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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."
But increasingly, your rights end where dissent begins.
"The incident raises a number of interesting questions and concerns regarding just where our rights end."
Don't you mean "... when our rights ended"?
"The incident raises a number of interesting questions and concerns regarding just where our rights end."
Well, they end right there at the point where people happily exchange freedom for that so called "security".
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Born stupid? Try again.
Don't you yanks have a constitiution for this sort of thing?
Don't our rights end where our lefts begin?
> regarding just where our rights end.
Your rights ended on the morning of September 11th 2001 - apparantly the morning of a successful coup of the US government by Al-Queda.
In Civilization IV's Civilopedia there is a Benjamin Franklin quotation on article about Liberalism.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both"
In this context the society is not the State but the airport. Do people feel more secure on security control when a person before them is pointed out because of critisim about the system or are they going to be looking around for the lion in the bushes.
I wonder if there was a similar erosion of rights and freedoms during the second world war? And if so, was that erosion reversed during the period after WWII?
Kip Hawley and the entire TSA are rice-bowlers, collecting paychecks from a spectacularly moronic WPA that spends money as fast as the real WPA ever did but doesn't produce a damned thing.
This guy knows it, and said it in a particularly insulting way. To the people collecting those paychecks, who also know it in their hearts, and are ashamed.
So, yeah, they got angry. The twaddle about 1st Amendment rights applying ~out there, not in here~ was just angry-stupid horking, not worth getting in a flap about.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
They clearly ought to have let him or her go through. There was no security risk, and being held up for 25 minutes can easily make you miss your flight. On the other hand, as abuses of authority go, this is fairly mild.
But what I'm wondering is why people think it's a good idea to go out of your way to be rude or insulting. If you shout "pig" at every cop you pass in the street, pretty soon you will find somone who takes it to heart and will give you a bad time. Maybe this is a violation of your freedom of speech. But why do it in the first place?
Didn't know you could get bear arms. Thought bears were and endangered animal.
I sense a business opportunity in a fashionable range of "Kip Hawley Is An Idiot" T-shirts...
I was thinking to myself while reading this travellers story - and I know from my own experience, these airport security people are much the same everywhere in the world - why do we tolerate security people like this.
It's like Doctors - they are expected to be arrogant, aloof and possessing of a certain air of infallibility. But they're not infalable, we know that and they know that.
Same thing with security people, customs, immigration etc etc. We expect them to be rude and aggressive - but in point of fact they have absolutely no right to be.
When planes blow up etc - the individual security people aren't berated for this. The system maybe - but not the individuals. Also, their lives are not a risk - it is we who travel on the planes that are at risk - and if we can be light-hearted about it, why can't these idiots be? (Gotta love the guy with cocaine).
I think it goes back to the same old thing - give a small man a little power and he will abuse it.
I would like to say that a number of these people are actually very nice and endowed with a decent sense of humour. And you know what - they get the job done just as well.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Are not very bright, have an over important opinion of themselves and become hostile if contradicted.
Punishing those responsible isn't going to solve this problem in the general case.
Can anyone suggest a more proactive solution?
This is nothing new, and hardly a TSA phenomenon. Try insulting a cop's mother when he arrests you; you'll see how far your free speech rights extend.
The TSA is basically a hall monitor in the heirarchy of law enforcement. So they're even more sensitive to taunts, and more likely to elevate an insult to the level of national emergency.
"with the war on terror that gave all those security authorities the power to make your life miserable and still keep public support."
To be honest, the 'new' laws to support the war on terror are not really that new. The Government (Federal, State, and Local) have laws on the books that are so open to interpreration giving law enforcement extreamly (and scary) broad powers. The burden of proof has been on the accused for a very long time. It's just that the majority of the laws in place are not enforced. Most officers/Govt folks are normal people too.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Reminds me of being 'detained' as a teenager, back in the '60s, because the car we were in had a small American flag on the antenna that was upside down...
That was regular cops and they seem to have come around since then. These TSA wonks are more like renta-cops - got shot at by one of them, back then as well, and the regular cops that came out said they would have been 'ok' with me shooting back.
Amazing what a little taste of authority will do for an otherwise flimsy backbone.
I think you meant "when did our rights end".
Here in the usa, what rights we had left pretty much ended on 9.11.01, when the government seized the opportunity to grab the rest of them after a tragic event.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Its been well documented that it took place.
