Call Security, Get Sued?

Recall that back in November, six Islamofascist agents provocateur deliberately impersonated terrorists in order to cause themselves to be thrown off a US Airways flight, only to start whining about "flying while Moslem" in preparation for a lawsuit-cum-media circus. Back then, I said the following.

It is not religious persecution for airline security personnel to make sure a Moslem isn't going to turn an airline flight into a huge bomb. It is common sense, reason applied to the limited evidence one has available at the moment. To begrudge a man of that is to declare moral bankruptcy.

It is both reason and evidence that these imams want you to ignore any time their religion can be brought up on even the remotest pretext. This is why Moslems behaved violently after the Pope criticized their faith -- for condoning violence. They were not really "offended". Whatever we infidels think is beneath contempt to them. They want to intimidate us to the point that we quit thinking whenever they want us to, so when they say "Jump!" we'll ask "How high?" if we dare say anything.

This act of unmitigated gall is no blow for civil rights. No. In this case, a real blow for the only rights that exist -- individual rights -- would be to stand up proudly for US Airways and its other passengers. Forgotten in this controversy are the property rights of US Airways to deny service to anyone they please, and the right to life and liberty of everyone who acted rationally in an effort to prevent another atrocity like those that occurred on September 11, 2001. [bold added]

Sadly, the Islamofascist Six may have come up with a clever way to do achieve their goal. According to an editorial in USA Today, they are attempting to drag individual passengers into their already frivolous and unjust lawsuit.

Their lawsuit, filed earlier this month, accused the airline and Metropolitan Airports Commission of anti-Muslim bias. That was expected. What's unique and especially troubling, though, is the effort to identify an unknown number of passengers and airline employees who reported suspicions so they might also be included as defendants. For example, the imams want to know the names of an elderly couple who turned around "to watch" and then made cellphone calls, presumably to authorities, as the men prayed.

This legal tactic seems designed to intimidate passengers willing to do exactly what authorities have requested -- say something about suspicious activity.

...

US Airways can afford to defend itself and the crew in court. Passengers who notified authorities don't have those resources. Several lawyers have promised to represent such passengers for free. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a moderate Muslim group, will raise funds for their defense. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has introduced a bill to shield from legal liability those who report suspicious behavior.

It shouldn't have to come to that, especially if a judge has the wisdom to throw out the complaints against the "John Doe" passengers before they're identified. [bold added, links dropped]

I applaud USA Today for making this report, which should serve as a wake-up call to a country that seems to have hit the snooze button -- again -- since the religiously-motivated atrocities of September 2001.

However, this editorial does make a dangerous concession to the enemy: It brings up "ethnic profiling" only to call it "reprehensible". Although ethnic profiling for the purpose of arbitrary discrimination would certainly be morally reprehensible -- if anyone were ever actually guilty of it in this day and age -- it should be within the legal rights of US Airways to engage in it if it pleases, as an extension of its right to refuse service to anyone, which in turn stems from the inalienable right to property of its owners.

But the only reason ethnic profiling comes up at all is because the overwhelming majority of terrorists happen to be followers of a certain major religion, Islam. It is thus not unreasonable to take a passenger's religion (or apparent religion) into account when deciding whether to allow someone onto an airplane, as I said in November.

This editorial should have at the very least made the distinction between the profiling as a means of discrimination and as a means for screening passengers more efficiently with limited resources. Unfortunately, it does not, and in the process concedes the evil moral premise of the Islamofascist Six, even while correctly identifying its deadly results. Contrary to this premise, ethnic profiling should not be punishable by law.

This lawsuit, as emphasized by this deliberate harassment of some of the passengers, is a naked attempt by these imams to employ our nation's dangerously broken legal machinery to make dhimmis of all of us.

-- CAV

PS: One further point bears making. The only remotely valid reason to file a lawsuit over something someone says at an airport would be if what that person could reasonably be construed as slander (which clearly does not apply to the other passengers), or incitement (which might be worth exploring in the case of the imams). Nothing else -- even if passengers shouted epithets at this heap of human refuse -- should be a basis for touching so much as a hair on their heads.

It's a concept that seems increasingly foreign to the so-called civil rights movement: Freedom of speech.

PPS: Here's another disturbing thought. As if it is not bad enough that Steve Pearse sees the need to introduce legislation that would shield reports to airport security from liability, consider the precedent it sets for later governmental abuse. Will people who act as government informants for such non-crimes as violating environmental laws similarly be protected?

Just as fraud was already illegal, meaning there was no need for further legislation after Enron, so is free speech already in no need of further legal protection. This bill, an understandable but mistaken reaction to the problem posed by our legal system (and exploited by the Islamofascist Six), can ultimately introduce more problems than it solves. (Of course, this is not to say there aren't already such laws as I envision already on the books.)

Updates

Today: (1) Minor edits. (2) PS and PPS.
5-13-07: Corrected a typo.