets distracted by the wonderful smell of airplane snacks and leaves me hanging out? Will they make me parachute out over the next major city, or can I just leave my tits in the wind while I wait for her to turn back around? What if the one guy, three rows ahead on the right, gets all uppity about my nursing? Does he get to ask I be removed?

I'm curious as to why those of you squeamish types can't seem to handle a little boob. Is it because you want it to stay stuffed in a Victoria Secret bra instead of in a baby's mouth? Does it make you uncomfortable to see what God clearly intended as man's plaything and not a tool of nutrition used in such a vulgar manner?
Now that my daughter is verbal, she can publicly demand to nurse and lift my shirt.
I give it to her.
Tomorrow I will give it to her on two Delta flights.
Go ahead, cringe. No one can see you.
I know many of you are all pro-breastfeeding until the child can ask for it. Maybe it's the age of the children you see breastfeeding that bothers you. If the best you can come up with is "it makes me uncomfortable" sounds like YOUR problem, not mine.
So I'm just asking here, out loud-what is your problem? I'm doing what the WORLD agrees is FANTASTIC for my child.
Tell me.
Better yet...tell her.
...and it's a good thing I don't simultaneously pray and breastfeed. Then you know I'm getting kicked off for sure.

A couple of years ago, I had a 4 lb preemie baby in the hospital, and I had to pump milk for him (in the bathroom) during my work day.  I stored the milk in little bottles, which were then placed into my zipper-closed lunch bag in the company lunchroom's refrigerator.  A co-worker, for reasons unknown, saw fit to open my lunch bag to peruse its contents, saw the bottles, and went ballistic over the evidence of "body fluids."  He brought it up with my supervisor, and I thenceforth had to store my baby's milk in one of the lab refrigerators, sharing shelf space with vaccine components and experimental research materials, some of which were quite toxic and most questionable.

[Antigen]

:rofl: Never mind the dangerous and somewhat questionable contents of, say, commercial dairy cow's milk or fast food or that coworker's science project that's been brewing away at the back of the bottom shelf for some months, eh?

I just spent a hell weekend not to long ago w/ a couple of unfortunate sufferers of RAD (Reality Averse Disorder). We're driving down from a nice mountain top park chattin it up about all the fun an inherently dangerous activities we all enjoy--ya know, rock climbing, skiing, cross country hiking, kayaking, etc. when I hit a low gear section of road. So I did what I always do, I threw it in neutral. Why waste the stored energy fighting against the engine, right? Besides, I enjoy the sense of freefalling. But these two wild and crazy adventurers just about came unglued! "OMG! Are you fucking crazy?!?!? That's so dangerous! You lose control! The drive shaft might come out! Put it back in gear! You're just doing this to scare me!...."

[Anonymous]

:rofl:  :rofl:  ::hehehmm::   My dad used to do that ALL the time, on each and every hill, during the fuel crisis in the 70's.  I knew how and when to shift it into neutral YEARS before I got my driver's license...  'Course, now that I think of it, I don't think he saved that much gas, but it was the joy of tinkering for tinkering's sake, eh?

MR2X

P.S. Interesting Mike Oldfield reference... especially when considering the original (commercial) use of this piece...  perhaps intentional?