And the reversal was only partial.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you don't think too clearly, then it's best you don't think to much.
Evidently philosophical acumen apprently isn't high on the list of qualifications for being a TSA screener.
That said, I fly a great deal, and TSA personnel seem to be fairly representative of the rest of the human race; some are automatically grouchy and unpleasant, some are tempermentally helpful and friendly, and the majority are like most people, they give you back what you bring them. When you're snide or difficult, the grouchy ones return with interest; when you are pleasant and courteous, the friendly ones return that with interest.
Speaking of philosophy, in Plato's ideal state there were three classes of people, rulers, who required the virtue of wisdom (sophia); soldiers, who required the virtue of courage (andreia); and the rest of the people who required the virtue of sophrosune, which is translated often as moderation, but is perhaps better thought of as temperance. The Greeks thought of this as a kind of self-control over pleasure seaking, but it applies to the negative emotions like anger and suspicion as well. In a modern democratic republic, people (even soliders -- possibly especially them) are called on to excerise the virtues of all three Platonic classes of people, although in different measure.
TSA is above all a civilian agency, although security is its function. And the civilian virtue of temperance is critical to the efficient execution of its duties. Consider the grouchy, aggressive and irritable inspector, on one hand, and the overly friendly one on the other. These are both bad, not because the travelling population is comprised mostly of decent people (it is) on one hand, nor because the travelling population contains dangerous bad people (it does). The reason these characteristics are bad in a screener is that they are both forms of distraction from the actual job.
TSA was cobbled together pretty much overnight, so its a mixed bag. But consider the benefits of moderation. If you're too suspicious, you jump to conclusions and you dwell on irrelevant details. If I were a terrorist, I'd want to be a couple of people behind the guy with the Kip Hawley bag, so I could pass through while everyone was dealing with the First Amendment brouhahah. Likewise, you want the inspectors to be pleasant, but not too friendly. Pleasant behavior is a social lubricant; it makes things run faster. That means more people inspected in a given number of time, or the same number scrutinized in more detail. But you don't want pleasantness to rise to outright friendliness. Chatting and making small talk would get in the way of business.
Of course, you need a wide selection of people if you want to consistently pick the ones from the middle of the deck. For better or worse, security is just one of those things we think anybody is able to do; we don't see it as a job with high professional or personal qualifications. By paying accordingly, we don't a work force which is consistently fitted to do the job with excellence. We end up with a workforce that is representative of the population, and have to accept the natural variations in performance that involves. Perhaps that's good enough. Freedom isn't going to fall apart because of some hot-headed TSA employee taking it upon himself to impose loyalty on the citizenry. Society isn't going to unravel if the occasional airplane is hijacked. We don't like to think of it this way, but we really treat these things as part of the cost of doing the business of society. If we didn't, we'd do what was necessary to have a more consistenly professional TSA.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The problem with our current "war" is it has no defined condition for winning. We won WWII when Germany and Japan were defeated, but our current military escapades have no potential end in sight.
How will we know when the War On Terror is over? George W. Bush said, on 9/20/2001, that it "will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated". How the hell are we going to determine that? Who can possibly predict how long that'll take?
Similar problems present themselves in Iraq. "Major combat operations" officially ended over three years ago, when that banner was unfurled on the aircraft carrier. But we're still there. We've been hearing phrases like "as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down" and "the next six months will be critical" for years now, with no end in sight.
We have no definition of victory. You can't compare this current erosion of rights, done in the name of perpetual war, with any erosion of rights that might've occurred during the well-defined WWII, because no one has any idea when we'll even know that it's time to expect our rights back.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
A lot of the members in my gliding club are airline pilots and i hear a lot of stories from them.
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.
May the Maths Be with you!
Capisci? Your freedom of speech, or press, or whatever, exist _only_ in your relation to congress. Noone else. Not an airline, not your neighbour, not Slashdot, not your employer, etc.
Congress, and by extension, the government. Most airports are federal government property and the TSA is a government agency. Because of that, the first (and the rest) amendment applies to them.
By your interpretation, someone only has those rights when they are in the congress.
The TSA is *not* a private entity, it is tasked with the guarding of the airports by the FAA with support form the DOJ, both of which are fedral institutions who get their powers directly from congress (due to bogus use of the interstate commerce clause, but I won't go into that)....
HUGE difference betweent he TSA saying that and someone at a party.
