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Traveler Detained for Anti-TSA Message
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."
What rights?
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Oh, that's easy. 2004 November 2.
The issue today is, was that a temporary lapse or a fundamental shift in the American polity? Considering that the House just legalized torture, I'm tending toward the latter.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
America isn't even in America any more, and wasn't long before I was born. I'm reading a history of the 1920s, the Wilson and Harding administrations were amazingly like the Bush administration - rights trampled, incompetent cronies hired, etc.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Alright, so let me get this straight: A guy intentionally insults the meatheads that comprise the TSA then becomes surprised when they overreact in return and everybody cries a violation to our rights has occurred...
Haven't any of you been to highschool? Try going up to the average lineman of any highschool footbal team saying that the the coach is an idiot. By and large, the reaction won't be good. We need to accept that this is the nature of the meathead.
Sure you wouldn't THINK that insulting someone's institution would matter, and by all reasonable standards it shouldn't but that's your problem and why none of you can understand this--you're thinking too much. But to the kind of brute who'd work for the TSA, that kind of stuff definitely does matter.
Take me, for instance. I go to WVU's School of Medicine, but I did my undergrad at Virginia Tech. I absolutely CANNOT wear any of my Virginia Tech clothing around town because of the very reasonable fear that some idiot will start trouble. Have my rights to free speech been violated as a tried and true Hokie? It's the same thing...
So please, let's save our rhetoric and 1984 hyperbole for instances where it really applies, like, for instance, the caged "Free Speech Zones" that began under Clinton during the 2000 election...
-Grym
Privately owned airports are private property. They may be guarded by the government but on my property if you say I'm an idiot I'm kicking you off. If you walked into a wal-mart with a shirt that said wal-mart sucks you would get kicked out. Feel free to wear that crap out on the street. People aren't let into restaraunts and clubs all the tim because of attire. Why the hell would an airport be any different? Heck it was as much for that guy's safety as anything. If other passengers thought he was being threatening by a shirt or his attitude it's not unlikely he would have landed with his skull kicked in by other passengers. I'm a pretty freedom oriented dude, but get over yourselves you damn hippies.
private airline has no power to detain anyone whatsoever, or to search anyone for that matter:
Just like Wal-mart can't search and detain a shoplifter, or JC penny, or Dillards. If I think someone who broke though my window has some of my wifes jewelry in her pocket I can't do anything against his will? Bullshit. If someone comes on my property and is stealing stuff or threatening, or I "THINK" he is threatening my family I probably won't detain him. He's welcome to leave to the best of his ability with that big shotgun crater in his head. Corporations and individuals have greater rights than the police because they AREN'T the government.
It's becoming a great stunt to wear provocative messages on a T-Shirt AND behave like an ass just to stir up a confrontation. I'm a gringo, if I wore a shirt outside my house (in the primary hispanic area of town) saying that all mexicans were wetbacks I'd get a cap in my ass, and nobody in town would give a crap because it was my stupid activity that got me there in the first place. This guy knew what he was stirring up, and then cried when he got what he wanted. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If someone got on my plane with my baby and wife with a T-Shirt that said something bad about the company employees or FAA employees I'd get my family off that plane immediately at the very least, and I'm sure I'd be at the back of that exit line. What company would put up with that crap in their store/plane. What a grade A Idiot/ass this guy is.
Give me a break. These people printing up 10 dollar T-shirts so that they can be a shithead to everyone in the airport need to grow up and get a life.