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Booted From Airplane For Wearing Anti-TSA T-shirt
Cigarra writes "PhD student Arijit learned the hard way that in Brave New America you can't mock TSA's Security Theater and go on about your business. According to a recollection in RT.com: 'After being vigorously screened and questioned multiple times, Arijit says he was finally given permission, once more, to board his plane. The pilot of the aircraft, however, had had enough of the whole ordeal and asked the Delta supervisor to relay the message that, due to the discomfort the shirt had caused, neither Arijit nor his wife would be allowed to board the aircraft.' Just how much humiliation is the general American public willing to tolerate in the name of 'security'?"
I mean come on "Arijit" clearly a terrorist threat.
Add in the racial bias in profiling and the racist prejudices of some passengers (this can get you booted too if a passenger decides s/he is "uncomfortable" on the plane with you on it) and you have quite an ugly situation.
what kind of dipshit is afraid of a t-shirt? obviously this guy is being pushed around because of his name and genetic background. i smell LAWSUIT.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
From the same site:
What would have likely been a routine flight out of a Florida airport this weekend ended with a woman being sent to the emergency room after TSA agents insisted on groping a traumatized rape victim in a security pat-down that put her in the hospital.
Live free or die indeed.
If the Miss Universe pageant had been boarding that plane, the TSA would have been to busy putting them through the body scanner to even notice this guy's shirt.
sudo make me a sandwich
Hi folks,
Just as a brief FYI, we're REALLY starting to worry about you Yanks.
Please get your house in order, before things get truly out of control.
If you wait much longer (and we may be talking seconds here), the choice will be gone.
With compassion,
the Rest of the World
Looks like the KKK renamed their acronym to something more paletable.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
>> Just how much humiliation is the general American public willing to tolerate in the name of 'security'?"
Quite a lot apparently, quite a lot.
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
The TSA info chart is quite interesting.
And why should there be consequences to wearing a f***ing t-shirt, I think that is the jist of the discussion.
Arijit's actual blog Arijit Vs. Delta
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Where can I buy that shirt?
America is the only country that gropes It's passengers. Israel profiles, & has no hijackings.
Freedom to wear the shirt, not free from the consequences of wearing the shirt.
By that logic, even the people from North Korea are free, even to mock their beloved ruler...
Very true, and it's something that's often forgotten by people who cry about their freedom of expression.
However, those consequences should not have to include unwarranted abuse by the TSA. The TSA is there to keep passengers safe by keeping people with ill intent out, period. Their remit does not (or should not) include harassing people who rub them the wrong way. If they detained him purely because of the shirt, then they should be taken to task for that. And this seems to be the case... why else would the airline captain mention the shirt at all?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I see no reason to submit to their bullshit. I have not flown in nearly 7 years, and don't see it happening any time soon.
If enough people simply refuse to fly, the airlines will go belly up, or they will lobby to remove the TSA. Though, the private thugs they replace them with probably won't be any better.
While some people grumble and complain about the process, I've also encountered many people who believe what the TSA is doing is actually protecting them from terrorism.
More to the point, they honestly believe that there are terrorists right around the corner just waiting to blow them up. Not in an abstract but THEM, specifically. You know, it could happen anywhere so it could happen to YOU and it could happen HERE!
Their lives are so boring and mundane they get a thrill over the possibility that something important could happen to them or someone they know. Even if it is something like a terrorist attack, it makes them feel special. As if the town of Bumfuck, Nowhere was chosen special for a target.
It gives them something to gossip about. "What if..." It is essentially one of the same motivations that drives people to buy lottery tickets. They can dream "what if..." and not have to face the dull reality that is their life.
It's really sad.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
As most of you, I only read TFS, but this wasn't the TSA to blame.
It's completly in a pilots discretion if he want's to have some prankster on board who doesn't care if the whole flight gets delayed because of a funny shirt.
He has the right to remove anyone from the plane. For anything else, complain to the airline afterwards.
This system works as long as you put somewhat reasonable and responsible people in the cockpit. And if he pulls that stunt too often, he'll be sanctioned by his employer. That's a completly different situation from some minimum-wage guy who only would get sanctioned for NOT bullying people around and gets paid (and perhaps rewarded) for strictly following procedures, not thinking about if that would be stupid.