The guy is karma whoring to get eyeballs on his sig:
If he is, you just helped him, sunshine.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Bloody Jews in the queue ahead of me. Giving disrespectful looks to the SS. All those delays while they're taken out of line and shot. Bits of brain all over my shoes. It's disgusting. About time that someone did something about them."
K.
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
He's lucky he didn't get arrested for revealing a state secret.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Let's say you're a frequent flyer, for reasons of business. If your local TSA supervisor gropes you or someone you know at a bar or on the street, what are you going to do? What if they get in a property dispute with you? What if their child is tormenting your child at school? What if they don't like the clubs or places you want to frequent? What if you want to campaign for a political party they don't really like?
What will you do? Exercise your rights? Do something that might displease the officials? Perturb or them in some small way? You will on your fuck! You will drop everything and anything the moment you smell that this petty prick might make flying more difficult for you. Only fools and people with the right kind of friends will do otherwise.
As the TSA officials and persons like them grow in number and influence, expect such situations to arise. You think it won't happen? The people who set up the TSA, the people in the TSA, they all believe that such a state of affairs would be right and proper. They have a world view, and it does not involve tolerance for yours. If they can find a way to make life miserable for people who don't follow them, they will.
May the Maths Be with you!
I might be paranoid but this seems all a big charade. After hijacking the planes for 9/11, we witnessed repeated attempts at blowing planes up, first the guy with explosive under the shoe, then the other guys who wanted to come onboard with liquid explosives. The problem is that Al qaeda should have hundreds of surface to air missile launchers left from Afghanistan campaign when they fought for USA aganst Soviet Russia (in soviet russia terrorists fight for YOU!). Those are made to hit military planes, a civilian plane during takeoff is a joke for them, I guess.
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... all lost? If so, can't they buy anything second hand in Kosovo? Strange.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 that seems to be relavent in this case
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You hit the nail on the head - my country is turning (in places) into a police state. OK, OK, it's not smart to exercise your free speech in certain times and places. I wouldn't call a local police officer an "idiot" on a routine traffic stop on a dark country lane, even though it would be legal to do so if you weren't threatening
That being said, this is inexcusable. My wife and I aren't going to travel to a cousin's wedding this winter because it has become an exhausting, aggravating, and sometimes demeaning struggle to fly from place to place within the US.
If we (the people of the United States) don't use our right to vote this year and in 2008 to shake up those who imposed these draconian "solutions" to terrorism, well, shame on us all.
Using plain ol' text since 1968
We have no definition of victory. You can't compare this current erosion of rights, done in the name of perpetual war, with any erosion of rights that might've occurred during the well-defined WWII, because no one has any idea when we'll even know that it's time to expect our rights back.
We will tell you when you can have your "rights' back, slave!
The US government has monitored potential threats and "alternative political parties" (witness the whole communist thing) for decades, if not centuries. Actual detainment was not what the GP was referring to. Congratulations on beating up your straw man.
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"What about the "maniacs who blew up bandsmen by remote control"? What should I think about Christians?"
You should be aware that regardless of religion, political party, country, race, sex, , extreamists exist. Those small number of folks are the root cause of most, if not all, of these problems.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
I think what everyone here is failing to realize is that insulting the body's leader in such a way is considered harrassment of the officials doing the screenings. It has long been established that you only have the right to free speech as long you aren't bringing harm upon other people while doing so.
While not as extreme this falls under the category of "harrassing the officer of a law". In the eyes of the government and the law it is just as bad to "harrass" a TSA official (even if it something minor) as it is to call a police officer and idiot to his face.
I have a friend who was cited for "harrassing an officer of the law" for telling a meter maind to not be bitch after she stood at his car and put a new parking ticket on it every 15 minutes.
BTW, anyone who thinks that the First Amendment only affects their relationship with Congress should ask themselves, what authorizes any federal official to act?
That's right, an act of Congress. So, if someone from the TSA violates your freedom of speech, they are acting illegally. There is not and cannot be any legal authority for them to do so, since Congress cannot pass a law that allows them to abridge your freedom of speech.
And if you're wondering how it applies to the states, the 14th Amendment makes most of the Bill of Rights apply to the states as well. Not to forget that states usually have their own Bill of Rights, which could be enforced in state court rather than federal court.
