Traveler Detained for Anti-TSA Message 1082
scifience writes "A traveler frustrated with recent changes to airport security procedures found himself detained in Milwaukee after writing a message critical of the TSA's leader on a plastic bag presented for screening. The message, which read "Kip Hawley is an Idiot," resulted in a confrontation with law enforcement, the traveler being told that his right to freedom of speech applied only "out there (pointing past the id checkers) not while in here [the checkpoint]." The story, which is detailed in a rapidly-growing thread on a discussion forum catering to frequent flyers, has attracted the interest of the ACLU, an AP reporter, and many others. The incident raises a number of interesting questions and concerns regarding just where our rights end."
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:3, Interesting)
passing through to other countries.
Makes you wonder how many people have decided that and how many airlines will go bust as a
result.
Are Rights Cyclic? (Score:5, Interesting)
T-shirts (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Constitution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:5, Interesting)
I turned down two jobs for the sole reason that they advertised "frequent travel to US headquarters" as an advantage. No thanks, that is not an advantage. It is a first degree disadvantage.
Re:Who are these people? (Score:3, Interesting)
They certainly are not.
For example, the airport security people in Singapore are totally different from their counterparts in the UK.
In Singapore, they exude an air of being happy in their jobs. They are friendly, courteous, efficient and well organised.
Those in the UK are the opposite in every way that matters.
The harrass pilots as well (Score:5, Interesting)
The pilots have to pass through security just like the rest of us, and from what I hear they are getting increasingly fed up with the security screening staff. The general opinion is, that these are the same personality types that under different circumstances would become executioners.
Some of the pilots fought back though. One guy I heard of, attempted to pass through the detector gate, carefully making sure to step over an imaginary 1 foot high obstruction.
The screening crew apparently didn't have a sense of humor and made the pilot walk through the gate again, warning him to do it "normal" this time around.
At first the pilot prcoeeded normally through the gate, but stopped in the middle of the gate, spinning around in a Michael Jackson-esqe manouvre and exited the gate walking backwards. The screening crew went ballistic and forced him through a third time before he was let through.
Another pilot presented his ID card to the security screening crew, was let through and pocketed his card again, hurrying towards his assigned aircraft. He was running late.
Airpot security guidelines clearly states that ID cards should be carried visible at all times and a female security offcial noticed that the pilot did not carry a visible ID-card, took offence and ran after him. The pilot made it all the way to the cockpit and was sitting down and preparing for the flight, when the security offical came bursting into the cockpit, throwing a hissy fit and telling the pilot off for not wearing the ID card visible. The pilots in the cockpit were running late and were getting increasingly annoyed by the security official, when they noticed that the official was not carrying an ID card herself.
"So who are you?", they asked her, demanding to see her ID card. Fumbling around her pockets, she realised that she had left her own ID card behind, when running after the pilot.
The pilots resolutely locked the cockpit security doors and radioed the airport advising them that an unknown person that could not identify herself was locked in the cockpit with them.
The security official was then escorted off the plane by two armed police officers.
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Enough already (Score:1, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Airport security or social engineering? (Score:5, Interesting)
Al quaeda seems not willing to embarass the US by using the arms they got from them, in the meantime western citizens are being trained to be questioned, searched, put in custody for merely losing patience. Here the 500-1500 stingers given to Bin Laden [wikipedia.org]... all lost? If so, can't they buy anything second hand in Kosovo? Strange.
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:4, Interesting)
And apparently John Kerry "looks french". I'm sure nothing can be read into that.
The trouble is people actually ingest that kind of poisonous filth day after day until it becomes truth. If you stack Fox up against the BBC the difference is quite frankly, chilling. I dont know what the other american networks are like, but if they are even 50% as biased and agenda-based as Fox, then I would be really scared.
Re:Well, Duhh. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the term you are looking for is "Salami Tactics". I believe that Sir Humphrey Appleby had something to say on the subject. Into the Wayback Machine, Sherman!
So where is the real danger? When your first amendment rights disappear? ("He shouldn't have said that. It's unpatriotic.") Third? ("Support our troops! And have breakfast waiting for them in the morning, please.") Fourth? ("If he wasn't a terrorist, he would have nothing to hide.") Sixth, Seventh and Eighth? ("They're enemy combatants, not people.") Or should you wait until they're all gone to start worrying?
Hey, as long as you have the twenty-first then things are all A-OK, right?
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:3, Interesting)
These guys are asses, but no balls.
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:5, Interesting)
It was after Nixon's political demise that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others who came to be called Neo-cons stared to look for ways to increase the power of the presidency. Remember, it was Nixon who said that anything the president does it legal, because it is the president who is doing it [landmarkcases.org]. In other words, the president is above the law. Since then, they have slowly been setting the stage for this very day.
