Contact
Subscribe


This Is What "If You See Something, Say Something" Mentality Leads To

Sep 12, 2011
By .
Politics & Current Events

This — a perfectly innocent woman being hauled off a flight, handcuffed, jailed, strip-searched, and grilled for hours — because some fucking ninny on the plane thought she and the two dark-skinned people sitting next to her were "suspicious", and because "better safe than sorry" has become a higher value to law enforcement than probable cause or reasonable suspicion or due process or common freaking sense, and because we're too cowed as a people to say anything about it.

Reporting on the issue is meek.

"Due to the anniversary of Sept. 11, all precautions were taken, and any slight inconsistency was taken seriously," Berchtold said. "The public would rather us err on the side of caution than not."

From what I can piece together, this woman got treated like that because she was seated in the same row as two Indian men who wen to the bathroom in succession and took longer than some passenger deemed necessary.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Via.

Last 5 posts by Ken

21 Comments
Tags , ,

21 Comments

  1. Hal_10000  •  Sep 12, 2011 @5:18 pm

    I don't think the nation is cowed. We have government that has used the crisis to create this kind of state and goes into lockdown mode when that 1% of our population that are truly ninnified freaks out.

    The bigger problem is complacency. Most people can be bothered to pay attention. We won't until all of us are dragged off of planes.

  2. TJIC  •  Sep 12, 2011 @5:19 pm

    I've said it elsewhere, but not here: the great thing about the Nuremberg trials is that they established that operating within the written law is no defense for government officials against later charges of operating outside the natural law.

    It would be sweet if the various thugs who engaged in this stunt were be tried and punished.

    …and perhaps they will be, some day.

  3. NLP  •  Sep 12, 2011 @5:45 pm

    I once had diarrhea on a long flight, and had to make numerous trips to the bathroom. I thought that misery was enough. It's hard to believe that these days I'd be taken off the flight in handcuffs.

  4. Laura K  •  Sep 12, 2011 @6:31 pm

    A friend of mine was once accosted by a police officer in a busy airport in the UK. A "concerned bystander" had alerted the authorites to the 'suspicious' contrast between her appearance and her infant son's. (This family's heritage includes Lakota, Hochunk, Scottish, French and Hungarian.) She then found herself attempting to face down horrific accusation that she was not holding her kid but one she had 'stolen'. Meanwhile, pedohiles get teaching certificates, grown men try to detonate their underware…Where does this end?

  5. Rich  •  Sep 12, 2011 @7:36 pm

    Unfortunately if this women sues a lawyer will tell her to settle and NOTHING will change. No one will be held responsible, Well of course the taxpayers would be. They will just do it again and again. I am not a lawyer would a lawyer please tell me why I am wrong about that. Pro Bono of course. Did Sonny Bono do allot of free lawyer work or something?

  6. David  •  Sep 12, 2011 @11:51 pm

    He did his Cher.

  7. Miskellaneous  •  Sep 13, 2011 @3:51 am

    Lawywers are not in the business of vengance, or social engineering. The relief for these sort of injuries is the exchange of money. If that can be obtained without the risk of trial, it is the lawyer's duty to advise the client. If the client wants vengance, better to buy a printing press or hire someone with few compuntions about engaging the offender physically. The latter is not advisable, but would certainly bring attention to the matter.

  8. perlhaqr  •  Sep 13, 2011 @6:00 am

    She better not complain too loud on the internet. She might get sued.

  9. C. S. P. Schofield  •  Sep 13, 2011 @6:47 am

    TJIC,

    The Nuremburg trials were a blunder. No trials with agents of Stalin on the panel have any moral authority. There was no international government structure which might be said to have authority. What the Nuremburg trials said was the the victors could use show trials to justify killing the losers.