The grandparent poster is only right insofar as he says that the First Amendment does not generally apply to private actors. But there are other regulations here and there (mostly state regulations) that affect what a private actor can do viz a viz your freedom of speech. There is a seminal case out of California that most people read in law school, where a California state court asserted that state's freedom of speech provision as to an Arab owner of a mall who wanted to exclude pro-Israeli leafletters from his property.
So it's not completely unheard of to say that you have a freedom of speech as against a private actor, although it is true that usually you do not. But the grandparent poster gets it completely wrong in assuming that that's what's happening here.
Hello??? The TSA is not an airline! It's a federal agency. He must have been asleep after 9/11 when Congress renamed a thousand 3 letter agencies and put them all under a brand-new "umbrella bureacracy" just so that it could pretend it was doing something.
One of the problems with big government (civil service) organisations is that they are not answerwable directly to the public. While you can argue that elections don't make governments any smarter, it can stop them being exceptionally stupid.
Even if the current government is voted out & legislation is amended, you will still be left with the same power-hungry individuals at the sharp end. While governments may control & curtail their agent's powers, the power required to make them effective can always be abused.
I dare say there is no legislation against having "vaguely offensive descriptions of a TSA leader" on your t-shirt (I may be wrong). An agent willing to bend existing rules to arrest this individual now can still do so after the next election.
Power is only used responsibly under threat of having it taken away.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
I think few Americans right now realize that congress is working, yesterday and today, on passing (not just writing or introducing, but passing, it's already through the house and now up for vote in the senate) a bill that will end habeas corupus and legalize torture:
+ habeas&hl=en&hs=GCv&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox&rl s=Swiftfox:en-US:unofficial&sa=X&oi=news&ct=titleo nID=40&ItemID=11071r yID=20060924-060744-4556rc le/2006/09/26/AR2006092601475.html
http://news.google.com/news?q=torture+bill+senate
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Secti
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?Sto
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
Habeas corpus is one of the oldest tenets of western civilization, predating the U.S. Constitution and even the Magna Carta, and it says, simply, that if someone is to be held in custody by the state, there must be a demonstrable reason for their imprisonment. It is the basis of "probable cause," "warrants" of arrest, and your right to a trail to establish your guilt or innocence.
This bill not only legalizes torture acts against enemy combatants by the U.S. government, it also gives the president and the secretary of defense the authority to unilaterally decide who is an enemy combatant, without review, oversight, process, or documentation of any kind, and to act on that decision, without trial, documentation, or any means of appeal. The standard for being an enemy combatant is essentially that you don't "support" America in some way or another, not according to some objective standard of evidence, but again according to the personal impression of either the president or the secretary of defense. This includes American citizens.
Once they decide you are an enemy combatant, you can be picked up, with no warrant or probable cause, no evidence, and no process other than "the feds said you don't support America." They no longer need evidence. Under this statute no right to trail or judicial review will exist (because you are now like those at Gitmo, rather than a citizen), and you can be tortured at will.
This is what the senate is working on YESTERDAY AND TODAY. It's likely already too late to affect the outcome, but if you haven't yet it might be a good day to call your senator and say that you OPPOSE the bill that legalizes arbitrary indefinite detention at the whim of the president and the legalization of torture.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Hey for a safer America you should be willing to do anything, right?
If you have nothing to hide, they wouldn't pick you up, would they?
The terrorists have won by allowing a regime that wants to do things the same as the countries we accuse of "not being free & democratic". The fear of this irrational thing called terrorism is pathetic. More people die from lung cancer every year in the US. More people have died (or will soon) fighting a stupid war with no real goal, direction or possible positive outcome.
This country is slowly moving down the road of fascism or some other "new" form of dictatorship. When a government keeps it's society in check by fear and hatred, only bad things come of it. How long until we get our Hitler? Stalin? Moussolini?
We are not impervious to failure. The almighty dollar seems to be the only concern in the U$A. Pathetic when a country can spend billions on war and nothing to help the poor and sick.
Jesus wouldn't have voted for Bush that is for certain. War is not the solution to the current problems in the world. Our external policies over the last 50 years or so has assisted in creating this monster. When will people wake up and realize we (the country and our representatives) are not infallible? Hopefully not before it's too late.
I'll conceed your point that violent acts change us, however I take issue with how you make that point. You say Muslims did these acts, not radical Muslims. This implys that all Muslims are responsible and condone these terrible acts. Here you are dead wrong, radical Muslims are a very small percentage of the Muslim population thankfully. We would stand no chance agains 1.3 Billion (1) determined attackers.
