"But I didn't shout 'Fire!'"
Friday, August 25, 2006
In a recent comment, Software Nerd (who has a couple of good recent posts up) brought my attention to an interview with an Iraqi "peace" activist who was asked to cover up a tee shirt that had Arabic script on it -- that he was wearing to the airport.
RAED JARRAR: I made it back to the United States in a very easy way. In fact, the incident that happened in JFK was not related to my trip, because I went back to D.C. I spent a day in D.C. Then I took the bus to New York. I spent a couple of days in New York. There was an event there. Then I was supposed to take my airplane, my Jet Blue airplane from JFK to Oakland in California last Saturday. So I went to the airport in the morning, and I was prevented to go to my airplane by four officers, because I was wearing this t-shirt that says "We will not be silent" in both Arabic and English. And I was told by one of the officials that wearing a t-shirt with Arabic script in an airport now is like going to a bank with a t-shirt that reads, "I am a robber."The bit about the content of the tee shirt's Arabic script is a deliberate attempt to distract the reader from the real issue, which was the language used on the shirt. By some bizarre coincidence, it happens to be the same language used to incite bombings of airplanes.
AMY GOODMAN: That's what the security said to you?
RAED JARRAR: Yeah. I was questioned by four officials from -- I think some of them were from Jet Blue and others were maybe policemen or FBI. I have no idea. I took their names and badge numbers, and I filed a complaint through ACLU against them, because I asked them very directly to let me go to the airplane, because it's my constitutional right as a U.S. taxpayer and resident to wear a t-shirt with Arabic script. And they prevented to let me exercise this right, and they made me cover the script with another t-shirt.
AMY GOODMAN: So they said you could not fly if you wore your t-shirt that said, "We will not be silent"?
RAED JARRAR: Yes. They said that very clearly. [bold in quoted remarks added]
Gosh. Do you think that might have been why Jarrar was stopped?
Completely omitted is whether perhaps Jarrar did other things (intentionally or not) to draw the attention of law enforcement. Also omitted is the fact that Jarrar does not necessarily have the constitutional right to wear Arabic script. You can't say, "I have a bomb," at the airport -- in English for that matter. And you can't shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Goodman and Jarrar are implicitly making the following disingenuous argument: "But he didn't shout 'Fire!' He just said, 'The theater is on fire.' in a very loud voice." It seems that years of relying on legal technicalities to chip away at individual rights have caused legalistic thinking to permeate every echelon of the far left.
In light of the fact that law enforcement are prohibited from expending their limited resources efficiently -- i.e., by profiling people who (like Jarrar) look like terrorists -- they have to do the next best thing: Stop anyone who acts suspiciously or looks like he might sympathize with terrorists. Ironically, had law enforcement profiling at its disposal, Jarrar probably could go into an airport with such a shirt on because everyone would know that he'd been checked out already. But this tool is unavailable and so, allowing such apparel not only runs the risk of distracting law enforcement, it also risks causing wary passengers to take matters into their own hands as they have twice very recently.
Contrast Jarrar's defensive tack of immediately making a federal case out of this simple request to the following quote: "I hate what people who look like me are doing, and understand that special care is their fault."
Now ask yourself which of these men really cares about peace and freedom.
-- CAV
6 comments:
Gus, RAED is obtaining taxpayer supported legal assistance for promoting his childish, jerky attitude. Perhaps you may have noted public patience wearing thin of late with elements of our population not willing to abide security measures created by the backward, nonhumanitarian, quasi-religious, homicide sect which prompted the measures.
Their ilk will bring suffering to their own homes by the very abuses they attempt to inflict upon others, and they are earning the contempt of civilized people all over the world for their whining and jerkery. Let the fools fool themselves, they are not fooling us!
If they deem him to be a threat because of his t-shirt, I got no problem. But how does making him cover up his shirt eliminate this threat. If his shirt said "I'm a terrorist" and he agrees to take it off and replace it with a shirt with puppies on it, does this mean he is no longer dangerous.
Vigilis,
Yes. It, does appear that civilized people are waking up. I hope enough wake up to change the disastrous course of our government WRT what it is willing to fund.
Jay,
It would not cause him not to be a threat simply to make him remove the shirt, of course.
This is why someone who wore shirts like this would immediately get added attention from law enforcement: To make sure they are NOT a problem. (e.g., is this a silly, empty, adolescent boast or not?)
Gus
I am not sure if its simply an adolescent boast or an actual threat, and I don't have a problem with law enforcemences decision either way. If its just an adolescent boast, and not a threat, why make him take his shirt off. If he is a threat, why only make him take his shirt off instead of keeping him off the flight altogether.
In all the objectivist essays that I have read I have noticed how a large number of them deal with anylizing situations where people try to solve problems by going after the effect while ignoring the cause. What bothers me about this situation is that law enforcement might actually view him as a threat and feel that making him remove his shirt is an appropriate method of dealing with him. To me that sounds rediculous, but its no different than someone who thinks that if you take a gun out of someone's hand(gun control laws) you will majically transform a murderer into a harmless citizen. If that mentality is possible for millions of liberals then its possible that it could also be the mentality of this particular law enforcement officer(if in fact it is the same kind of thing). If so, I am more worried about the response of law enforcement then I am about this adolescent.
I think he should have been treated like a full threat(even if they know he is not),detained, forced to miss his flight and when he is determined to be safe he should be told that he is being held responsible for his own delay because of the clothes he chose to wear(teach him a lesson).
Jay,
I would say that how he is treated should depend solely on how quickly he can be evaluated as a threat or not, including causing him to miss a flight if there is missing information.
As for removing the shirt being considered removal of him as a threat, I don't see that any law enforcement would see it that way -- other than the fact that his continued wearing of the shirt would, in today's context, make other law enforcement waste time on him, too, at later points in his trip.
Gus
Jay,
One more thing....
In a fully free society, much of this would be moot as airlines would impose whatever security measures the market demanded, including dress codes.
Such routine exercise of property rights would, of course, be unthinkable today. Could you imageine the outrage at, say, an airline that decided that headscarves or turbans were unacceptable attire?
Gus
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