“So tell us really, how much do you love terrorism?”
After an exhausting 13-hour flight from Paris, all Chris Whitman wanted to do was return home with his family.
The joyful reunion the UMass Lowell senior hoped for never happened. Just moments after getting off the plane, Whitman was brought into a secured inspection room at Logan Airport where he was held without contact to his parents for over five hours. Brought in under the “random inspection” pretense, Whitman was questioned of his involvement with terrorism, and was later accused of “planning and orchestrating terrorist activities on U.S. soil.”
Whitman, a political science major, had been overseas the previous two months as part of the UMass Lowell Hessen Exchange program. Rather than returning home directly after the scheduled four-week program in Germany, Whitman decided to spend another month exploring Europe and the Middle East. On his personalized trip, he made stops to Turkey, the Netherlands, Lebanon and Syria. Due to international agreements, Whitman explained, he could not fly directly to America from Syria, so he flew to Paris for a connecting flight.
“When I got to International Arrivals at Logan, I showed my passport to customs, and once he saw I had visited Lebanon and Syria, I was brought into a room for ‘random inspection’,” Whitman said.
“As soon as I got into the room, two men, Rooney and O’Rourke, working for Homeland Security dumped out my entire suitcase, which had two months worth of stuff in it, onto the floor. Then they separated all the items from my luggage into two categories, which they called ‘normal stuff’ and ‘terrorist stuff’”.
Whitman said the items claimed to be “terrorist stuff” were simple souvenirs he had bought in small convenient stores around Syria and Lebanon. His collection included magnets, stickers, t-shirts, miniature flags, and CDs, most of which is scripted with Arabic writing.
“One magnet has a picture of a woman with the Syrian flag in the background and the text on it reads ‘Peace Be Upon You’. They kept asking me why I bought such a thing,” he said.
Some of the items Rooney and O’Rourke examined featured images of Hizballah, a concept they attempted to use as evidence Whitman was a terrorist supporter.
“I study Syria, and when they asked me what I knew about Hizballah, they seemed upset by the amount of information I actually knew. They even accused me of ‘knowing too much to be innocent,” he said.
After learning about his interest in Syrian politics, Whitman said Rooney and O’Rourke placed him federally under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security, where they threatened to detain him for 24 hours. He asked the officers to inform his awaiting parents of his whereabouts, but his request was denied.
“They told me that because I was not out of the gate yet, I was in an area called a “Nexus Point”. This meant because I was technically not on American soil, I had no rights.”
Whitman said the officers began incessantly questioning his motives for visiting Syria and Lebanon, making him describe a day-by-day picture of his schedule overseas.
“I told them that I saved up for the trip because it’s what I study in school and I wanted to get a first-hand look at it all,” he said.
“They responded by telling me it was impossible for me to raise that kind of money on my own, and they believed Hizballah funded my trip in order to give me terrorist training over there.”
Whitman denied that statement, but their accusations only got more elaborate and serious.
“They said they were sure I had been trained to bomb and terrorize the American population,” he said.
After they examined every detail of his trip, Whitman said the officers began asking him personal questions.
“They asked me about my background, my political beliefs, and random stuff my family. It all felt really irrelevant. They asked me what kind of debates I have at home, and told me I was really suspicious.”
Whitman said he asked to call his lawyer; the men said he could, after two more hours of investigation.
Immediately after his request, Whitman was held down against a wall, and pat down.
“Hours later, the men were still accusing me of completely ridiculous things. They said that had been following me for months, that they knew I understood Arabic and that I loved terrorism,” he said.
When the allotted two hours were up, the men told Whitman he was free to go, but he had to surrender his laptop to them for “counter-terrorist investigation”. He was told had had an 80% chance of getting it back at all.
“Then they told me I was under FBI investigation, so all my phones would be wiretapped,” Whitman said.
Shortly after returning home, Whitman attempted to bring up his case with the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU), but was denied.
Nine weeks later, Whitman regained possession of his laptop. He said the process of actually receiving it was once again “ridiculous”.
He is unaware of whether or not his phones are still wiretapped.
Though Whitman has not had what he calls “the best” experience with homeland security and ACLU in America, his views on his experience overseas are still positive.
“I loved every minute of my trip,” he said. “I can’t wait to return to Syria this summer.”
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I guess I feel sorry for this kid, but I’m also glad to hear law enforcement is being thorough. The kid fits the profile of someone that needs to be detained and questioned based on his itinerary. To think otherwise is either arrogant or naive, depending on the perspective. It is unfortunate that all things Middle Eastern/Arab are suspect these days, but those are the times we are in.