So yes acts of terror change us, but only as much as we let them change us. In 2005 14,493 people died in terrorist attacks (2) while 43,443 died in traffic accidents (3). So why are we so worried about terrorism when we are more likely to be killed by a jack-hole talking on a cellphone? We are letting a relativly minor problem get blowen way out of proportion.
I don't think most people here are denying that terrorism is a Bad Thing (TM) but that they take issue with how it is being used as an excuse to take away our cival liberties. Sure it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do but a goverment official saying your right to free speach end is scary and wrong. Its not like he was claming that carying a knife or some banned object was protected by free speach. He made a harmless critasism and was punished for it, that shouldn't happen.
1: Major Religious Groups
(edit: Ah thank goodness for reasonable mods. In the time it took me to write this the parent went from 4 Insightfull to 0 Troll, Thank you.) -- I deliberately put misspellings and grammatical errors in my posts so I know who the dumb people are who respond to criticize my spelling, etc.2: Page 4, Table I
3: DOT Traffic Statistics
Lets have some fun,
Lets get 100,000 people to all go to the airport on the 5th of November at 10am with a lighter that has Kip Hawley is an Idiot writen on it.
Let them detain 100,000 people.
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It's time to put the people back in "We the People"
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
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.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
We have always been at war. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Bah I'm sick of this shit. When did we become such a nation of pussies? I'm sure that any of my granparents would have snapped a potential terrorist's neck with their bare hands after 9/11. Heck either grandfather may have done it well before 9/11 (They always get evasive when they start talking about the war and you ask them if they ever killed a guy with their bare hands...) And John Wayne would have kicked the shit out of Tom Cruise all right.
Generations fought to keep the principles this country was founded on going. They fought against the idea of secret prisons and star courts and the government being able to make people disappear in the middle of the night. And we throw that all away because we're so preoccupied with the shit that we have and we're afraid that we might get killed by a terrorist?! Never mind that we lose as many people on a monthly basis as we did on 9/11 due to traffic accidents. We lose 10 times that number to tobacco related deaths. You're more likely to die from a paper cut than in a terrorist attack. It's a pretty thin excuse to let the Republicans destroy the foundations of our country. And the Democrats are no better. They may eventually lose on any given piece of legislation but they don't need to roll over and take it up the ass like the Republicans' inflatable love doll every time the Republicans try to ram one through.
I say we send them a clear message by voting all those retarded pig fuckers out of office in every single election until we get some leadership that's more interested in our well being than in sucking at the teat of the lobbyests and corporate sponsors in Washington. Register to vote, get out there and vote against the incumbant. If there's a third party running, vote for them. Don't whine at me about electronic voting machines being easily subverted either -- if you suspect that then find out how and subvert them! Vote Gary Coleman governor of California! And if you don't vote, don't complain. You didn't do so much as the least you could do to try to prevent this mess in the first place.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
No, that was about Catholic terrorists trying to destroy the British parliament.
Until the DoJ tries to claim that your freedom of speech is a danger to national security.
Then your lawsuit (usually) disappears.
:(){
>Whenever I see these threads about the US going to hell in a handbag I always ask, and how is this different? Sure there are somethings to be concerned about (e.g. domestic wiretapping.) But when people go on about how america isn't what it used to be, they loose at least some credibility in my eyes.
I was originally going to write about how different it is now, but you're right that for certain segments of the US population, this is just the same thing that has been going on throughout history. The biggest real difference in what is happening is that in the "good old days" the abuses were publicly condemned, as long as they were against white people. Now that the federal government is treating all of us like blacks under Jim Crow, it's interesting to see how much anger has been roused in just 5 years.
What do you think is the appropriate response? Martin Luther King? or the Black Panthers?
We are the 198 proof..
Taxes also subsidize automobile travel - you don't pay at the pump for oil wars to keep gas cheap. Roads are paid for partly by property taxes. And we just externalize the costs of environmental devastation.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
"The incident raises a number of interesting questions and concerns regarding just where our rights end."
There is no interesting question about where our rights end. Our rights themselves continue to be what they were. The interesting question is where our rights begin to be oppressed.
