Andrew Gumbel of the Independent Digital on US Anti-war Activists Hit by Secret Airport Ban:
After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports.
Of course, the Administration won’t release the details regarding how a person gets put on such a list or how to get your name off such a list if you’ve been entered incorrectly. Once on, always on. But hey, blacklisting is the penance for exercising your First Amendment rights. Just be quiet and obedient. Shhhh. Now take your soma…
The strong suspicion of such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is suing the government to try to learn more, is that the second list has been used to target political activists who challenge the government in entirely legal ways. The TSA acknowledged the existence of the list in response to a Freedom of Information Act request concerning two anti-war activists from San Francisco who were stopped and briefly detained at the airport last autumn and told they were on an FBI no-fly list.
The activists, Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams, work for a small pacifist magazine called War Times and say they have never been arrested, let alone have criminal records. Others who have filed complaints with the ACLU include a left-wing constitutional lawyer who has been strip-searched repeatedly when travelling through US airports, and a 71-year-old nun from Milwaukee who was prevented from flying to Washington to join an anti-government protest.
Over the last 2 years, us civil libertarians have heard plenty of stories of colleagues consistently being singled out or denied entrance to a flight for being on a ‘list.’
It is not just left-wingers who feel unfairly targeted. Right-wing civil libertarians have spoken out against the secret list, and at least one conservative organisation, the Eagle Forum, says its members have been interrogated by security staff.
That last one is for you apologists who claim its only liberals or conspiracy theorists making these claims. I’ve not been denied entrance to any flights or singled out for additional scrutiny, but I’ve also not flown anywhere since September 11, 2001. Given how many national civil liberties coalition letters, proclamations, petitions and lawsuits I’ve lent my name and publication names to over the last two years, I’d be surprised if I wasn’t on a ‘list.’ Quite a few of the campaigns I’ve endorsed involved the Eagle Forum in addition to a wide range of left to right oriented organizations.
So what gives? Either we are dealing with a bumbling bunch of idiots in the Adminstration who can’t tell the difference between Al Qaeda and the Eagle Forum (not likely) or this is some perverse form of payback for exercising our First Amendment rights. I believe it be the latter. Fortunately, such blacklisting has not produced the intended effect of silencing critics. Civil libertarians are just as loud and in some cases louder than ever. While this shit is annoying, it isn’t going to stop us, silence us or intimidate us. And no Ari, I’m not going to watch what I say. Too many men and women have sacrificied their lives and liberty for that right. Your former boss isn’t going to take it away without a fight.