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Theresa,
Got this today in an email and haven't had the
time to research it but it certainly has a truthful ring to it. You
might want to contact the author and confirm that it is her work and
do a follow-up. Those of us who have been termed
"anti-government" in past have serious reservations about
this newly formed banana republic we're living in these days. We
just don't quite understand how taking our freedoms away will make us
safer. Just because we don't agree with the rampant corruption
and cronyism, we're somehow un-American? And a threat to
the nation?
Ms. Oden and I may have different views on
this war but I thought that was what America was all about, life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It seems to me that the
citizens of this nation realize that America was forever changed
on September 11. The trouble with that fact is that the
politicians didn't change and are playing the same old power games as
always, forgetting that they are public servants and acting as though
they are the masters and we the servants. They forget that they
are our representatives, not our masters or leaders. It
seems to me that the best thing those scum-suckers in Washington could
do would be to adjourn Congress and come home and listen to the people
they are supposed to be representing. But I suppose they feel
safer in their Washington bunkers, where they are protected with our
money.
Kathy Lyons
Murray, KY
I'm tired of public servants who seek to be my
Master.
Nancy Oden: My Day at the Airport
http://www.counterpunch.org/oden5.html
My Day At the Airport
By Nancy Oden
On Thursday, November 1, 2001, I left my
farmhouse on the North Coast of Maine, where I'm an organic grower, and
headed for the Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine. I was
dressed conservatively in a long, brown skirt with a matching jacket and
turtleneck sweater, no jewelry, no buttons or other political
indications attached, looking very like other women my age in this part
of the world.
I am a relatively well known
environmental, social, and political activist who has run for public
office. It should be noted that, while I've been an activist for over
thirty years, I've never been arrested, nor has there been anything in
my life that would signal I meant harm to anyone.
Also, this was the third time this year I
had traveled out of (or attempted to, in this case) Bangor Airport on
American Airlines using an e-ticket purchased from Priceline.com bought
weeks before with my own credit card. They had no reason for profiling
and singling me out. It had to have
been because of my political views which, of course, is not a good
reason (see U.S. Constitution's first Ten Amendments, otherwise known as
the Bill of Rights).
I was headed for Chicago for a Green
Party USA National Coordinating Committee meeting, where I was to speak
the next night on biochemical warfare and pesticides as weapons of war.
I was also scheduled to interview job
applicants, present several proposals and financial reports, and so on.
I am a lead person on the National Coordinating Committee of the Green
Party USA (the original Green Party, although there is now another which
took a very
similar name).
I arrived at the Bangor Airport the
now-requisite two hours ahead of the flight and walked in to the airport
to the sight of a couple of dozen National Guard troops carrying machine
guns in their hands wandering around the lobby. I walked down to the
American Airlines ticket counter, where there were no other passengers,
and told the airlines ticket agent my name. I was holding out my picture
ID and the printed itinerary they told us to bring, but he barely
glanced at them. I remember thinking, "Does he have a picture of me
under that counter? Why didn't he look at my ID?"
No one checked my ID at any time. They
all knew what I looked like and, it became clear, my antiwar stance. I
am not that well known that they would have known me on sight. Why were
they briefed about me before I arrived at the airport? What were they
told? Was it the FBI or some other agency? Which one?
The ticket agent spent an inordinate
amount of time on his computer, then finally produced a boarding pass
with a large "S" written on it. I asked him what that meant,
and he said I had been picked to have my bags searched. Well, one
expects that now, so I said, "Oh, that's okay." But I had a
feeling there was more.
Since there was no one else around, I
turned back to him and looked him in the eye - he seemed a decent guy -
and asked him, "My being picked wasn't random, was it?" He
hesitated a moment, but then said, "No, your name was
already flagged in the computer and you would have been searched in any
case." Well, still possibly coincidence.
Then to the x-ray for my bags and me. I
said to the two women sitting by the machine that scans the bags. sort
of apologetically, "I've been picked to have my bags searched. I
know this might sound silly, but since you handle
all these people's bags and belongings--with the Anthrax scare and
all--I'd like it if whoever searches through my clothes and things wash
their hands first." They looked at me with hate and loathing and
one said, "We don't want
YOUR germs, either." (Turns out they wear rubber gloves.)
"Whoa," I thought, "either
I'm back in kindergarten or these normally quite civil women have some
reason for being hostile." I had the distinct feeling they had been
told awful things about me - I want to know what they were told about
this profiled individual coming to their airport.