    We should have just decided who we wanted dead and shot them out of hand. It would have been more honest, it would have muddied the waters of international law less. The consequence of the Nuremburg trials has been a lot of World Court bullsh*t, and little else.

    end rant

  10. Goober  •  Sep 13, 2011 @8:52 am

    My guess is that the officers acted completely within the law and she has no recourse to sue or otherwise. That's the worst part about all of this – you don't have a say. They are going to strip search you whether you want it or not, because probable cause is considered an archaic term when it comes to air travel these days. Fact is, every passenger getting on a plane at our local airport is strip searched (virtually, not in person, but i really fail to see the difference). When we've come so far in scrapping the fundamentals of our Consitution that me getting on a commuter flight from Spokane to Seattle is considered probable cause to strip search me, then I can't come up with any other conclusion than to say that the terrorists have won. This was exactly their goal – to have us living in a state of fear, not of them, but of each other. Way to go, government. You just handed our enemies their victory.

  11. Goober  •  Sep 13, 2011 @8:58 am

    Oh, and to all of you who would say that this is all for my own protection – I'll take my chances against third world barbarians any day. A government run-amok is far more dangerous than the infinitesimal risk that terrorist pose to me.

    I had a guy snarkily suggest that we should have two airline security systems – one without the TSA and one with the TSA, and that people opposed to the TSA's actions could fly airline B and shouldn't complain when they, in his words, "ended up a steaming smear in the ground somewhere."

    I told him it sounded like a great idea and that I'd fly airline B any day. He was speechless.

    "Those who surrender essential liberty for a bit of (false) security deserve neither." My forefathers didn't die, screaming in pain and face down in the mud so that I could give up those rights that they fought to give me because I am scared of bad guys and a tiny chance that they would do me harm. I cannot imagine a more in-your-face insult to all of those men who put themselves at risk and died for us so that we didn't have to live under tyranny than to willingly cede those rights because you are scared of some dude with a dud in his underwear.

  12. Erica  •  Sep 13, 2011 @11:13 am

    V for Vendetta was one of my most favorite comic books – and also the scariest. Because its becoming real.

  13. CTrees  •  Sep 13, 2011 @1:00 pm

    The victim in this, unfortunately, doesn't seem like she has a cause of action against either the airline or the police – they were both acting entirely as required.

    What I wonder, though, is if she could get the name of the busybody who reported her, would she have a legitimate case there? Suing an individual isn't nearly so awesome as suing a large business or the government, but it seems more legitimate.

  14. C. S. P. Schofield  •  Sep 13, 2011 @1:02 pm

    I have an idea, building on the one that Goober mentioned; One airline that follows TSA guidelines, and one airline that allows concealed carry. Airline B MIGHT get hijacked. Once.

  15. JustPassingBy  •  Sep 13, 2011 @2:27 pm

    @LauraK

    "Meanwhile, pedohiles get teaching certificates, grown men try to detonate their underware…Where does this end?"

    Small correction – …Meanwhile, pedophiles become priests…

  16. delurking  •  Sep 13, 2011 @2:48 pm

    Can she really not sue? IANAL, and Ken is, so I was hoping he would comment. From the Wikipedia page on the Flying Imams incident:

    On July 24, 2009, U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery allowed a discrimination lawsuit filed by the imams to proceed, saying, "The right not to be arrested in the absence of probable cause is clearly established and, based on the allegations … no reasonable officer could have believed that the arrest of the Plaintiffs was proper."

    That seems pretty comparable.

  17. W. Ian Blanton  •  Sep 13, 2011 @4:54 pm

    Goober: A-Men. To both posts.

  18. Andy  •  Sep 13, 2011 @9:21 pm

    What information/actions did she legally have to supply? Could she have refused the strip search or finger printing until a lawyer was present?

  19. Nicthalon  •  Sep 14, 2011 @12:26 pm

    @delurking
    She wasn't arrested. A complaint of suspicion was lodged, and the authorities responded accordingly.

  20. Ken  •  Sep 14, 2011 @12:30 pm

    @Nicthalon: She was forcibly taken from the plane, handcuffed, strip-searched, and confined in a cell. The cops might not have considered it an arrest — but for all significant legal purposes, it was.

  21. margaret  •  Sep 14, 2011 @3:27 pm

    I'm with Goober on Airline B. Where do I sign up? I find it abhorrent that this happened. What makes it worse is that if I (redheaded white chick) had been in that window seat, I would have had no worries. For that matter, If I had been the one frequenting the bathroom, someone might have asked me if I were ill. No way I would have suffered through the humiliation of a cavity search. However, every time I mention this I am told that there is no such thing as white privilege.