We had Reagan, who destroyed the unions and set up the boogeyman of the welfare queen, to destroy the social safety net and job security of the middle class. Look where we are now -- Productivity is the highest its been in fifty years, yet people are making less money, working more hours, with less benefits. Prices are up, savings is at an all-time low, and credit card debt at a high. People can't worry about politics -- they are too busy working. Have a problem with this? Shut up with your class warfare and get back to work.
Then came Bush Sr., who was somewhat stymied by a democratic congress and a single term. Clinton's anti-terrorism efforts were hampered by Republicans charging about gays in the military and Lewinsky. I assume I don't need to tell you about Bush.
So if you look at who the major players are behind the scenes in the Regan and both Bush presidencies, you will find Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and assorted other Neo-cons who wanted to strengthen the presidency after Nixon's impeachment. Scary.
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:3, Interesting)
For accuracy, let's switch the word citizen for civilian.
If these citizens constitute a non-representative group of radicals trying to take over...you're exactly right, and how it should be.
However, a majority, or near majority group, with the strength and will of it's people behind it, will consist of members of the military. A detail that seems to be often overlooked in these exchanges, is the fact that the military of the United States is composed of these very citizens, some of which would be on the side looking to take on the government. Now of course, there's no way of knowing how many members of the military will fall on either side of the issue, but it's fairly safe to assume that, if another American civil war were to happen, the sides would have varying degrees of the same access to equipment, material, and the people trained to use said equipment.
Meanwhile, in 'enlightened' Europe... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is the day from when I and others like me are effectively excluded from air travel.
See, I have really bad eyesight, and wearing expensive contact lenses is the only practical remedy to my disability. As you may or may not know, proper maintenance and desinfection with specific hypoallergic products is critical. The sterile products I need come in 120ml and 300ml bottles, so I cannot take them with me any more. Transferring them to smaller bottles is a big no-no. I don't want any unsterile or mislabeled product in my eyes.
Delayed flights, lost luggage... How the hell am I going to cope with them ? Ever tried to get to correct product in an airport, or in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar city ?
If this is not addressed, my next flight in a few weeks may very well be the last.
Re:You think it's bad now?! JUST WAIT. (Score:5, Interesting)
The US can never hold a moral highground anymore over anything. Land of the free? No you can't even walk through airport security without risking getting detained because they don't like what you're wearing or a slogan on your bag.
Setting a good example to others? No way. Threats to nuke Iran if they continue their nuclear programme seem very hypocritical. Their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan were so badly organised the US probably killed more innocent citizens than the terrorists did in 11/09/2001 and 7/7/2005 combined.
Also governments need to move religion out of politics, currently Bush loves bringing God into everything he can, this makes him as much of a religious extremist as the muslim extremists he's fighting.
I'm fed up with the UK too, but perhaps when Blair quits his replacement may not be such a Bush puppet - but I doubt we'll be as lucky. The UK in recent history have always had the special relationship with the US.
Re:You think it's bad now?! JUST WAIT. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a lot in the UK that don't seem to care what their allies in the US are doing (so I can imagine a lot of people in the US don't care either). They don't care because it's not directly affecting them. If that weird looking foreign guy that gets on the bus every morning with them suddenly disappears then they don't care what happens to him, it's all the price to pay for their safety. Once these laws start affecting more people then we may see more complaints.
Yes I know the UK regularly has largish anti-war demonstrations but that's still a very small portion of the population. Most people over here seem to think Bush is an idiot and are glad Blair is standing down but most people here don't care enough to make a difference.
I suspect it's the same in the US.
Re:It used to be your rights end where mine begin (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought not.
Muslims (and Jews) happen to take the whole "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above," thing very seriously.
Christianity as a whole seems to have forgotten the lesson of the Golden Calf.
Liquid Explosive Fake (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the guys who didn't have passports and tickets yet and who haven't been charged with anything yet.
Well, they planned to use some strange "liquid explosives", I personally have at least some knowlegde in chemistry and don't believe this.
But let's hear what others say (taken from http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Sources_August_
---
"The idea that these people could sit in the plane toilet and simply mix together these normal household fluids to create a high explosive capable of blowing up the entire aircraft is untenable," said Lt. Col. Wylde, who was trained as an ammunition technical officer responsible for terrorist bomb disposal at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Sandhurst.
---
However, science doesn't matter anymore and this story sounds very made up by Bliar's and Bush's regimes.
And I might add - most of the TV-Specials on German TV were even less accurate on the chemistry of explosives as they usually are on IT related stuff.
k2r
Re:You think it's bad now?! JUST WAIT. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I'm quite certain that it's nothing more than this, really.
But did it ever occur to you that Bush et.al. and the GOP have "political needs", too? Everyone (except you, maybe) rightly decries the fact that Bush can now legally point to anyone he wants and make them disappear without a trace. In practice he won't have to do this much because the mere threat of it will be enough to coerce just about anybody to do what he wants. The more immediate importance of this bill, however, is that it makes him unaccountable to anybody, for anything he does. He'll be able to tell us that he's scoring victory after victory in the War on Terror, locking up scores of Bad Guys for the mainstream media, but we'll have no way of knowing whether he's catching real terrorists or just random hapless people off the streets of Kabul. He gets the same credit either way.
The Bush and Cheney families - as well as others in the administration - have big-time business interests in the Middle East. With the powers that they will soon have, I can tell you that I wouldn't want to be a business rival of theirs in that part of the world!
That is precisely why he can't tolerate judicial oversight, and why even conservatives hostile to the Bill of Rights should consider their positions carefully. You are being led down a path you'll regret taking some day.
Re:And? (Score:2, Interesting)
Which terrorists are you referring to? The ones we've been told were responsible for 9/11? Not only are there many unanswered questions about that event, but the fact we've seen a very deliberate and willful disregard for the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution- not by the purported terrorists, but by the current administration - makes for some interesting (if not frightening) parallels.
Re-writing the Geneva Convention, allowing, of all people, someone like Bush to "interpret" what is and is not against human dignity in the treatment of detainees (no, terrorists or criminals, but detainees - or "enemy combatants" as they like to call them - whatever that means) - is unprecendeted. Along with Halliburton's incompetence as reported on last night's ABC News Nightline, and the fact our armed forces are involved in a "war" based on false premises, suggests that there isn't much concern for the safety and well-being of those charged with defending our liberty.
This may sound far-fetched, but considering what has happened within the span of five short years, doesn't seem too far outside the realm of possiblity. All that is required for the president to declare martial law (Yes, I'm talking about the U.S. here) is a catastrophe of sufficient scale. Once this occurs, control of the government would be handed over to (if I remember) FEMA. Yes, FEMA- A completely unelected entity will take control of our government. This is NOT SUBJECT TO CONGRESSIONAL REVIEW UNTIL AT LEAST SIX MONTHS AFTERWARD. Were this to happen, what is the one faction that could do the most damage if they happened to disagree with the direction of their so-called "commander-in-chief?" Yes - the military. Unfortunately, their ability to respond to such an affront would be so severely limited, since many of them are tied up in various "anti-terrorist actions" in other parts of the world, unavailable to defend its country on its own soil.
Re:You think it's bad now?! JUST WAIT. (Score:2, Interesting)
They refused to let me eat a religiously vegan diet, I went from 165 lbs down to 130 lbs in 40 days, due to not receiving enough food that I was able to eat. They also recorded in the records that I WAS eating meat, which was factually incorrect.
They would switch my diet to a vegan for a few days before they would weigh me, then switch it back immediately after weighing me, as if they were trying to put a little weight on me before they weighed me, so in all likelihood, I was UNDER 130 lbs..
Welcome to America, where your religious rights no longer count, and they can refuse to feed you food that is compatible with your religous beliefs.
Re:You think it's bad now?! JUST WAIT. (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought the suspension of habeas corpus only applies to foreign nationals ("aliens" in the bill), not US citizens. While this doesn't make the bill any more morally justifiable, there is a big leap between "disappearing" citizens for which our own gov't is responsible and those of other states. I agree that the bill is disturbing, but unless it applies equally to Americans, I wouldn't start the revolution just yet.
TSA people are lower-range intelligent people (Score:4, Interesting)
But you can be sure that when someone in the TSA doesn't know quite what to do, they'll most likely screw it up just like this guy did. One thing about the story that surprises me is that the policeman didn't just send the joker on his way. The police ARE trained in law and should have recognized the risk involved. I have serious doubts as to the accuracy of the original story.
Re:And? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only that, but as of last Tuesday, more Americans have died as casualties in the Second Iraq War than have died due to all acts of terrorism combined over 200+ years of American history. Seems to me Bush's cure is worse than the disease and this week really put some damning numbers on it.
Re:And? (Score:3, Interesting)
The war on terror is not a real war, it's a pretext. Terrorism is a media driven 'statement', not a war, you can't fight terrorists in the same way that you can fight a nation state and anybody that says it works that way is trying to sell you something. If you want to get rid of terrorism you strive for situational change, not regime change. Democracy is not something you can impose, especially if your own country isn't democratic to begin with. Beam, splinter and so on.
Re:And? (Score:3, Interesting)