Please note: I don't say what the pilot did was right, but he had the right to make that descision.
bickerdyke
First, its important to know exactly what the shirt said. Neither the summary nor the article quote it, but the image printed on the shirt seems to say:
Now, it's always been pretty clear to me that just saying the word "bomb" in an airpot is a recipe for trouble. Lots of signs are posted everywhere saying that all statements must be taken seriously, even if they're said in a joking manner. In other words, you just don't joke about bombs in an airport.
Secondly, the summary doesn't make it clear that it wasn't the TSA who took issue with things, and ultimately kicked him off the plane, but that it was a guy from Delta. It seems completely plausible to me that some of the other passengers saw his shirt and really were "very uncomfortable". Maybe they shouldn't have been, but nonetheless they were. Given that there were customers who were uncomfortable, and the fact that this guy really should have known better than wear a shirt with "bomb" on it in the airpot, I can see why the Delta rep kicked the guy off the flight.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
False equivalency. The TSA (government) let him through without incident, it was a private business (Delta) that blocked him from boarding the plane.
America is the only country that gropes It's passengers. Israel profiles, & has no hijackings.
Profiling by ethnicity doesn't work; for one thing, it's vulnerable to proxy bomb attacks. I've posted links on this many times before; search for the "Carnival Booth" paper from MIT. I recommend Schneier's site or DuckDuckGo.
El Al's security apparatus (behavioral profiling, interviews, luggage depressurization, and tarmac security, off the top of my head) have been said to be infeasible due to scalability in a country of over 300 million. However, I haven't seen an data to back up this claim, nor have I done the math.
I'm not saying I support the current system; I find it deplorable and refuse to fly, going on six years. I'd like to see a return to sane, pre-2001-09 security procedures. At least, that's what it'd take to get me to voluntarily set foot on a commercial airliner again.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
How can anyone be naive enough to think that you can wear an anti-TSA T-shirt when you're going through a TSA checkpoint and not have a problem?
I don't know, perhaps they read the First Amendment and thought it actually still applied.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
We have the right in this country to criticize our government, its agencies and agents without fear from legal repercussions from them. So, yes, when government agents harass him simply because he criticized them it is a big deal.
El Al's security apparatus (behavioral profiling, interviews, luggage depressurization, and tarmac security, off the top of my head) have been said to be infeasible due to scalability in a country of over 300 million. However, I haven't seen an data to back up this claim, nor have I done the math.
Oh, the math is easy.
Doing it THAT way would require them to actually train (as opposed to simply recognizing the threat color scheme) and pay skilled-worker wages, as opposed to giving a badge to -- well, to what we have now (See? I was nice)
...but he had the balls to risk some heat to exercise his rights and bring attention to the stupidity of the TSA.
It was not the TSA that were being stupid here - they passed him through all the security checks the first time without any particular issue. The problem here lies in the general reaction of US society. Yes the guy was being an idiot and living in the US should have known the likely outcome but why is it that nobody could recognise him for the idiot that he was and treat the situation appropriately? Blowing it out of all proportion like this only makes the authorities appear like idiots themselves and encourages more of this stupid behaviour because of all the attention their response gets. You would have thought that with a lesson like the Salem witch trials 300+ years ago US society would have learnt the lesson by now.
Isreal actually trains thier security to look for suspicious behavior instead of assuming everyone is a suspect. Profiling doesn't neccessarily mean "assume all blacks/arabs/hispanics/whater are guilty." I can also mean "the suspicious looking guy might be guilty so lets go talk to him." You will also notice that countries that are actually afraid of terrorist bombings don't have long lines outside security checkpoints because terrorists like to bomb the checkpoints. If you care about security you get everyone through the check point as quickly as possible. We just like harrassing innocent citizens.
Nobody said it gave them the right, and this guy's right to bitch about it hasn't been denied. The point is that there are consequences, right or wrong, to going out of your way to be a jackass.
I once knew an American girl who came to visit in England. She came over with a friend of mine and then we were all travelling on to Corfu. On the queue to airport security on the way to Heathrow to fly to Corfu, she pulled something out of her bag and said "Is this alright to take on the plane if they don't allow fluids? It's been in my bag for months"
It was a CS spray. Totally, 100% illegal to even own in the UK, let alone bring with you in your hand luggage from America to the UK, unchecked.