If you fail to grasp this important distinction, you are granting others power over your inalienable rights.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
> then the other guys who wanted to come onboard with liquid explosives
T error_Plot_Fiction_Underscoring_0918.html ) :
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
"his blatant lying to the American public"
It is not a lie if you believe it to be true. King George believes in an alternate universe from ours where invading a country without reasonable justification isn't a war crime (even though some Axis leaders were hung at Nuremburg and Japan for the exact same crime) and spending $500 billion on the DOD after the Cold War is over isn't pissing away the taxpayer's money, corporate welfare, or encouraging arms races. Hope your kids and their kids are ready to foot the bill for our national debt.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Go to http://www.senate.gov./
Use the "Find your Senator" box at the upper right. Sorry, Javascript required. If you already know who your Senators are you can skip this step.
Dial the phone numbers given.
Politely (the staff member is not to blame) and concisely (s/he is busy) explain your values about trials and torture.
This is the important part, near the end.
"SEC. 6. HABEAS CORPUS MATTERS.
(a) In General- Section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by striking subsection (e) (as added by section 1005(e)(1) of Public Law 109-148 (119 Stat. 2742)) and by striking subsection (e) (as added by added by section 1405(e)(1) of Public Law 109-163 (119 Stat. 3477)); and
(2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who--
`(A) is currently in United States custody; and
`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
`(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien detained by the United States who--
`(A) is currently in United States custody; and
`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.'.
(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to all cases, without exception, pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act which relate to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001."
It applies to "aliens," yes. But all they have to do is call you an "alien" and pick you up. Even if you HAVE a passport, a social security card, a driver's license, and a medal of honor, NO COURT would have the jurisdiction to hear your case saying: "Yes, but I'm a citizen!"
There would be no place for you to assert that you weren't an alien!
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
There was an amendment to the bill from the Democrats that would have resotred to the House version of the bill the removed protections. It's the amendment that was killed. :-(
Basically, some of the Senate said "Woah, that house version goes too far!" and they tried to tone it down. But once it got out of committee, the Senate as a whole smashed it and has gone on to procedure regarding the full-strength House version of the bill.
You can read both at senate.gov (see the right-hand column).
As I quoted to another poster, this is the most important bit:
"SEC. 6. HABEAS CORPUS MATTERS.
(a) In General- Section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by striking subsection (e) (as added by section 1005(e)(1) of Public Law 109-148 (119 Stat. 2742)) and by striking subsection (e) (as added by added by section 1405(e)(1) of Public Law 109-163 (119 Stat. 3477)); and
(2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who--
`(A) is currently in United States custody; and
`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
`(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien detained by the United States who--
`(A) is currently in United States custody; and
`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.'.
(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to all cases, without exception, pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act which relate to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001."
You'll notice that the bill claims to apply to aliens. But once you're picked up as an alien, no court has jurisdiction to review your status. So if they come by your house to pick you as a citizen up, there is no way for you to say "No way, dude, I'm a citizen!" because the moment you're picked up, the courts lose jurisdiction.
If they decide you're an alien, not a citizen, that's it under the law. And who is they? At the top of the bill it spells out clearly: the Secretary of Defense or anyone he designates. So, basically: party members.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
At least their training would have them act that way. Trust me on this, I've been there and the vast majority of the people are pretty thoughtless in most ways. But what's more, the training and standing orders are pretty brain-dead as well. They are to be looking for "anything unusual." I'd say this guy's stunt was pretty unusual. Constitutional law is NOT a part of their training. If it were, they'd be seriously disturbed by what their job calls for them to do.
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.
That's because our US citizens on our Northern border have sent reports that the Canadians on the other side were (apologies to Denis Leary) "sharpening up their hockey skates and getting ready to come down here and take our cheese." If there's anything we've learned in these last 139 years of bitter strife with our neighbor to the North, it is that they are much more dangerous than they would lead us to believe, "Eh?" You know what I'm talking "aboot". I think once upon a time the threat was mainly military - concern that the Prime Minister would lead a charge of a million Mounties over the border, that their Dudley Dooright would at last triumph over our Uncle Sam and our doughboys in their vigilance along the border of the barbarous lands to the North. These days, I think the concern is more cultural and economic: that an influx of French-speaking tourists will erode our culture, and the great language of English in this, the land in which it was born. Or that imports of superior Canadian Beer would weaken our economy. Fortunately, however, the latter issue has proven to be of no great concern: We Americans love our cheap, watery beer, so you can keep your "Molson Golden" - I for one, am content to tap the Rockies... The Rockies on our side of the border.
(I hope the Northern Barbarians appreciate some good-natured ribbing...)
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand