Liberals Obstructing in Favor of Terrorists - Patriot Act II

If you are not a terrorist, murderer, or child molester, chances are the worst thing that could possibly happen is you may be investigated in error for a little while, but that is possible regardless of the law.

No, they want to check our library cards. (Hint: anyone can buy the books they need with cash at Barnes and Noble. ) Does anyone claim terrorist groups are so short on cash they have to use libraries??

maryland news
A tale of customer service, justice and currency as funny as a $2 bill

Michael Olesker

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PUT YOURSELF in Mike Bolesta's place. On the morning of Feb. 20, he buys a new radio-CD player for his 17-year-old son Christopher's car. He pays the $114 installation charge with 57 crisp new $2 bills, which, when last observed, were still considered legitimate currency in the United States proper. The $2 bills are Bolesta's idea of payment, and his little comic protest, too.

For this, Bolesta, Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours, finds himself under arrest.

Finds himself, in front of a store full of customers at the Best Buy on York Road in Lutherville, locked into handcuffs and leg irons.

Finds himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he's handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service is called into the case.

Have a nice day, Mike.

"Humiliating," the 57-year old Bolesta was saying now. "I am 6 feet 5 inches tall, and I felt like 8 inches high. To be handcuffed, to have all those people looking on, to be cuffed to a pole -- and to know you haven't done anything wrong. And me, with a brother, Joe, who spent 33 years on the city police force. It was humiliating."

What we have here, besides humiliation, is a sense of caution resulting in screw-ups all around.

"When I bought the stereo player," Bolesta explains, "the technician said it'd fit perfectly into my son's dashboard. But it didn't. So they called back and said they had another model that would fit perfectly, and it was cheaper. We got a $67 refund, which was fine. As long as it fit, that's all.

"So we go back and pay for it, and they tell us to go around front with our receipt and pick up the difference in the cost. I ask about installation charges. They said, 'No installation charge, because of the mix-up. Our mistake, no charge.' Swell.

"But then, the next day, I get a call at home. They're telling me, 'If you don't come in and pay the installation fee, we're calling the police.' Jeez, where did we go from them admitting a mistake to suddenly calling the police? So I say, 'Fine, I'll be in tomorrow.' But, overnight, I'm starting to steam a little. It's not the money -- it's the threat. So I thought, I'll count out a few $2 bills."

He has lots and lots of them.

With his Capital City Student Tours, he arranges class trips for school kids around the country traveling to large East Coast cities, including Baltimore. He's been doing this for the last 18 years. He makes all the arrangements: hotels, meals, entertainment. And it's part of his schtick that, when Bolesta hands out meal money to students, he does it in $2 bills, which he picks up from his regular bank, Sun Trust.

"The kids don't see that many $2 bills, so they think this is the greatest thing in the world," Bolesta says. "They don't want to spend 'em. They want to save 'em. I've been doing this since I started the company. So I'm thinking, 'I'll stage my little comic protest. I'll pay the $114 with $2 bills.'"

At Best Buy, they may have perceived the protest -- but did not sense the comic aspect of 57 $2 bills.

"I'm just here to pay the bill," Bolesta says he told a cashier. "She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money. Like she's doing me a favor."

He remembers the cashier marking each bill with a pen. Then other store personnel began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?"

"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender."

A Best Buy manager refused comment last week. But, according to a Baltimore County police arrest report, suspicions were roused when an employee noticed some smearing of ink. So the cops were called in. One officer noticed the bills ran in sequential order.

"I told them, 'I'm a tour operator. I've got thousands of these bills. I get them from my bank. You got a problem, call the bank,'" Bolesta says. "I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, he's standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.'

"Meanwhile, everybody's looking at me. I've lived here 18 years. I'm hoping my kids don't walk in and see this. And I'm saying, 'I can't believe you're doing this. I'm paying with legal American money.'"

Bolesta was then taken to the county police lockup in Cockeysville, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called in.

"At this point," he says, "I'm a mass murderer."

Finally, Secret Service agent Leigh Turner arrived, examined the bills and said they were legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear."

This will be important news to all concerned.

For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

The other day, one of Bolesta's sons needed a few bucks. Bolesta pulled out his wallet and "whipped out a couple of $2 bills. But my son turned away. He said he doesn't want 'em any more."

He's seen where such money can lead.

Also re: freedom versus security.

I'm not saying that they are mutually exclusive. I'm saying that everyone must find the place on the spectrum where they feel most comfortable. Some are willing to sacrifice freedom for security. Some are willing to sacrifice security for freedom.

Everyone must make their individual choice as to how much freedom and how much security they want.

DrewDad wrote:

Also re: freedom versus security.

I'm not saying that they are mutually exclusive. I'm saying that everyone must find the place on the spectrum where they feel most comfortable. Some are willing to sacrifice freedom for security. Some are willing to sacrifice security for freedom.

Everyone must make their individual choice as to how much freedom and how much security they want.

Fair point DrewDad but in society the individual doesn't get to make an individual choice, they have to go along with the majority. Now where the majority are frightened (and not without good cause I might add) they will be willing to trade much freedom for at least the illusion of security. For those who, for whatever reason, want to control society tightly, this is a godsend.

Those who are of stronger mettle and who want to keep their freedoms and not surrender them for this illusion of security - tough, there's no way they can get away from it. They are under the same regime.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. You may be investigated in error for a little while. Yes. Really meaningless, unless you are the poor schlub who's house and home is being combed over and, just as likely, you're named in the papers with the dreaded 'person of interest' label. (Think Atlanta Olympic Plaza bombing.) But that's just bad luck, isn't it? Just like those more than a hundred slobs convicted of murder and later exonerated through DNA evidence were unlucky, for some of them 'a little while' turned into twenty years or more of prosecution and incarceration.

Actually what need to happen is for the FBI to do it's job. They don't need more investigative power, they need a computer system that actually allows different offices to talk to one another and compare notes. They don't have one, and they just scrapped the one they have been trying to get to work after spending millions. Luckily, they are not in business or they would be Chapter 11 by now.

Someone recently said that four years after Pearl Harbor we were signing the papers for Japan's surrender, four years after September 11 we have what? Deep insertion into the American-based terrorist organization? Increased language ability by FBI agents? Radically new surveillance techniques? Computer software designed to follow underground money streams?

No, they want to check our library cards. (Hint: anyone can buy the books they need with cash at Barnes and Noble. ) Does anyone claim terrorist groups are so short on cash they have to use libraries??