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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.
Any proof that he was detained and that this happened? Otherwise I'm tempted to believe that it is a stunt to advertise his comic.
Never try to explain an authority the "irony of the situation". Chances are they will lack the intellect to understand.
Submitting to authority does not protect you from them.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
That is bullshit. Why shouldn't he be allowed to carry his script with him into the airplane? Maybe he was going to a meeting about it or something. The TSA are nothing more than airport bullies, all part of the security theatre. They won't actually make you safer, they'll just make your lives a living hell, and worst of all, we let them. Your response is typical and just shows how passive the American people have become. We let these people take away our liberties, and we keep giving them more power, and eventually the USA will be a Police State. You're well on your way to helping make that happen.
When doing something you have a perfect right to do is "asking for it" something is very wrong.
Describing something that somebody has a perfect right to do as "asking for it" makes you a sniveling authoritarian bootlicker and a complicit bystander to abuse of authority.
It's too bad that the TSA can't protect us from summer blockbuster movies and not just graphic novels.
Personally I think they should stop Michael Bay from boarding any plane after seeing how disturbingly obsessed the man is with explosions.
My work here is dung.
From wikipedia:
Unless there's a way to blow up the aircraft with said papers their content shouldn't matter.
Now if you were packing C4 and detonators you should probably be checked out. But plain old information? Without acting on it, information is basically harmless.
Airport Security Officer: Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while...
Airport Security Officer: it's a dildo. Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a dildo, never your dildo
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
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/
You're missing the train of thought the TSA employee went through.
1) The was information.
2) Information is Knowledge.
3) Knowledge is Power.
4) Power Corrupts.
5) Power is dangerous to a Plane in operation (it could blow up the fuel tank).
6) Corruption is dangerous to a Plane in operation (it could cause a wing to fall off or the fuselage to break apart).
7) Information is therefore dangerous to a Plane in operation since it is both Power and Corrupting.
QED This so called "Writer" was attempting to smuggle a WMD onto a plane and should be treated accordingly.
~
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... he had not started to write (and therefore would have been carrying around) his new comic story about a trio of bumbling TSA agents that are always screwing up everything.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
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?
He was detained by the TSA, not the police.
The worst the TSA will ever do to you is call the actual police. The second worst is attempt to confiscate your belongings. The third - and the one most innocent travelers are most wary of - is they'll prevent you from boarding your flight.
For people falling into that third scenario you aren't arguing just against being detained. You don't want to wait for a lawyer, and you don't want to escalate the issue to them calling the police over. You're trying to get through TSA screening as quickly as possible so you can make your flight.
I've flown on average once a month for the past six years, and have been detained in a back room half a dozen times myself. The first time it happened I treated it like a police encounter ("No sir, I'm not aware," "am I being detained, or am I free to go?" "I don't have anything to say without my lawyer present."). I ended up missing my flight, missing a job interview, wasting a few hours in a security checkpoint waiting room, and getting nothing back in return - even with my lawyer's involvement.
Since then I've just played nice. I'm more interested in getting to my destination than being a martyr. It's one of those "You'd be right, but you'd still lose" scenarios.
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