Woman arrested for flying while Arab
- Thread starter Argus Skyhawk
- Start date
But she sat near suspicious people. That's felony-level shit!
What's bad is that "three brown people sitting near each-other, two got up to use the bathroom too much" is probably enough to activate the USA PATRIOT Act which trumps all of these people rights in the name of "security."
As I've been saying for 10 years, the USA PATRIOT Act and shit like this is exactly what Bin Laden wants(ed) America to be. A state afraid of everything and restricting rights.
Good job, PATRIOT Act. Good job.
As I've been saying for 10 years, the USA PATRIOT Act and shit like this is exactly what Bin Laden wants(ed) America to be. A state afraid of everything and restricting rights.
Good job, PATRIOT Act. Good job.
Well, I hope you are right.
But when it actually happens somewhere in the world, "I told you so" just won't quite cut it.
I think the most appalling thing was the lack of common courtesy and the strip-searching, seriously didn't everyone on the plane go through security and didn't they just land the fucking thing?
And Locutus I think you're being a little naive there or don't you remember the men with Persian last names who were rounded up without any fuss for no stated reason in 2001? The Japanese internment was a long time ago; I have no trouble imagining a repeat. As it stands I can imagine life as someone who looks Arab hasn't been great over the past decade and I think it could definitely get worse.
And Locutus I think you're being a little naive there or don't you remember the men with Persian last names who were rounded up without any fuss for no stated reason in 2001? The Japanese internment was a long time ago; I have no trouble imagining a repeat. As it stands I can imagine life as someone who looks Arab hasn't been great over the past decade and I think it could definitely get worse.
It's pretty clear in this case they don't even have that for probable cause. This is about as close as you can get to a textbook civil rights violation. I really hope they do something about this. This is just shameful.
I kind of want to smack whoever reported them as suspicious as well. What an intolerant little fuck.
Not really. Bin Laden and AQ never cared about us sacrificing our rights and freedoms, they cared only about sparking a holy war between Muslims and infidels (everyone else.) They did get that, to some extent: Iraq and Afghanistan. But it's naive to think Bin Laden would've had less of a problem with us if we were, say, a Christian police state. Sacrificing our principles is certainly a detriment to us, but it is hardly AQ's goal.
As I have said since 9/11/01, the worst thing we could do is violate our principles in the name of security and vengeance, because it makes us like them. They pursue victory at any cost, and what's supposed to make us better than them is that we don't. We fight to win, but we must also protect civilians, defend everyone's rights and freedoms, and do our combat out in the open, in uniform. We follow the "rules" and they don't, and that's what makes us better. At least, in theory, that's how it should work.
But I got shouted down for being a terrorist sympathizer for saying that in the days and weeks after 9/11. Now, we have all these extra security and policing measures and no one seems to feel any safer. The terrorists didn't defeat us--we defeated ourselves. It is our loss, but not their gain. It's everyone's loss, if you look at it globally. We're supposed to set an example, and the example we've set is not a good one at all. Our response to 9/11 was to shroud ourselves in worthless and ever-expanding security theater, bring out vast new police powers, and go tear-assing into Afghanistan and Iraq looking for revenge. I recall someone likening it to one of the weaker kids giving the playground bully a bloody nose, and the bully coming back with his gang for some payback.
We learned all the wrong lessons from 9/11, and ten years on we still don't, as a society, seem to understand why it happened, why the way we responded to it was completely wrong.
I think it's naive to think those things happened in a vacuum where people didn't learn from them. A terrorist sneak attack with a death toll rivaling Pearl Harbor and a subsequent war already happened; so where was the mass round up and relocation of all Arab-Americans to internment camps? And even then, it's a massive leap to go from that to suggesting full support for death camps for Arab-Americans.
This incident and the completely over-the-top law that gave rise to it is terrible, but engaging in fearmongering hyperbole is exactly the problem that enabled things like the Patriot Act in the first place. I don't see how doing it in the opposite direction helps raise the level of the debate.
I suppose the only slightly positive thing we can say about this situation is that at least these people weren't as badly treated as Jean Charles de Menezes was treated in London back in 2005. We had people on Trekbbs who criticised Jean Charles 'suspicious behaviour' i.e. boarding a train while looking Arab (he was Brazilian) after speaking an Arabic sounding language (actually Portuguese) whille on bus on the way to the train station.
This only proves that this paranoia isn't just an American trait.
This only proves that this paranoia isn't just an American trait.
That's one of the problems with Bin Laden's death, for example. They just killed him, no international trial, no sign of "fairness". And then all the talk about "justice has been done". Of course, from our POV that's right. But that didn't do anything to shake his followers, because that's exactly their methods and their rethoric, too.
Was capture a viable option under the circumstances? From everything I read, it didn't sound like it.
Well, I fail to see many lessons learned, frankly. No, I don't think there will be anything high profile like internment and certainly not death camps, but this level of discrimination has been tolerated for a long time and I have no reason to think it won't continue to be tolerated.
The Patriot Act was renewed by someone who's practically been accused of being a communist by the right; can't really see anyone repealing those provisions. As long as that's on the books the Constitution offers citizens the protection of a wet tissue.
@Miss Chicken: You're right that was appalling and the fact that the "shoot-first" policy wasn't immediately recinded following that travesty and worse smear campaign (which was never properly followed-up) against that fellow is awful. I would like to note, however that despite Gordon Brown's best efforts attempts to implement the equivalent of the Patriot Act lockstep were foiled, albeit by an unelected body - oh the irony! - and therefore this woman would not have that experience here.
Well, then maybe you made a poor choice in singling out my post to call naive since that insinuation by Jarod was precisely what I was responding to, and that was all that I was responding to.
Well, I was perhaps reading a bit more into your post than I should have... ^_~
^ so true indeed.
That reminds me of something a friend posted on Facebook "Well I'm off to the United States of Paranoia." when he went to watch his dads nephew race.
I found this comment interesting
I guess her parents ignored the "mortal enemy" thing, too bad the rest cant do the same.
Leave it to the liberal TrekBBS to jump to this conclusion. Geez you guys are really too much.
Alright, who's the wiseguy that set the thread on FULL DUMBASS this morning? You have to preheat the thread first.
It's no accident that when I visit the States I always carry my British Passport and leave my American one back at the hotel.
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