Airline passenger fined after keeping free airline apple

Larry in TN said:
The passenger wasn't fined for bringing an apple through Customs. The passenger was fined for not declaring that she had food.
Click to expand...

The passenger was fined because the Customs agent was being an ass.

The entire POINT of the declaration isn’t to check a bureaucratic checkbox. It’s to keep fruit carrying pests out of the country.

Fruit found, Customs agent sees person made an honest mistake, hands them another silly form and has them fill it out and maybe go to the back of the line as penance. Throws out apple.

Country safe from pests and terrorism once again. Rah rah.

They’re going to throw away the form three seconds after she leaves anyway. Just hand her another form, jackass.

Nooooo.

The big bad Customs agent says, “You’ve been naughty and placed all of us in GRAVE danger and I want to flex my weenie and give you a fine as large as most people’s entire monthly grocery bill, because I’m a big important person.”

Hey guess why the box is on the form in the first place? Because Customs didn’t want to do their WHOLE job and search EVERYTHING. The box is so they don’t even have to search, if you really think about it.

A million little dictators doing “good gum’mint jobs” at their little useless checkpoints looking for apples and improperly filled out forms, is definitely not what We The People intended our Customs agency to be.

Screw pricks like this guy. The intent is to stop the apple. Not annoy the hell out of Citizens who missed a box on a form.

Papers please. The State says your papers are not in order.

Hand me another one of those stupid forms and I’ll check the right box so you feel important, you dumb meathead. Have an apple. Maybe see if it’ll fit in one of your orifices so you can go in the back room and practice cavity searches on each other.
 
How big of a violation of the law is allowed before a penalty should be applied?

The violation carries a maximum fine of $10,000. The passenger was fined $500.

The law and CBP policy gives the agent discretion in applying the fine. Perhaps there is a reason the agent chose to impose a fine in this case. Perhaps there's a reason he did not choose to impose a larger fine.
 
Larry in TN said:
How big of a violation of the law is allowed before a penalty should be applied?

The violation carries a maximum fine of $10,000. The passenger was fined $500.

The law and CBP policy gives the agent discretion in applying the fine. Perhaps there is a reason the agent chose to impose a fine in this case. Perhaps there's a reason he did not choose to impose a larger fine.
Click to expand...

Oooh. The Mighty Law. Let me now how down and worship it and remove my brain because it says to.

Apple never entered the country, is the metric here. Not paperwork. Or at least the metric applied by intelligent people.

It’s not useful to society to empower $15/hr apple guards to fine people if they feel annoyed at their job today. And not what we hired them to do.

Not that they’d agree. They’re the front line on the war on apples.

Damnit, we are a nation of LAWS and you filled out a form wrong! Get the M-16 and put that terrorist on the ground! She might have more fruit!
 
Larry in TN said:
The violation carries a maximum fine of $10,000. The passenger was fined $500.
Click to expand...

It's my understanding that the customs agent told her the maximum fine was $1,000...not $10,000.

Correct? I don't know but that's what I read.
 
timwinters said:
It's my understanding that the customs agent told her the maximum fine was $1,000...not $10,000.

Correct? I don't know but that's what I read.
Click to expand...

Does it matter?

Barney Fife flexing his bureaucratic muscles over produce. Stand back. Here comes the tip of the spear in national security. LOL.
 
Larry in TN said:
An airline doesn't bring food into the country. All of the uneaten food and trash from an international arrival is collected and incinerated.
Click to expand...

If that is true (and I have no reason to doubt you) there will be outrage the country over when the news of that conspicuous waste gets out.

Well... maybe not.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I think that was the case.

What annoys me about this is the way the media has been sensationalizing it. With misleading headlines that make it look like it was the airline going after the passenger for stealing snacks.
Click to expand...
Example?
 
timwinters said:
Especially since it's being reported that the customs agent was a real smart ass and told the lady that her european trip was about to get a lot more expensive. If that's accurate it sounds to me like customs enjoys power trips as much as the tsa does.
Click to expand...
This is why there are special laws against beating the living **** out of a "federal official."
 
denverpilot said:
Oooh. The Mighty Law. Let me now how down and worship it and remove my brain because it says to.
Click to expand...
Unlike the TSA, ICE doesn't use 100% screening. They rely on passenger declarations in addition to profiling, random selection, trained dogs, etc. If there is no penalty for failing to declare then why would anyone declare anything? Would you prefer 100% screening?

I go through customs multiple times per month uses Global Entry. I frequently check "Yes" to the food question. It's pretty easy. Much easier than 100% screening or a fine and loss of GE benefits would be. Much easier than the screening we go through to enter many other countries.
 
Larry in TN said:
Would you prefer 100% screening?
Click to expand...

