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Don't Fly During Ramadan
An anonymous reader sends in a harrowing story from Aditya Mukerjee about his recent attempt to fly from New York to Los Angeles. After being pulled aside in the security line, he faced hours of interrogation by uncommunicative officials from several different agencies. When he was finally cleared, his airline, Jet Blue, wouldn't let him on the plane anyway. When he got home, he found evidence that it had been searched. He writes,
"It was 2:20PM by the time I was finally released from custody. My entire body was shaking uncontrollably, as if I were extremely cold, even though I wasn’t. I couldn’t identify the emotion I was feeling. Surprisingly, as far as I could tell, I was shaking out of neither fear nor anger - I felt neither of those emotions at the time. The shaking motion was entirely involuntary, and I couldn’t force my limbs to be still, no matter how hard I concentrated. In the end, JetBlue did refund my flight, but they cancelled my entire round-trip ticket. Because I had to rebook on another airline that same day, it ended up costing me about $700 more for the entire trip. .. But no matter how I’ve tried to rationalize this in the last week and a half, nothing can block out the memory of the chilling sensation I felt that first morning, lying on my air mattress, trying to forget the image of large, uniformed men invading the sanctuary of my home in my absence, wondering when they had done it, wondering why they had done it."
Why you ask? Because despite your bigotry, if you had read the article you would have noticed the guy is Hindu.
Hey, America,
Are you proud of yourself yet? Proud of what you've become to yourself, your citizens and to the rest of the world?
no.
Um, no. The Talmud doesn't say that. You should probably stop reading Neo-Nazi and Jihadist websites.
Yes, a huge percentage of Americans are actually quite proud of the version of the USA that exists in their heads. Just letting you know.
Another agent came over and handed me a paper slip
Notice that he's already receiving different treatment, despite absolutely zero evidence that he's any kind of threat to anyone.
“You can leave, but I’m keeping your bag.”
Something that would have been interesting to try at this point: "Ok, then. I presume there's a procedure for handling bags you've collected in this fashion, let's fill out the necessary paperwork and do everything by the book, and I'll need to be kept informed about which office to contact for retrieving such evidence once you've discovered that there's nothing criminal about it."
“What is your religion?”
This whole line of questioning is so obviously in violation of the Free Exercise clause it's not even funny.
I am officially gone from
If you had actually read the article, you would have noticed that he's not Islamic, and not an Arab.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I would say less than 30 years ago this was true. Now, not so much.
I was thinking the same thing. The country as it is today is, in my opinion, not much of something to be proud of. The government is blatantly corrupt, people that are woefully uninformed are electing the wrong people into government (or electing anyone at all for the wrong reasons), and one cannot travel quickly within the country without having basic rights violated.
It's pretty sad when the American government makes likes of Vladimir Putin look like a "good guy".
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
The terrorists exist, and you've probably seen them already (on the news or in other media). They're a small fringe group whose members are, by and large, not particularly competent or capable. They got extremely lucky once, but even counting that, they're about as much of a threat to individuals, the United States, or civilization in general as home accidents and bad weather.
One of the best descriptions I can recall reading of terrorists was along the lines of, "criminals who want to be warriors". Terror is probably best handled in a low-key manner by law enforcement. The "War on Terra" has given them exactly what they want, and was probably the worst possible response. America's over-reaction to 9/11 and the terrorism "threat" in general is doing far, far more damage than any terrorist could directly do in their wildest dreams.
Minor bitch:
Reign in the NSA? Should be our top priority.
Rein, not Reign (w/ the g it means "to rule over")
That's all, have a great weekend - hope it doesn't rain.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
How many of those countries have an NDAA and allow their citizens to be militarily imprisoned without a trial?
How many of those countries have a "constitution free" zone that covers most of their population?
How many of those countries have continue to hold innocent prisoners cleared for release a la Gitmo?
How many of those countries have openly assassinated one of their citizens for engaging in protected speech?
You're either snarking the shit out of us, have limited to your travels to places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, or have a terminal case of American Exceptionalism.
I know! That's why we never heard of Constitution on Chest Guy, Little White Boy with Terrorist's Name & Friends, Veteran with Too Much Implanted Metal or TSA Pen. Tester Guy. The media just isn't interested in the plight of the white man.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel