Homeland Security questions Barrow woman over "threat"

“And I said ‘I’m not properly dressed. You’ll have to wait until I change clothes’,” she recalled.

“I didn’t know who they were, what they wanted – I didn’t know anything,” she said.

Whitehead lives on a 90-acre spread off Highway 81. Her house sits 600 yards off the main road.

When she looked out the window, she saw two official looking vehicles parked at the edge of her yard and two men wearing what appeared to be bullet proof vests emblazoned with the acronym I.C.E., short for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

After Whitehead stepped outside, the two men informed her that she was being investigated as a threat to national security.

Whitehead was surprised to learn that the investigation originated because of a call she had made about the quality of her television reception.

Since the digital transition, Whitehead said the reception on her television has been terrible. She called the maker of her digital converter box in an attempt to get some assistance.

“I have had trouble ever since that box has been installed,” she said.

Unable to solve the problem, the digital box manufacturer recommended she call the FCC (Federal Communications Commission).

Whitehead said she spoke with a very nice lady at the FCC who walked her through everything she needed to do to get better reception.

“She was very, very nice,” Whitehead said. “I thanked her for her help and then I said words to the effect of ‘I would like to shoot the son of a gun that messed up my damn television’,” she said.

“And that was the end of it until they showed up in my yard,” Whitehead said.

“I try to be a good citizen and a good human being and when I was ordered out of my house by someone I did not even know for a reason that I did not know, you cannot believe the shock,” she said. “This was a ridiculous thing that was done to me.”

Before leaving, the agents told Whitehead an investigator would be out to see her.

After the agents left, Whitehead said she went back in her house and cried.

“When I came back in my house and I realized that the federal government had attacked me in my yard, I bawled.”

Whitehead said she has been a good citizen all her life. She believes Homeland Security should have done a background check before launching a full scale investigation.

“I don’t bother a soul,” she said. “I don’t have a speeding ticket, however, I did get one warning about two or three years ago.”

Whitehead added that she has never had a parking ticket, pays her taxes, does her civic duty and is involved in her church.

After the initial shock wore off, fear was replaced by another emotion.

“I got angry that some sons of a gun could come into my yard and talk to me that way,” Whitehead said. “They just came busting out here like a bunch of jackasses.”

Whitehead said she is genuinely surprised that the Department of Homeland Security has so little to do that it would investigate a woman without a blemish in her background.

“I think that Homeland Security should have some more intelligent people working for it,” she said. “I think they’ve got a bunch of damn idiots working for them.”

Though angry about what happened, she remains shaken by the event.

Whitehead is worried her phone line may be tapped and says she has suffered mental anguish and anxiety over the incident.

“For two or three days I stayed in my house and peeped out my windows to see if anybody was in my yard,” she said.

Having investigators return to her house is not Whitehead’s only concern.

“I wonder if I have freedom of speech anymore,” she said. “I am afraid to say anything now.”

Agent Aaron Harward of the Department of Homeland Security said the investigation into Ms. Whitehead has been closed.

“We have a responsibility to investigate all threats and we find out based on our investigation whether or not the threat is credible,” he said.

Harward said people have to be aware that there are certain things you cannot say without prompting an investigation.

Though Whitehead’s original problem has not been resolved, she has no plans to call the FCC again.

“The reception is still awful,” she said.

She did receive some help though. Whitehead said a few days after the incident she received a brochure from the FCC entitled “DTV Made Easy: You Can Do It” explaining what she can do to improve her reception. It did not work.

Whitehead hopes the Homeland Security matter is resolved, but wishes she had asked more questions the day she was investigated as a national security threat.

“When you are totally shocked out of your pants, you don’t see, hear or ask as many questions as you should ask and that’s what happened to me,” she said. “I don’t know when in my entire life I was more shocked than I was that day.”