I just read a very good editorial by a Canadian journalist who also happens to be Muslim. He hasn't had the same experience as this woman has but traveling has nonetheless become a hassle for him.
Woman arrested for flying while Arab
- Thread starter Argus Skyhawk
- Start date
I know this is a very TNZ topic, but we're actually in misc right now.
It's okay when a moderator does it.
Was any specific called a "dumbass", no? Seems to me at the very worst some very specific comments were called "dumbass" which isn't quite the same thing.
Yes, I said the thread, as in the contents of the thread and those posts, not the people. Plenty of people have said similar in this very thread and in the past, so no, there's nothing new going on here.
Between the Arab-looking people shouldn't fly on 9/11, the US is on the verge of an Arab-American internment and holocaust, the eval libruls!, and the US is as totalitarian as a third world country comments, I think it's a pretty apt description of the content of those posts.
I'm not sure what to think about this. What those three had to endure is awful and is certainly a violation of their rights. (They did detain and interview everyone on the plane, and I got the impression that those three were some of the first to be let go, so that's something.) However, the authorities were responding to a report of suspicious activity, however stupid that report was. The person who made the report is most likely a little too suspicious of Arab-looking people and shouldn't have made the report, but that person was also told (like the rest of us) by our government to use their own judgement and report suspicious activity, no matter how minor. That person was just doing what they were told a good citizen should do and reported what they deemed to be suspicious. Once that report was made, the authorities had to respond as they did, even though I imagine most of them knew early on it was stupid and there was nothing going on because if they were wrong and there was something going on and they didn't fully investigate it there would be hell to pay.
In the end, I'm conflicted on this. I think it's horrible what happened to those three, yet I can't lay the blame solely at the feet of those who responded to the situation or the person who made the initial report. We have crafted a society that led to this, but I'm not even sure how that happened. There are a lot of factors, from all the blame thrown around after 9/11 and our willingness to sue for any little thing to the shock of a major attack with little history of prior smaller attacks to get us used to it, and more. I can see some of the pieces of the puzzle, but I'm not sure how we go there or how to fix it.
In the end, I'm conflicted on this. I think it's horrible what happened to those three, yet I can't lay the blame solely at the feet of those who responded to the situation or the person who made the initial report. We have crafted a society that led to this, but I'm not even sure how that happened. There are a lot of factors, from all the blame thrown around after 9/11 and our willingness to sue for any little thing to the shock of a major attack with little history of prior smaller attacks to get us used to it, and more. I can see some of the pieces of the puzzle, but I'm not sure how we go there or how to fix it.
In part (as well as being the product of fear and racism, naturally) it's the great collective ass-covering officials in all capacities (law enforcement, healthcare, politics, etc etc) do these days because we love to assign blame for everything. In my opinion, no LEO (or any government official) who errs on the side of personal liberty and upholding what we're supposed to cherish should ever face criticism for that decision even if it turns out the person was up to no good. In reality, though, they always will. And that's part of why crap like this happens - the mentality of 'what if I did nothing and it was a bomber?' has trumped the mentality of 'I don't have the grounds to act, so I won't'. Because our desire to blame someone for everything has forced that to be the case.
Except they didn't have to respond the way they did. There's a middle ground there in between ignoring a report and violating people's civil rights. This woman was essentially arrested and treated like a criminal and strip searched without any probable cause and was not given access to legal representation. If someone makes a report about suspicious activity, by all means have the authorities investigate it... but it needs to be done in a way that does not sidestep the basic rights laid out in the Constitution.
I think there's plenty of blame to go around. Blame on the government for passing legislation to allow this, blame on the courts for upholding it thus far and blame on the people for allowing their fear to get the better of them. We, as a nation, are supposed to be better than this.
My understanding was that they took these three (and the fourth watch thief) off the plane and gave them this detained interview process. The other passengers on the plane where taken to a less secure/restrictive facility and simply questioned -probably much the same way bystanders at an accident or other crime scene are questioned.
I highly doubt all 140-some passengers of the plane were taking to holding facilities, strip-searched and given an intense interview while also having their other rights restricted. (It's my understanding it's legally questionable to hold someone without telling them what they're being held for.)
We are probably not talking about people who just don’t like brown people; the person or persons who made the report came to a conclusion that was wrong. But we are asked – nagged, really – through ad campaigns to report anything suspicious. Here in Boston, you hear announcement on the train that "if you see something, say something."
But what is suspicious? A trained law enforcement officer and a regular person will have wildly different ideas of what is suspicious enough to be watched or reported. Especially on the 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil. Did the person come to the wrong conclusion? Yes. Was he or she wrong to report it? If I stand by my assumption that it was not malicious mischief, I have to say no.
Once that report is made, law enforcement must follow up on it. There’s a protocol, and that protocol includes strip searching and handcuff restraint, as well as interrogation. It’s inconvenient and humiliating and violative, but you cannot have some officer or agent just activate their own bias and say, She looks like a nice lady, I’ll just let her go. Everyone gets treated at a baseline (which is, I hope, at least courteous), and if the person is uncooperative or argumentative, there is an escalation of force. The blogger has a right to feel angry, absolutely; that does not mean the officers acted inappropriately. We are outraged because the suspicion was unfounded. It would be a different story if they had found explosives in someone’s shoe.
It is a no-win situation, because there is no definition of suspicious behavior; sometimes it’s going to be right, and sometimes, as happened with this lady in particular, it will be wrong. And nobody will know which way it will fall until the situation plays itself out.
And, by the way: probable cause is NOT necessary to take a person suspected of terrorist activity off a plane. It by definition falls under the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant rule under the Fourth Amendment.
Well I agree that JarodRussel's comments were dumbass, but if you think mine were then why?
By saying they had to respond the way they did, I was trying to say what cultcross said in the post before yours. I just wasn't as eloquent. I don't mean they are required by law to respond as they did (although they might be, I have no idea), but that fear of lawsuits requires them to do so.
No, I didn't get the impression that the other passengers were held in a cell and strip searched, but that they were all interviewed. The officer said it would take about 6 hours, if I remember right. These three, while getting the most thorough treatment, were the priority, so they were handled first. Other passengers were sitting around for a while waiting for their turn to be interviewed. Once it had been determined there was no threat and it was all a false alarm, however, I don't understand why they still had to interview everyone else. What's the point?
At the very least, you'd think they could do part of the interrogation before getting into all that other stuff. She shouldn't have had to wait as long as she did to find out what was going on.
Which in my opinion is the crux of the issue - we bloody well should be outraged in that scenario. The end does not justify the means. We should react to an event like this exactly the same way regardless of what was found. The fact that we don't is a solid part of the reason shit like this occurs. Our first thought in these situations should be the rights and liberty of the person accused, not covering your ass 'just in case'.
If their protocol for a single report of 'suspicious behaviour' is to send in the troops with handcuffs and guns, well maybe they need a better protocol! Perhaps the flight attendants, or the air marshal they were presumably carrying, being so security conscious on such an important date, could observe the persons in question to see if they noted any suspicious behaviour? Find a reason to talk to them and engage them in conversation to gauge their response? That might be what in the thief-taker trade we like to call a proportionate response to uncorroborated intelligence from an untested source.
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