Slashdot Mirror
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.
From wikipedia:
Welcome to the era of Thought Crime.
Thinking about it is a crime.
Writing about it is a crime.
Drawing about it is a crime.
Last I check wasn't DOING a crime... well.. a crime?
Next thing you know Jessica Lansbury and company will be held and charged for all those terroristic threats and murder plans called "Murder She Wrote". They were so detailed! Lets not forget the Matlock, Columbo, Perry Mason, CSI, etc... All those murder plans!!! GET EM!!
"When is a man damned? When he is oblivious to it."
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
"I cooperated politely and tried to explain to them the irony of the situation." Mr. Sable's ignorance or willful abdication of his 5th amendment rights caused him to perhaps waste a great opportunity to challenge TSA policies on search of personal belongings. Next time, maybe a better approach would be (disclaimer, IANAL): "Am I being detained?" followed by "I'd like you to tell me what laws you are accusing me of breaking," or "I won't make any statements until I have spoken to a lawyer," as the case may be. If Mr. Sable had actually been prosecuted simply for having exercised his 1st amendment rights, his case would have had a much more significant impact in our fear-prone society, causing perhaps some much needed "clarification" of what the federal government can/cannot do "for our own good" to "protect us from the evil terrorists." Perhaps even a re-evaluation of TSA policies, or at least application of punishment to over-zealous agents.
"The minute I saw the faces of the agents, I knew I was in trouble." You're not in trouble just because a government employee says so (or looks at you funny). We do have a bill of rights, you know.
From TFA: "In the end, I feel my privacy is a small price to pay for educating the government about the medium." No one of any importance was "educated." No policy is likely to be changed as a result of this incident; law-abiding citizens are still going to be stopped in airports for carrying 'strange' books, scripts, magazines, etc. All this shows is that TSA agents can act in an arbitrary manner with repercussions.
Do searches and seizures at airport security require warrants? Because if they did then there would be paperwork and if groups like the TSA wanted the benefit of the doubt they could say warrant or GTFO. But oh no wait travellers don't have any rights. Once you set up a rights free zone don't be surprised when everyone assumes you are abusing it. Until our freedoms are restored in an airport I'm inclined to believe every horror story I hear and assume that the jack booted morons are doing what ever they please. Because they have the power to do so.
I was once one of those people who had exceptionally broad rights to conduct searches. As a military officer, I could, in theory, have searched a whole barracks full of the personal effects of a whole company of enlisted soldiers for a single stolen item. But before they would have turned me loose to do that, even as a raw Lieutenant, the government made it very clear that there was paperwork that had to be kept on record, documenting the steps of the search AND what other steps were taken to solve the crime before command decided a search was necessary. They made it clear that I had to deliver a Miranda warning (and the military form of the Miranda actually explains more rights than the Civil form.). They made it clear that the decision to authorize a search was limited to command personnel and not staff officers/staff NCOs, and why.
If I was supposed to be searching for a stolen boom-box, I had to have a good description, and not search inside anything too small to hold that boom-box. Even if I thought I smelled dope (and I've been to a controlled burn and can claim legally to know what Pot smells like), I couldn't act on it (beyond mentioning the scent to the owner of that gear, as in "Smells like pot - I hope you wouldn't mess with that stuff. - You know it's illegal and they can throw you out of the Army if you do - oh well, I'm just here to look for a boom-box.).
If I could be held to that standard 20 years ago, when dealing with people who had agreed to give up some of their rights as a condition of enlistment, and to be bound by a special set of laws (The Uniform Code of Military Justice), I have to wonder why on Earth the US citizenry allows the present situation.
Who is John Cabal?
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.
In Norway, Per Liland, wrongfully convicted for murder and jailed for 14 years, had the cost of living he would have had if not jailed, deducted from his compensation. (Until there was an uproar and the deduction was cancelled.)
The logic was that the compensation was compensation for loss due to imprisionment. Without imprisionment he would have had living expenses. The compensation as granted by the Parliament was for lost income. Now they adjusted for lost expenses too. The logic is flawless: it had two part, the amount he would presumably have earned in a job, and a compensation for reduced quality of life. But they failed to compute a compensation for the insult of doing such calculations.
There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.