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Comic Artist Detained For Script Containing 9/11 Type Scenarios
Comics writer Mark Sable was detained by security at Los Angeles International Airport because he was carrying a script for a new issue of his comic miniseries, Unthinkable. Unthinkable follows members of a government think tank that was tasked with coming up with 9/11-type "unthinkable" terrorist scenarios that now are coming true. Sable wrote about his experience saying, "...I was flagged at the gate for 'extra screening.' I was subjected to not one, but two invasive searches of my person and belongings. TSA agents then 'discovered' the script for Unthinkable #3. They sat and read the script while I stood there, without any personal items, identification or ticket, which had all been confiscated. The minute I saw the faces of the agents, I knew I was in trouble. The first page of the Unthinkable script mentioned 9/11, terror plots, and the fact that the (fictional) world had become a police state. The TSA agents then proceeded to interrogate me, having a hard time understanding that a comic book could be about anything other than superheroes, let alone that anyone actually wrote scripts for comics. I cooperated politely and tried to explain to them the irony of the situation. While Unthinkable blurs the line between fiction and reality, the story is based on a real-life government think tank where a writer was tasked to design worst-case terror scenarios. The fictional story of Unthinkable unfolds when the writer's scenarios come true, and he becomes a suspect in the terrorist attacks." It's too bad that the TSA can't protect us from summer blockbuster movies and not just graphic novels.
Never try to explain an authority the "irony of the situation". Chances are they will lack the intellect to understand.
well yeah, because it's perfectly reasonable that a search for drugs, weapons, and explosives would include reading through business papers. seriously, did they think this guys journal pages were laced with ricin? just what would be the justification for needing to read through my notebook before letting me on a plane?
do not read this line twice.
Economist Steven Levitt also had an interesting story of how he almost got arrested because he bought a last min one-way flight, and that he carried research paper on terrorist activities:
I almost got sent to Guantanamo
By Steven D. Levitt
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/i-almost-got-sent-to-guantanamo/
Well there is proof that the TSA did something just as inane in a different case, because the person being questioned recorded his interrogation. The ACLU is using the tape for the lawsuit against the TSA. Listen to it here: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/39922res20090618.html Unless you have a tape of your encounters, the judge will assume the cops/TSA/whatever never lie.
Actually (IANAL) - http://www.lawinfo.com/fuseaction/Client.lawarea/categoryid/144
What do I do if I am arrested?
If you are arrested, submit to the law enforcement officer. Do not resist, even if you are innocent. Your innocence does not make the arrest illegal as long as the officer has conformed to the requirements of a legal arrest. If you resist, even if you are innocent of the charges for which you are arrested, you could be charged with resisting arrest. If the officer does not conform to the requirements of a legal arrest, you should still allow yourself to be taken into custody without resistance. If this happens, you may be entitled to bring an action against the law enforcement officer for false arrest.
My Sig Sucks
"Hell, the UK is the only place I ever heard of where those wrongfully imprisoned are then forced to reimburse the government for the cost of their imprisonment." For some years now, if you enter Australia as an asylum-seeker - which is not illegal - you are put in detention camps - sometimes for years. When/if you are deported you are given a bill for your detention. My nephew-in-law received such a bill for around $AUS250,000. Fortunately it looks like the newish Rudd Government (with support from some of the opposition) is going to reverse this. But I think my point stands - people are locked up in Australia for years having committed no crime and are given a bill for their 'accommodation' when they leave. ...oh and Australian's can can detained for ages without trial with no one knowing why or being able to report on it... ...only in America? I wish!
Wrong. Most of the folks who were against the civil rights abuses by the Bush administration are just as much against the continuation of these abuses by the current one. Now, let's face it... You won't hear a lot of us in the MSM, who like to focus on the blue-dogs and other gutless Republican fellow travelers who rolled over for these abuses, but out here in the Interwebs and in certain parts of MSNBC (I'm looking at you Maddow!) the left is still screaming about it. You can check out this guy's columns, for one. There are many more.
That is all.
You seriously compare Guantanamo Bay with Dachau? From this I must deduct that you have no idea what you're talking about. Guantanamo Bay is comparable to the detainment camps the US opened for Japanese nationals during WWII, not with an institution with the sole purpose of murdering as many people as possible. Seriously, just making that comparission proves that you do not understand what you are going on about.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
You are wrong, mind-numbingly, disturbingly, incomprehensibly wrong. It's as though you just commented in all seriousness that the sun and the moon are the same thing. Not only are you wrong now, but you are wrong in the past and almost certainly the future. You are wrong on so throughly, so completely, that whenever I try to write a cohesive rebuttal my mind falls dizzyingly lurches into a dark chasm where the word "What?" echoes endlessly into the void.
The fact that you have been modded +5 insightful is a thought too painful to bear. I think I need to go lie down.
This boils down to "You are wrong" (without the slightest attempt at justification or explanation). Since when did telling someone "you are wrong" very forcefully and repetitiously merit being modded up to "5 Insightful"? More specifically, where is the insight?
Ironically, the only explanation I can think of is "mob mentality" on the part of the moderators. They agreed with the poster, so modded his reply Insightful for no other reason.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.