She was hastily silenced by her English companion, who dropped it into one of those "prohibited water bottle" bins, and we just moved down the line.
She would have been arrested on the spot if she was carrying it in the UK (even owning it is arrestable!). But she'd managed to go through the US customs, through UK customs and only because SHE pulled it out on her second trip through did anyone even know it was there. And this was only a few years ago - still recent enough to have the liquids-on-planes paranoia.
There is so much naivete in this post, I'm naming it Bambi.
Wow, that was a lot of rationalization. Let's examine the serious crimes you say justified the pilot's actions:
1. Being "Unnerving" to people aged 45+
2. Breaking societal courtesies
3. Putting grandma in a state of unease
4. Potentially becoming a victim of assault by another passenger
Yea, I'd say the pilot exercised good judgment. Clearly this guy was a serious threat.
His behavior might have something to do with the fact that he is being treated for stage IV colon cancer. He probably cares less than the average person what society's long-term opinion of him will be, and hopes that his behavior (and any reaction to it) could be a force for long-term improvement of the world.
Why do you want me to prove something I didn't claim? Why didn't you demand proof from the person who actually _did_ claim something?
Dilbert RSS feed
You do have the freedom to express yourself.
Delta pilots also have the freedom to kick you off their planes if you do so in a disruptive way.
How about if someone wore "I AM A FIRESTARTER" at a movie theater?
They may just be a fan of The Prodigy.
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."
Bought the shirt back in the post 9/11 days and accidentally wore it coming home on an international flight. I saw it as a patriotic shirt, but wife saw it and flipped out while we were at the airport. Got asked about the shirt by TSA, explained that it was technically a patriotic shirt and was good. An anti-TSA shirt is technically a patriotic shirt as well. Sad day:-(
Has anyone, ever, been, for example, shot by someone wearing a shirt that said "I'm going to shoot you" on it? Or seen robbers wearing "I'm going to rob you" shirts?
When I was a little kid 30 years ago, I always thought the Halloween costumes of the day were dumb -- Darth Vader DOES NOT HAVE A PICTURE OF HIMSELF ON HIS CHEST. Same thing here.
> I'm going to say that most people 45+ don't know what ZOMG
> means. Therefore, seeing something that says "Gonna Kill US
> All ZOMG" would be a bit unnerving."
Really? People who have lived that long tend to be SOMEWHAT smart. Furthermore, they have DECADES of experience seeing boys and men of all ages in wacky shirts. If a 45 year old saw someone in a shirt that said "blah blah blah Gonna Kill US All blah blah blah" do you REALLY think their first thought would be "Oh my dear sweet white God in heaven, he's announcing his plans to harm me!", or do you think they'd go "Huh? Must be some video game or rock thing I don't know about."
A 45 year old was a teenager when the Dead Kennedys were in their prime. You think they've forgotten subversive shirts?
Most probably wouldn't even try to read the letters. Those that did, wouldn't care.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Even though it is security theater, society has norms that state when people deem to be right and wrong
Is it too much to ask that those norms be at least partially based on reason?
Wearing a shirt that has that message is wrong because it breaks those societal courtesies
In any sane society complaining about a tshirt would be wrong because it breaks social courtesies.
Putting someone's grandma in a state of unease for something that is already not exactly the most fun doesn't sit well in my book.
Persecuting people for the contents of their tshirt puts me at unease. Take the paranoid racist grandma off the flight and leave the nice man with the tshirt alone.
He probably saw it for what it was, but decided he didn't want one the passengers beating the shit out of this guy mid-air because they felt threatened.
Then he should have removed the people he felt were risks of violence and not the victim.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
First off, go fuck yourself and your "45+" ageism.
Second, if TSA cleared him, meaning he is no threat, then the pilot or whatever other deuchebag that got their panties in a twist over his shirt should not have had a problem. Grandma in a state of unease? Fuck you. I fly regularly and see people wearing OTT Heavy Metal concert shirts bearing all manner of distasteful imagery and text, and I bet a lot of them do it because THEY KNOW IT BOTHERS PEOPLE(which I think is great, and shows other countries/cultures what is great, or used to be, about America...) with cunt like sensibilities like yours(and Grandmas).
And to conclude, since the first thing you think about in this situation is violence, violence towards a passenger over a shirt, that is obviously a joke, maybe it's you that needs to be kept off the plane.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I'm not saying I support the current system; I find it deplorable and refuse to fly, going on six years.
