Bob McCarty Writes

Steve Bierfeldt

Today, I came across news of a disturbing incident that took place March 29. It involved Steve Bierfeldt, director of development for Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty organization, and Transportation Security Administration screeners at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.

I learned about the incident while visiting the web site of Jan Mickelson, host of “Mickelson in the Morning” on Newsradio 1040 AM in Des Moines. He interviewed Bierfeldt during his morning radio show today. In addition to offering a podcast of the program on his web site, Mickelson provided the links below to a newspaper article about the incident and an audio recording of the incident:

• A Washington Times report which indicated that Bierfeldt was selected for additional screening after screeners spotted a metal box in his luggage that contained a large amount of cash and checks made out to the campaign; and

• A video which shows Judge Andrew Napolitano of the Fox News Channel reviewing an audio recording of the incident made by Bierfeldt with his mobile phone.

Though the TSA screeners are federal employees, it appears they may have taken their instructions from a state-level document — perhaps the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report about the “modern militia movement” that was the subject of my post, “Yikes, I Might Be Part of the Militia Movement!” — or from a federal document of similar makeup.

Not surprisingly, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch chose not to report on the incident, leaving it to individuals in the newspaper’s reader forum area to discuss it among themselves. And the Lee Newspapers-owned daily was not the only major media outlet to miss the story.

A Google News Advanced Search for the exact phrase, “Steve Bierfeldt,” during the past month turned up only 11 results, and only one of them — the Washington Times — meets the criteria of being a “major” outlet.