AEROSPACE GIANT DOESN’T LIKE HAVING ITS PICTURE TAKEN …
Unlike the rest of South Carolina’s political and media class, this website does not reside in the back pocket of aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
We’ve got no particular beef with the company, we just don’t believe your interest as American taxpayers is served by us kissing up to them like everybody else does. Accordingly, FITS has been unafraid to call out Boeing’s reliance on government-subsidized incentives – including the U.S. Export-Import Bank (a.k.a. “Boeing’s Bank“) as well as the $1 billion and counting in command economy bribes the company has received from South Carolina taxpayers.
Oh, and unlike the rest of the bought-and-paid-for mainstream media, we’ve been able to get inside Boeing’s North Charleston, S.C. facility to get the real scoop on serious production problems and the increasing likelihood the plant will be unionized by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).
Well, our sources have gotten inside …
Our founding editor Will Folks (a.k.a. “Sic Willie”) discovered the hard way that getting anywhere near Boeing’s gleaming government-funded facility in the South Carolina Lowcountry is a dicey proposition.
On his way out of town this week, Folks stopped by the front gate of Boeing’s North Charleston plant in an effort to snap a few pictures of the facility’s facade.
Bad idea.
Within seconds of opening the shutter of his cell phone camera, two private security guards accosted him – one of them grabbing the phone right out of his hand. Folks identified himself as a member of the media, but the security guard – employed by Allied Barton – refused to return his phone. Not only that, he actually began deleting its pictures and videos without permission – telling Folks his phone had been “confiscated.”
Crazy huh? And this was outside the front gate of the facility, people …
Even worse, the guard didn’t stop with the handful of photos and videos Folks took of Boeing’s plant. He proceeded to delete several pictures of Folks’ family – including a video of his seven-month-old daughter, Eva, saying “da da” for the first time.
Talk about a “dick move …”
Other highlights from this over-the-top encounter (which Folks documented on his Twitter page)? The officer threatened to arrest Folks for trespassing – and file a lawsuit against him in the event any photographs of Boeing’s facility wound up on our website.
Yeah …
Sic Willie is used to aggressive security types. He’s mixed it up with numerous private security personnel and state, local and federal law enforcement agencies – including a famous 2009 encounter with the U.S. Capitol Police. In all our years of doing this, though, we’ve never dealt with anything quite like Boeing’s brutish tactics.
Or pure spite in intentionally destroying private property.
So … what do we plan on doing about it?
Easy: We’re going to keep doing our job … reporting on and providing commentary about Boeing exactly as we have done from beginning.
66 comments
If you had been in your car when the pictures were taken outside the gate, and you were on your way home, I wonder what they might have done then. Chase you down and use a pit maneuver to stop your flight, get the police to come with a bench warrant to seize your phone? Shoot you?
why weren’t you uploading every picture to the web as you took them?
Why don’t you buy a real camera you cheap bastard? You’ll look less like a terrorist and more like the journalist you purport to be.
Power and profits is the raison d’etre of corporations – individuals, not so much… individuals pretty much take it in the ass.
Tell that to Sam Walton who started out selling stuff out of the back of his truck.
Is the reason you don’t get it is because you refuse to?
What pray tell is it that I’m not getting?
The difference between an individual and a corporation.
I’ve got a firm grasp of the differences, not sure why it’s germane to this discussion though. My point is that the union (an incorporation generally) is just as, if not more than, greedy and interested in power as the big evil corporation. If we’re discussing why Hobby Lobby gets to act one way or why corporations get to act as “people”in the case of political activities that’s a completely different discussion.
My point is that the union (an incorporation generally) is just as, if not more than, greedy and interested in power as the big evil corporation.
——–
And that’s the point, isn’t it? That the individual doesn’t have that power.
Okay, and now that we’ve had that circular argument, what are we fighting about?
Oh, I know that – he’s got to wear the Kabuki mask on every issue…blaming government for paranoia… it doesn’t take much to probe the reason why.
I might argue that there is still plenty of reason for paranoia – the fact that you’re paranoid doesn’t necessarily mean that people (or the gubamint) aren’t out to get you…
the fact that you’re paranoid doesn’t necessarily mean that people (or the gubamint) aren’t out to get you…
——
but the government isn’t to blame for paranoia… even if they are out to get you.
Tell that to Sam Walton who started out selling stuff out of the back of his truck.
Would have been interesting to see Sic Willie pull his camera stunts from the Cooper River as close as he could get to wharf Alpha at the NWS back in the 60s and 70s.
I have been “shooed” away from the ammo pier at Sunny Point so many times that the Maine Patrol knows my call sign.
Neither did the jarheads when nuc weapons were being moved at NWS. Full battle dress, locked and loaded M-16s and APCs. Of course the most crystal clear message is the one delivered by the sign behind the post of the jarhead guarding entry to the missile storage area on board a tender. “Use of deadly force has been authorized”
I never got close enough to see the Jarheads in Bangor – I was boarded so quickly I didn’t have time see much. The only thing that saved me from “official trouble” was the ability to barter some helicopter rides on UH 60’s for an “official visit” to the Delta Dock. In fairness, I was lost in the fog and basically at the mercy of the currents in my tiny little sailboat.
You’re not allowed to call them jarheads anymore, science has proven you can put a brain in a jar.
heh-heh… my favorite of the month!
I’ve seen that. We got too close to a sub in our boat one day (decades before the gates and ever present DHS boats) and about 20 of them with M-16s filed out on the deck. Needless to say…we evacuated the area..and our bowels.
Keep smoking that crack, Colonel. Unions are just like corporations… you can have some that work like they’re supposed to (and work for the employees’ interests -free market and all that), and you can have some that don’t. Boeing is free to negotiate with unions, or simply refuse to. It all comes down to what is most profitable -pay a fair wage, or hire an all-new workforce. Do you believe businesses have a right to negotiate for best price on materials? If yes, then you have to allow that employees have a right to negotiate for best wages. Otherwise, you support economic slavery.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said necessarily. IAM nearly killed Boeing back in the late 80s. The union drove Boeing to look for alternative plant sites – I am not impressed with them at all. Until the Mob took over the teamsters in the late 40s early 50s, it was a pretty good organization.
My problem with most unions is that the NLRB acts like every thing the say came down from Mt. Sinai written on stone tablets. The fact that the NLRB exists at all is indicative that unions were/are corrupt – it’s a given that corporations will ALWAYS act in their own best interest.
Kook job much?
Believe me, I’d be sensitive too. LMAO. Folks, it looks like we got ourself a modern-day version of Karen Silkwood, all over again…Hahahaha…
All that is missing is that faithful, and fellow Speedo-clad sidekick: Boz. (Dolly Pelliker, in the Silkwood movie.)
I have to LMAO…when you told him you were a member of the media, did the guard ask for a press credential? Do you have one???
At any rate: I’m D*#n glad Boeing is on the look-out for nut-jobs. You are so immersed in taking down Nikki Haley for Vincent Sheheen, it’s not a laughing matter. It’s getting weird. Very irresponsible on your part. Pretty immature, too. But I’m not surprised.
In your case, I wish Fits would censor the comments.
You are an Idiot. Shill for the establishment. Sad Clown.
Yes! While I thoroughly respect Fits for not engaging in censorship, even on comments which are really mean-spirited and against Fits, I bet if you polled the majority of us readers, most would give Fits a green light to censor GT.
There ya’ go, CC — for the GrandTurnip only:….if a word doesn’t count for points in Scrabble, then delete it!
PS — The GrandTurnip may have been the one who got Sic to stop allowing us to post photos and cartoons.
I doubt Emily will get off her couch to investigate anything. I guess it’s easier to just take ideas from this site and WIS and then Google search what others are reporting.
I’m beginning to believe ol’ Squishy is FITS himself. Anybody else think that??? You have to be one sick and paranoid, liberal son of a B!*ch to be so totally invested in my failure, if you’re not.
But here is where the stupid, like you, miss it. I report what you will not admit. I put into words, eloquently, truth you are scared to death of…or write about, even in your hackneyed, uncontrolled verse.
You protect the leftwing status quo, because yall are eating high off the hog while we pay for it. Not to mention, I was way out ahead of FITS on the Hoover story, and a couple others, that he dismissed as irrelevant. Then he had to play catch-up, w/ manufactured tales, from “informants” (posters on here who invent stuff) that have been revealed as untrue.
You see, the corrupt have to take short cuts. And that’s OK if honesty does not matter. But it will bite you HARD one day. It always does.
Nope, I’m much better looking.
Narcisiscm is my hobby. Everybody needs a hobby, yours is trying to convince the world that you know what you’re talking about and cutting and pasting things into your blog.
Are you blowing Joe Penner for inside information?
Hey, give that guard a break, he was gonna be late to his other job at the mall if he had to fool around with you any more.
But Sic – what are you going to do about that guard? You let him take your phone and walk all over you with threats and insults? With your experience and background you should have been more alert. Isn’t’ deleting items off your phone considered theft? Did you even get his name or badge number so you can humiliate him on Fitsnews? Damn! — GO BACK AND GET THAT IMPORTANT INFO..!!! Let us shame him on Fitsnews…… we’ll work him over.. even the GrandTaco will jump in…..
I thought the same things – heck, I even thought about complaining to Boeing for Ol’Sic but that picture is so grainy that you can’t identify the guard!
If the guard deleted all his pictures, the one above came from where?
Good question – one assumes the guard gave the phone back. Based on the composition, he probably shot it surreptitiously as he fled the scene…
From the phone they never grabbed from him. The bald headed loser is lying again.
Just the other day, I talked to the security guard who was involved. Apparently Ol’Sic embellished according to Allied Barton’s side of their story. He was parked in the median turning lane in front of the security gate which is still Boeing property and snapping pictures. The security guard came up to his car and asked what he was doing which he was taking pictures INSIDE his car. The security guard noticed and said he could not do that and said to delete those pictures. So Ol’Sic deleted them in view of the security guard which he didn’t verify and said “Okay I deleted them”. So the part about deleting his daughter’s first word. Probably not even true either.
SC is a whore, lay back, get used to it, and take it !
He’s content to be a whipped pup… besides
“HuHuh! I was in the right!”
“Yes, absolutely in the right!”
“I certainly was in the right!”
“You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a
bruising!”
“Yeah!”
“Why does anyone do anything?”
“I don’t know, I was really drunk at the time!”
“I was just telling him, he couldn’t get into number 2. He was asking
why he wasn’t coming up on freely, after I was yelling and
screaming and telling him why he wasn’t coming up on freely.
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out”
Why don’t you have a lock on said phone?
You should probably be thankful they were corporate cops, if they were of the government variety you’d have been tazed, thrown in jail and paying legal fees for the subsequent hearings.
“On his way out of town this week, Folks stopped by the front gate of Boeing’s North Charleston plant in an effort to snap a few pictures of the facility’s facade.
Bad idea.”
If you don’t have anything of value to report, create something.
You should sue them for assault.
If he did that he would have to prove his story.
Jackie, I talked to the security guards in question. See above.
When the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers unionize the North Charleston Boeing plant, I will laugh. Nikki’s comeuppance!
So, you didn’t ask to speak to a supervisor?
What the security guard did is illegal. Plenty of case law to support it. In fact, it qualifies as robbery (armed if he had a weapon, strongarm if he didn’t). File a report and prosecute.
Granted the rent a cop went a little radical on FITS. However, anyone with a brain in their head would know, that would probably be the outcome in this age of over-hyped security due to terrorism,
Look on the bright side we sold a lot of those pieces of shit to India. But on the down side SC taxpayers paid for ’em.