Before the current policies (groping, irradiating, etc) began: What has been the rate of *successful* terrorist attacks over the previous 10 years? (I'm asking about actually successful attempts. I'm not talking about idiots who almost won a honorary darwin awards by setting their pant on fire, or got zerg-rushed by the rest of the passengers. Or the crazie raving lunatics who got encouraged by a cover agent who had to provide them the whole (fake) material and an actual plan, just so they would act out something [stupid] and get caught because otherwise they would have kept mumbling things and drooling alone)
How does their annual death toll compare against victims of car accidents and victims of cardio-vascular diseases ? (To take the 2 leading causes of death in the developed world). Or even compared to victims struck by lightning (to take another example of dramatic and rare cause of death) ?
My opinion is that such common sense analysis will prove that we aren't gaining much by all this theater appart from inconvenience, and that (no matter how much tragic and traumatic it has been for the victims of 9/11 and their families) the impact of terrorism is a very small and insignificant occasional bump in the statistics.
It's as useful as the simpson's tiger repellant rock.
We would gain much more by a "War on cars!!!!" and "War on burgers!!!!" than a "War on ter'rists!!!" But we still have to wait longer for those.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
That's odd. In the America I grew up, on a military base surrounded by F-4 Phantom jets and armed men ridiculously overqualified to kill you, on the school on that base I was taught to QUESTION AUTHORITY, to HOLD AUTHORITY ACCOUNTABLE, that my father and his colleagues practiced the bloody art of mayehm to KEEP US FREE, not to kowtow to those in authority.
I was taught that we routinely hold elections so we could hold elected officials, referred to as PUBLIC SERVANTS, accountable for their actions. I grew up among armed men in uniform who took me to national monuments and proudly declaimed that We the People were the source of authority, that men in uniform always, always, ALWAYS deferred to a civilian commander in chief.
Reading your post sounds odd to someone raised by the sound of Phantom and Tomcat jets. Respecting authority for authority's sake was something we said the Commies and the Nazis did. :-) Americans were born free and bowed to no one. Give me Liberty or Give Me Death. Don't Tread on Me.
Of course, I'm sorry. Reading your post, I assume you must come from some tragic country like Burma or North Korea where you have to bow and scrape just to get by. Please send our warmest regards and deepest repect to Aung San Suu Kyi, who knows more about what it means to be an American than you ever will.
Hey, wait a minute. Cartman? Eric Cartman?! Is that you Cartman?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Wearing a t-shirt that says bite me to a dog convention, is pretty damned crazy.
Only if the dogs can read. Unfortunately for us, Delta personnel can apparently read, and not only read, but can read things which are irrelevant to the safety and operation of the airplane.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
If you are in the military and a general comes, you salute him even if you hate his guts, and you don't give him the middle finger.
Nope. You absolutely don't salute Him. Unless he has personally done something that has earned your respect, you're never saluting him.
You're saluting the uniform. You always, always, always salute the office, not the man. The office, again, is a function of the People of the United States, and a symbol of our highest ideals. That uniform is a walking implementation of the idea that "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..." That's why it's worthy of a salute, because it carries an Idea, not just Power. That's why the Oath you swear when you pick up a gun is always to the Constitution, never a man.
If all that uniform carries is Power, if the only thing a uniform has to offer is Force, then "it is [your] right, it is [your] duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for [your] future security."
It chills me to my bones to hear an American claim that a government official should be respected simply because he has brute force behind him. Whatever happened to "the Spirit of '76?"
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
If you have a moral objection to an order, you are obligated to make your concerns known. However, making your concerns known does not have to happen immediately.
Were you asleep that day? Does "Nuremburg" ring a bell? How about "My Lai?" If you have a moral objection to an order, you PUT YOUR DAMNED WEAPON DOWN! Your official scripted response is "I'm sorry, sir, but that is an unlawful order and I cannot follow it." The military makes it crystal clear that not only do you have a duty to refuse an unlawful order, but you will be prosecuted and punished if you follow that order and commit a crime. You absolutely do not "wait until later." You refuse that order right then, right there, or pay the price later for following it.
Seriously, you can't tell the difference between saluting the office and saluting the man? It does have a touch of subtlety, I grant you. Were you an Aggie by any chance? :-)
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."