As reported in many places

[james_davis_nicoll]

Silly me. I thought flying on 9/11 would be easy. I figured most people would choose not to fly that day so lines would be short, planes would be lightly filled and though security might be ratcheted up, we’d all feel safer knowing we had come a long way since that dreadful Tuesday morning 10 years ago.

But then armed officers stormed my plane, threw me in handcuffs and locked me up.

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

That is really appalling. Shameful. It is proof, as if we needed more, that the worst bullies hide behind the notion of 'security.'

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

Made me physically ill when I read it. Required medication to be able to sleep.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It is not surprising. I know someone of South Asian descent who had a relative who had the bad luck to fly into Madrid to marry a Spanish national on the day of the 2004 train bombings; her whole family had to deal with threatening and insulting visits from DHS agents for years, always seemingly predicated on the premise that they were nasty people who were hiding something. I don't suppose I have sufficient experience to tell these people how to do their jobs, but it seems like stupid evil.

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

Wrong, and wasteful as well. While those idiots were harrassing that family they weren't doing something that might actually stop a crime.

Honestly...

[death4breakfast.livejournal.com]

...I would rather take the risk of having terrorists blow me out of the sky while flying than to see this sort of thing happen in my country. The whole thing just makes me sick. I don't even recognise the country I grew up in anymore.

Re: Honestly...

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

See, I think it is totally the country I grew up in, just with some of the underlying forces made manifest. Not the one I'd like to have grown up in, or the one I learned about in junior high civics class.

Re: Honestly...

[schizmatic.livejournal.com]

I think that I may have mentioned this before, but when I was in Middle School, the guy from the Chamber of Commerce who'd occasionally talk to our social studies class said in an off-hand way that we'd eventually have to do something about the protections for the accused in the Bill of Rights because of drug dealers. And he presented it as simple, matter-of-fact adult wisdom. And that was back in 1988. So yeah, the whole distrust of basic rights thing is, sadly, baked into a lot of our discourse.

Re: Honestly...

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think back to the reactionary folk history that the kids in my high school would pass around as a counterpoint to the stuff we were being taught in class. The Civil War wasn't about slavery, Dr. King was a Soviet agent, FDR made the Depression worse, etc. I think the kids were getting it from their parents.

The Warren Court with its emphasis on civil liberties was an amazing thing, and it was a historical aberration. A large fraction of the US population, especially the white US population, never really reconciled itself to any of that, and they've taken whatever opportunities they can to assert themselves.

Re: Honestly...

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

Sounds like some of their parents were Birchers. I'm pretty sure King as Communist agent was one of their bits, as opposed to King just being an "uppity Negro," as less sophisticated bigots believed.

Re: Honestly...

[pperiwinkle.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Yeah, this.

Re: Honestly...

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

This.

[cofax7]

What terrifies me about that story is all it took is one nervous person. Some passenger near the toilets, or whatever, who got spooked because one of the Indian guys had motion sickness and spent too long in the bathroom. There doesn't appear to be a crackpot filter on this system.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Once, before 2001, I sat on an airline flight to Washington next to a turbaned Sikh in a nice suit who had a briefcase chained to his wrist. No doubt he was part of the security establishment; but I can only imagine the passenger freakouts and ensuing nonsense that could have happened post-2001.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Oooh! <imagining>

[connactic.livejournal.com]

Washington D.C.? I would guess he was a diplomat.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, probably more likely.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

That suitcase could easily have been a diplomatic bag. Although it could have been a lot of other things, too. Back in 2001 I bet banks sent messengers with Very Important Documents, that today are all electronic.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

This was actually way back in the 1980s.

[lurkingcanadian.livejournal.com]

I suppose it makes me a bad person, but I find myself wishing the person who phoned in the anonymous tip is subjected to similar or worse treatment. That individual, at least, is guilty of hurting innocents.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

They could be simply ignorant, prone to anxiety disorders, etc. People using public transit systems, airports, etc. get repeatedly told "if you see something, say something", with the emphasis that not erring on that side could lead to a terrorist attack; it isn't necessarily stressed to them that there is no crackpot filter and this is going to lead to everyone who gets flagged and everyone with the wrong skin color who sits next to everyone who gets flagged being treated like a dangerous criminal.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Speaking for myself, I'm completely aware of all of that, and still want the person reporting this to be detained for hours of questioning. But I'm vindictive that way.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Yeah. OC Transpo cribbed the "If you see something..." shtick direct from NYC for their own use. An amusing picture of penguins with odd wardrobe choices goes with it.

And as for the rest of it...yeah. We need crackpot filters.

[eagle]

Bruce Schneier has a great stock reaction to the "if you see something, say something" nonsense: If you ask amateurs to do security, you get amateur security.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Perhaps there is a crackpot filter in the system, but it doesn't work well enough.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

And that's one reason I won't visit the US anytime soon. The risk of something like that happening to me is probably very very small but I don't want to take the risk anyway.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

You'll also have to avoid visiting any country allied with the US.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

"If you see something, say something" does not imply that "something" includes a youngish man acting brown in your presence, people! (See also: Vance Gilbert threatening national security by reading a book about biplanes on a 727.)

[(Anonymous)]

Just seen today (http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2366#comic)

Bruce

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Would there be any political backing for the simple measure of giving anyone picked up by security theatre and then released a written apology from the people who picked them up and some token compensation, say equivalent to the salary of the President of the United States ($200 per hour), for their time? It costs only money, of which the US has no shortage, and emphasises that 'cravenly apologetic for the inconvenience that they might be putting you to' is the appropriate way for State officials to interact with the not-yet-proven-guilty.

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

What I'd want is written confirmation I'm not on a watch list now, even though security officials didn't find I'd done anything wrong. Hopefully it takes more than one moron to decide "Well, we may not have caught them this time, but I'm sure they were up to something," but I wouldn't count on it.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Given that they've kept children on the list for years, I rather doubt that anyone would be dropped:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine had trouble flying home for Christmas, because her six-month-old baby was on the no-fly list.

Or, just possibly, somebody with a coincidentally similar name was on the no-fly list, but the TSA officials at the airport seemed to consider this unlikely.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

The only way anybody will get compensation from the Security Theatricals is false arrest lawsuits (possibly combined with writes of mandamus forcing prosecution under federal law for violation of civil rights under color of law).

Meanwhile, remember "I wish to speak with my attorney."

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I even get that; I think my rights as a non-US citizen entering the US are really very small indeed.

Unfortunately the US is where my employer's customers are based and where the conferences they attend tend to be hosted ...

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Ashcroft was of the opinion that you have no rights whatsoever. The constitution doesn't cover you, as a non-citizen.

Dunno if that's been changed now he's out. (And if it has, whether the memo's reached the troops on the ground.)

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

If you're being detained under the Patriot Act, you don't have a right to an attorney, citizen or not.

[melita66.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I'm flying in 2 weeks and should be getting up to stretch, hit the bathroom, etc. fairly often for medical reasons. One flight leg is 5 hours. I plan to tell the flight attendants what and why just in case.

Although my female white privilege (and innocent look) may be enough to protect me. [hollow laugh]