Michael Arato for Congress!

by Becky Akers
Feb. 19, 2011

One of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) deviants at Newark International Airport (yes, its full name is "Newark Liberty International Airport," but I’m danged if I’ll call a passengers’ prison "Liberty"), has "pleaded guilty to stealing thousands of dollars in cash and other valuables from unsuspecting travelers, … during security screenings [sic for ‘unconstitutional searches’]." Michael Arato "also admitted … to taking kickbacks from a subordinate officer, who stole between $10,000 and $30,000 over the course of a year while Arato agreed to look the other way."

These two goons "allegedly targeted predominately non-English speaking victims, including women of Indian descent and nationality who were returning home after visiting the United States." They were "blatant" – and brazen, and merciless – "in their thievery": once they stole an envelope containing $5000; another time, Arato and his cohort split $1000 from a single theft; "on a given shift, Arato would pocket approximately $400 to $700 from passengers, according to U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman"; he "even [split] up the cash in front of airport security cameras…"

As his name implies, Arato is a rat. Of course, we knew that before his trial and plea: only rodents agree to "work" for the TSA, rifling our bags and groping us. And far from being a sad aberration, as the TSA pretends, The Rat’s predations typify a bureaucracy where so many employees steal that its spokesliars trot out boilerplate to excuse them: "The unfortunate choices of a couple individuals should in no way serve as a reflection on the more than 1,050 security officers at Newark … who conduct themselves with professionalism and integrity and do an outstanding job every day keeping the traveling public safe," the agency huffed this time – echoing its falsehoods from others: "the action of a few individuals in no way reflects on the outstanding job our workforce does every day to ensure the safety of the traveling public."

It’s no wonder theft runs rampant: the TSA makes it so convenient that only a chump refuses to profit. It forces us to stand defenseless, separated from our belongings, while its bullies explore our person and pockets as thoroughly as would muggers in an alley. It also convinces those bullies we are terrorists, worthy of whatever abuse they care to dish out. If sexually assaulting us protects the nation’s security, imagine what miracles stealing from us will perform.

The Rat and his accomplice are two more reasons in an endless list for abolishing the TSA. But I quibble with the knee-jerk reaction of throwing him in the clink ("Arato faces a maximum of 15 years in prison at his sentencing on May 24"). Why not condemn him instead to that whorehouse on the Potomac and save some poor district the tedium of an election?

After all, he’s got the theft-thing down pat. And he even sees other people’s property the way Our Rulers do: he and his crony "discussed how they did not feel bad stealing from foreign passengers who were leaving the country with ‘our money.’"

Alas, The Rat’s a mere piker compared with the Feds. But give him a couple of terms, and he’ll catch up with their hostility against any citizen or company daring to depart with "their" money. For instance, there’s the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). It magnanimously allows us to "bring into or take out of the country, including by mail, as much money as you wish. However, if it is more than $10,000, you will need to report it to CBP." Why? Do free men suddenly become slaves if they transport more than $10,000? "The penalties for non-compliance can be severe." Ah, but the penalties for compliance are worse: serfdom.

And remember the hullabaloo in 2002 when Stanley Works mulled moving its headquarters (though not its plant and, hence, its precious jobs) from Connecticut to Bermuda? That would have saved the company and its shareholders $30 million in taxes. You might think such a decision prudent, self-evident, and belonging only to Stanley and its shareholders. But politicians, bureaucrats and other busybodies disagreed: they considered Stanley’s affairs their own, just as they did its money.

Rep. Jim Maloney (D-CT) introduced legislation intended to punish Stanley, "ensuring that companies reincorporating outside the US for tax reasons are barred from US Defense Department contracts." Fine – but why not bar all companies from contracts with any department and end American fascism? Meanwhile, this ingrate’s district included Stanley’s headquarters; we can safely presume its taxes paid his salary and those of his staff and retainers. Yet "the amendment ... sends the message to corporate expatriates that they will no longer be able to feed from the federal trough," he sniffed. Unfortunately, Baloney – sorry, Maloney announced no personal plans to quit feeding at the federal trough; voters terminated his pigging there later that year.

Other Congressional thugs "sponsor[ed] bills designed … to close the loophole which permits the companies to head overseas including Lloyd Doggett [D-TX]... Mr Doggett's staff point out that Stanley Works was claiming it would save $30m in US taxes - while its total tax bill on foreign trading was just $7m in 2001. In other words, they say, the company was looking to bilk the Treasury out of $23m." How’s that for governmental logic?

In the end, Stanley bowed to the pressure. It "held an initial shareholders' vote on its Bermuda plan. Stanley said it won the vote by slim margins, but it threw out the results after it was sued by two state officials and was questioned by the [Securities and Exchange Commission], presumably about the voting procedures rather than the decision itself. Stanley had been planning a second vote. The attorney general and the treasurer of Connecticut said the second election was also flawed because the prospectus was misleading… [US] House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) sent a letter to [Stanley Chief Executive, John] Trani asking him not to reconsider the move."

Our Rulers’ success at intimidating Stanley emboldened them. Not only have they continued trying to keep companies from leaving the country with wealth they count as theirs, but they justify their thieving a la The Rat. In 2005, Rep. Rosa DeLauro damned businesses that "set up a shell corporation in order to diminish their tax obligation to the United States … some 25 or 26 corporations who have gone offshore, you know, to dodge paying their taxes." A leech for most of her life, Robbin’ Rosie has a huge and vested interest in keeping her victims captives, but the fawning media ignores that.

So the surprise is not that The Rat stole so much for so long before Our Rulers finally ended his spree but that they did not welcome him as one of their own years ago. Kinda scary that this sociopath’s been on the loose among us innocents instead of in elective office, where he belongs.
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Becky Akers [send her mail] writes primarily about the American Revolution.

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