I’d rather exactly what I said, don’t be jerks, and let the lady fill out another form.

Who flipping cares? It’s going directly in the trash anyway ten seconds from “hello”.


Have we need a TV show:

“Real ICE: Saving The People from improperly checked checkboxes.”

Cue the Bad Boys theme. LOL.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but one might notice that our borders aren’t exactly secured.

But man, we are good at catching those tourists with apples... and fine their punk azzes if they fill out a form wrong.

This week on Security Theater...
 
Ghery said:
Don't give the airlines ideas. "Food" is already a joke in cattle class.
Click to expand...

I haven’t seen real food on an airliner since the 90s. That ship sailed a long time ago.

But even back then the joke was if one carrier saw a dead animal next to a runway, it’d be a race to see which carrier’s caterers got to it first. :)
 
Fearless Tower said:
I think that was the case.

What annoys me about this is the way the media has been sensationalizing it. With misleading headlines that make it look like it was the airline going after the passenger for stealing snacks.
Click to expand...

You mean the lame-brain media would try to get people to believe something happened a certain way to fit their agenda or need for ratings? I’m shocked and disappointed...
 
Omalley1537 said:
You mean the lame-brain media would try to get people to believe something happened a certain way to fit their agenda or need for ratings? I’m shocked and disappointed...
Click to expand...

The clickbait headlines were all written to make it sound like Delta’s fault instead of some twit at Customs, yes.

Of course that’s what got it noticed so we all would see Captain America’s greatness in levying fines for paperwork, which is so commonplace nobody reports on it anymore. So there’s that.
 
How do we know that the woman herself didn't create such a scene that she ****ed off the CBP agent? Some arrogant passenger gets in my face about something I might be tempted have the last word.

After all the news story only has her word on it.
 
CBP agents are (for the most part) gun toting law enforcement officers. Unlike TSA, which are not.
 
The last few times I returned to the US from an international flight, we were advised in the plane to NOT take any fresh fruit into the US. There are also signs throughout the entire airport to dump any fresh fruits, meats, cheese, ... there are brochures / webpages that advise what to bring and what not to bring. Even if you got the fruit during the flight, I would not try to bring it into the US.
 
Stickman said:
How do we know that the woman herself didn't create such a scene that she ****ed off the CBP agent? Some arrogant passenger gets in my face about something I might be tempted have the last word.

After all the news story only has her word on it.
Click to expand...

Who cares? The entire point of the law is to keep insects and pests out, not for protecting a weenie inspector from someone being snippy.

Plus think of what the typical bored Security Theater worker thinks is “a scene”. Like, “She tried to talk to me and explain something. Holy crap. I’m late for my break time and there’s all these passengers everyone knew were coming.”

If you haven’t met “The Cop Who is Always Right” you’re in for a treat.

I’ve met that guy.

“You cut me off making that left turn.”

“Probably wouldn’t have if you weren’t doing 70 or more on a side street without your lights on catching up to your buddy who’s at least a mile back. Sorry. I misjudged it.”

[Insert testosterone laden cop rant here... but he did eventually calm himself and back down... mostly because I was just stating the facts flatly and peering at him over my glasses like, “Seriously Deputy? Don’t drive like that and people won’t cut you off. Even if you’re headed to a domestic quietly — which I know you’re not since you had time to pull me over — the lights still work on your car that’s fifteen years newer than mine. Go f*** with somebody else. I’m not playing your guilt trip game. I’m not out here purposefully cutting off cops on a regular basis. I met a few like you when I worked Sheriff’s dispatch.”]

He probably decided he was late for coffee with his other speeding buddy.
 
denverpilot said:
Who cares? The entire point of the law is to keep insects and pests out, not for protecting a weenie inspector from someone being snippy.

Plus think of what the typical bored Security Theater worker thinks is “a scene”. Like, “She tried to talk to me and explain something. Holy crap. I’m late for my break time and there’s all these passengers everyone knew were coming.”

If you haven’t met “The Cop Who is Always Right” you’re in for a treat.

I’ve met that guy.

“You cut me off making that left turn.”

“Probably wouldn’t have if you weren’t doing 70 or more on a side street without your lights on catching up to your buddy who’s at least a mile back. Sorry. I misjudged it.”

[Insert testosterone laden cop rant here... but he did eventually calm himself and back down... mostly because I was just stating the facts flatly and peering at him over my glasses like, “Seriously Deputy? Don’t drive like that and people won’t cut you off. Even if you’re headed to a domestic quietly — which I know you’re not since you had time to pull me over — the lights still work on your car that’s fifteen years newer than mine. Go f*** with somebody else. I’m not playing your guilt trip game. I’m not out here purposefully cutting off cops on a regular basis. I met a few like you when I worked Sheriff’s dispatch.”]

He probably decided he was late for coffee with his other speeding buddy.
Click to expand...

You are preaching to the choir. I clear US customs an average of six times a month, I am well aware of the reasons and text of the law. I think she knowingly tried to sneak in the apple and got caught.

I also think that she could possibly have gotten away with a hand slap and a warning if she had behaved in a different way.

My only point was that the news article was purely from her point of view.
 
RJM62 said:
Maybe. But Delta is a US-flagged airline, the airplane is registered in the US, and the apples were passed out en route. Unless Customs can prove that they were over foreign soil when the apples were passed out, I think admiralty law would hold that they were honest-to-goodness American apples and not subject to Customs declaration. Also, there's a pretty good chance that the apples were grown here in the first place. If so, then she merely repatriated the apple.

Rich
Click to expand...

It is about the source of the apple and pest control. The apple came from europe. It has to be discarded.
 
bflynn said:
It is about the source of the apple and pest control. The apple came from europe. It has to be discarded.
Click to expand...

I bet $20 they go in a trash bin, nobody actually sprays the bin with insecticide at numerous of these locations (or whatever they’re supposed to do) especially if they run out and no one is looking, and the trash truck merrily hauls the apples and critters across town to the dump.

LOL.
 
Not sure we know the entire story but it on the face of it, sounds like an honest mistake that warranted a reprimand or warning, not a fine.

There is a reciprocity in human relations that the government, in general, ignores at its own peril.

Every time a cop shoots an unarmed man., usually a minority. Every time a TSA agent confiscates a knife too small to slice a block of cheese. Every time a driver is accosted because he or she fits a profile. Every time someone in authority or power abuses his privileges--obvious junkets at government expense, disproportionate and lavish spending, getting out of tickets because you or your spouse is in Law enforcement. Getting a $500 fine for a piece of fruit carelessly stashed in a bag.

My brother in law is a deputy sheriff, he calls his shield "Master Badge: and regularly flaunts driving laws. My sister has never paid a ticket, just hands them to him.

These people probably think we are not noticing or care but we are and we do. These actions in general diminish respect for authority and serve to break down the rule of law, not enhance it.

There are not enough policemen on the planet to keep people law abiding citizens. But in general, we are. We believe in the rule of law. We police ourselves. Not because someone is watching, but because it is the right thing to do. This sense of Justice is based upon, among other things, a sense of fairness and proportionality. When we see these broken, it's not like we are all going to head out and rob banks, but there is a tendency--if you see people in power getting away with things, or if you see people unfairly treated--to turn one's head at minor transgressions, and to commit them yourself.

This principle is best articulated in the old saying from Soviet Russia, "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work". Or in this case, "They pretend to enforce the law, we pretend to obey".

MInor transgressions become major and before you know it faith in institutions is shattered and who knows, one day we might be led by a demagogue who shows no faith in American ideals and taunts the weak and admires the very dictators we used to abhor.

Oh wait...
 
Ravioli said:
Did the airline declare all of their food transportation?

It's a very odd regulation.

Also, if the liquor bottle was purchased in a country other than the destination or operator, who is the import duty assessed?

Yes, it's absurd minutia, but this is PoA.
Click to expand...

Problem is bringing in the next Med Fly, Dutch Elm, Chestnut blight, Emerald Ash Borer and more imported bugs and disease.
 
This story is insane! I totally understand the rules about not bringing in food or trying to get past security and not declaring food or other items but the guy should have some common since and see how this was an honest mistake and gave the lady a warning. This could have been a great moment to educate the public and build PR as a company.
 
Safe_flying said:
This could have been a great moment to educate the public and build PR as a company.
Click to expand...

Frankly I don’t care about government PR. And yes, have a good friend who works doing that. Maybe mean to her indirectly, but really I don’t care. If someone does a job well above and beyond their duty, sure. Fire off a press release.

But giving someone a break on a checkbox on a form, isn’t exactly above and beyond. Let’s not lower that bar too much. That’s not exactly catching a baby falling from a burning building.

If the lady with the apple truly did lose her mind and started a scene shouting insults or something like that (we don’t know) then maybe letting her return to the back of the line and re-do her form, *might* be above and beyond enough to be worthy of a press release. Maybe.

Give commendations for that. Not that the commendation or lack thereof means anything in jobs you usually can’t get fired from if you tried.

It shouldn’t be a big deal to be reasonable about filling out stupid forms that’ll be in the trash two minutes later. Hand it back, confiscate the fruit, point out the error, and tell her to grab another form, go to the back of the line, and try again.

I have no problem with the agent handing her a dunce cap to wear until she gets back to the front of the line, either. LOL. The fine is just silly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top