Shoot, Fits has more balls driving down tattered, two lane, big truck infested, stripes wearing off, pot hole laden I-26 to Charleston from Columbia at 70 mph….then back!
Ya know…..why would Wil Folks waste time and gas to drive to the front gate of BOEING when all he has to do is take a SCREEN Shot on Google Earth…? Talk about wasting gas that is getting our troops killed…!!!
Furthermore……if this article is true (and verifiable)….it goes to show how security TRAINING at Boeing is insufficient. This guard needs to be re-trained…!!! This guard is afraid of a phone..? He needs to understand how to smile at an intruder…!!
“We’re going to keep doing our job”
“We” who? Did you have your kids in the car?
I know people who work at Allied Barton and they say what this guard did flies in the face of AB policy. They are not supposed to use any physical force unless there is no other way of handling a situation. They are supposed to call local Law Enforcement and let them handle situations. You really need to dig further into this. File a complaint with Allied Barton’s office in Columbia on Stoneridge Drive. You can file a complaint with SLED too. What he did was over the top and probably highly unlawful.
I believe “Regulatory Services” would be the proper place to direct concerns or comments to at SLED.
Actually I found out more about the “incident” in question. Ol’Sic was parked in the median lane (which is not a median lane by the way) in front of the Boeing gate. http://goo.gl/maps/uxotc Then he snapped pictures with his cell phone INSIDE his car which is hard for any security guard to take a cell phone away from. Ol’Sic did not identify himself as a member of the media (which this blog hardly qualifies as one) The guard asked him to delete the pictures and Ol’Sic apparently complied. So if he lost video of his daughter, it was Ol’Sic’s fault, not AB. It’s likely the reasons why we don’t see a suit against Allied Barton. Especially there are cameras facing outwards at the gate which likely would contradict any testimony given by Ol’Sic.
IF you don’t file a police report, this is all just talk.
I believe it. but it’s got no oomph if you don’t back it up. I had the same thing happen to me in New York City as I was taking pictures of the building my father worked in when we lived there.
I didn’t let the guard take my camera and I laughed at him when he said it was national security issue.
And I was not as young as you. File charges, or stop whining.
He likely made it up. See above comments.
Easy to target a security officer who is trained not to kick your ass. What a punk you sound like!
“And this was outside the front gate of the facility, people …” He still was on Boeing property. The property line starts where the Boeing 5400 International address mark is.
Fitz would like to be “in Boeing’s back pocket” but he can’t perform the contortion required due to the fact that his lower lip is caught up in Howard Rich’s zipper.
— wonder how many signs he passed stating that no cameras or photographs are allowed.
Will, stay on public property and you ought to be okay. I don’t know where BOEING’s ownership of their property begins, whether it is at the entrance gate. But it you’re on a publicly maintained road, you are well within your rights to take photographs.
Ask the ACLU for legal help. Also, there was a recent Supreme Court ruling restricting law enforcement’s access to a person’s smartphone; in essence, they need to get a court issued search warrant.
The “Rent A Cop” security force at BOEING violated several laws that included theft of property.
Actually, those roads are maintained by Boeing. The property line as I stated starts at the 5400 International address mark. In the future with the International Road scrapping proposal, it’ll be 1 continuous property starting at Montague.
http://www.charlestoncounty.org/Departments/TST/acr.htm
http://www.sac.usace.army.mil/Portals/43/docs/regulatory/publicnotices/SAC-2004-13767_Charleston_Boeing_Expansion.pdf
Now if you fire up Google Maps and go to Street View, there is a sign put up by Boeing indicating that it’s property of Boeing. There’s also the fact that the street entering the Boeing property is called “Boeing Boulevard” which is not an official street name and that implies that it’s privately maintained.
The Supreme Court ruling regarding cell phone searches does not apply to this case because “Allied Barton” is not a public organization like for example the North Charleston Police Department. This is not a case of “Private vs Public” but rather a case of “Private vs Private”. Those kind of cases are rare before the Supreme Court such as Intel Corporation v. AMD in 2004.
Got the message yet, Sic?