Last month, John Gilmore was booked on a flight from San Francisco to London via British airways. Unfortunately, displaying his political views caused a bit of a stir…
My sweetheart Annie and I tried to fly to London today (Friday) on British Airways. We started at SFO, showed our passports and got through all the rigamarole, and were seated on the plane while it taxied out toward takeoff. Suddenly a flight steward, Cabin Service Director Khaleel Miyan, loomed in front of me and demanded that I remove a small 1\” button pinned to my left lapel. I declined, saying that it was a political statement and that he had no right to censor passengers’ political speech. The button, which was created by political activist Emi Koyama, says “Suspected Terrorist”. Large images of the button and I appear in the cover story of Reason Magazine this month, and the story is entitled “Suspected Terrorist”.
The steward returned with Capt. Peter Hughes. The captain requested, and then demanded, that I remove the button (they called it a “badge”). He said that I would endanger the aircraft and commit a federal crime if I did not take it off. I told him that it was a political statement and declined to remove it.
They turned the plane around and brought it back to the gate, delaying 300 passengers on a full flight.
His story was noted by Lawrence Lessig, and posted to his weblog. Much commenting ensued.
Saturday, Lessig posted John’s reply to the comment thread, and he raises some excellent points in his response.
The button is not a joke. It’s a serious statement which one may agree or disagree with. The point that people seem to be missing is that a “suspected terrorist” is not the same as a “terrorist”. Yet, that’s exactly the conflation that has occurred: treat every citizen like a suspect, and every suspect like a terrorist.
[…]
Let me also say in my defense that I seldom fly these days, so I am not used to life in a gulag. I had zero expectation that my refusal to doff a button would result in the captain returning the plane to the gate. But even if I did fly often, my response would be the same: to constantly push back against the rules that turn a free people into the slaves of a totalitarian regime. I push back using the rights granted me by the constitutional structure of the country, plus my own intelligence and resources. Way too many of you readers are like the Poles who, under orders from swaggering bullies, built the brick wall around their own ghetto, as shown in the award-winning movie “The Pianist” (which I watched on the Virgin Atlantic flight). The US is currently filling the swaggering bully role at home, in Iraq, and in the rest of the world. (Come out to free countries and ask around, if you disagree.)
John also included a list of other, related incidents which really should be looked at.
- Dr. Bob Rajcoomar gets a settlement and formal apology from TSA — only after suing with help from ACLU. Dr. Rajcoomar, a U.S. citizen and Lt. Colonel in the United States Army Reserve, is of Indian descent. After an in-flight incident involving an unruly passenger, Air marshals handcuffed Dr. Rajcoomar without explanation and took him into the custody of Philadelphia police. His wife Dorothy, who was also on the flight, was given no information on what had happened to her husband. Because the authorities confiscated Dr. Rajcoomar’s cellular phone, she had no way to contact him. After four hours of detention, TSA personnel told him that he had been detained because air marshals on board the flight did not “like the way he looked.” The agency’s official explanation for Dr. Rajcoomar’s treatment is that while on board, Dr. Rajcoomar had been observing the actions of the air marshals “too closely”!
- ACLU sues four airlines over ejecting passengers because of their race. Subsequent news in these lawsuits is that at least three of them have survived the airlines’ “motion to dismiss”, i.e. the court thinks there is a real injury to these peoples’ rights.
- Passenger detained for speaking with journalist about a NASA nuclear rocket project, while waiting for his airplane.
- TSA’s CAPPS 2 will track every passenger by their date of birth, home address, home phone, and full name — and stop or search anyone based on secret criteria. The TSA’s August 1 announcement makes every airport a “law enforcement checkpoint” which you cannot pass through without having your “papers in order”.
- TSA publishes rules demanding ID on passenger boats. (TSA and cruise lines have already been requiring these IDs, but under unpublished regulations. Ditto for Amtrak trains and long-haul bus lines.)
This is all very real, very scary stuff, going on as we speak in our “freedom loving” country. Don’t assume that “it can’t happen to me” — it can, and if this continues unchecked, sooner or later, it will.