Neither my bags nor I set off any beeps
in the machinery so we walked right through to the boarding area. Here I
sat down with the other passengers. There was one National Guard soldier
in the boarding area; he was a short man with a black eye wearing camo
gear and carrying a machine gun.
Soon after I sat down, the National
Guardsman looked at the dozen or so passengers, his eyes stopping at me
and he yelled, "Bring those bags over here!" Since he didn't
call my name, how did he know which person was me, since I did not look
appreciably different from the others?
When I didn't move fast enough, he yelled
again, "Hurry up! Move! Bring those bags up here!" This did
not make me move faster. By now people were beginning to stare at me as
if I might possibly be someone bent on doing something wrong.
I set my two smallish bags on the table
where two women were waiting to search my bags. As one of them had
trouble with a zipper on my older bag, I said, "Oh, that zipper is
not right, here, let me open it for you," and I reached over the
table to undo the zipper. Immediately, the soldier yelled
out, "Get your hands away from there!" By now the other
passengers were getting nervous, of course.
He was standing at the end of the table
with the women on one side looking in my bags and me standing on the
other side of the table. I turned to face him, which put my back towards
everyone else, and he grabbed my left
arm and began loudly spouting pro-war nonsense into my face. "Don't
you understand we have to get them before they get us? Don't you
understand what happened September 11?" and so on.
I immediately pulled my arm away from him
and said, "Do not touch me. You cannot do that," and stepped
back a foot or so, saying that I didn't want to hear his views on why he
thought we should kill starving, helpless people
in Afghanistan.
He grabbed for me again. I stepped back
further stating emphatically, "Do Not Touch Me," and further
emphasizing that I did not want to listen to his views on the war. He
was about to leave his position and come after me again, but I saw the
senior security man who is usually there shake his head "No"
at the soldier, who then backed off, but he was angry that I would not
submit to his holding me while he forced his views on me.
I turned and there just a couple of
inches away was the man with the metal-detecting wand. I stepped back a
foot or two so he wasn't right up against me, and he did the wand thing.
I was the only one whose bags were searched. For a woman of a certain
age such as myself to stand there with
arms outstretched while a man skimmed my body with a device was very
embarrassing and demeaning.
I asked him not to touch me with the
wand, as I didn't know what it was, but, of course, he had to touch my
shoulder with it. I ignored this, just wanting to get out of there.
While he was doing the wand thing, I heard
the soldier, who was behind me, say, "Don't let her on the
plane." I thought he was talking to himself.
Then they were done with the searching,
and I walked the three feet to the boarding gate. The American Airlines
agent said, "You can't get on the plane." I asked why. He
replied, "Because he [indicating the soldier] says
you didn't cooperate with the search." I said, "But you were
standing here the whole time. Didn't you see him grab my arm and talk
loudly into my face?" He said he couldn't see that because my back
was to people, only saw me back
off.
I then told the American Airlines agent
that I needed to get to Chicago and stated what I had to do there. The
American Airlines agent then said, rather softly, probably so the
guardsman soldier couldn't hear, "We'll put you on the four o'clock
plane; that's the last one out today that you can go through Boston and
still get to Chicago tonight." I replied, "Fine, let's just do
this. I don't care if I'm late so long as I get there."
Unfortunately, the Guardsman overheard,
and he wasn't done with me. Clearly, this non-subservient female had to
be punished for not being sufficiently obsequious. He saw me picking up
my bags to go out into the lobby and wait for the 4 o'clock plane, and
yelled (that seemed to be his only means of communication), "Come
With Me!" I asked, "Why? Where are we going?" He replied,
louder, "Come With Me!"
A few people to whom I've told this
insist the government/military is trying to "criminalize" me
and other political activists who don't have criminal records. This is
what's done to people of color. When they're harassed and/or beaten by
police, they eventually, of course, do something to protect themselves
and then get arrested for hitting an officer or whatever. If they then
get convicted of a felony, they've go to prison and probably a few years
of parole when one's rights are mostly non-existent, and draconian
restrictions are put upon one's activities. Convicted felons lose a lot
of rights in this country: their travel is henceforth limited, in some
states they can't vote, own a gun, and various other limitations.
Under the circumstances, and because I
had a few hours until four o'clock anyway, it seemed best to go with the
guardsman. The circumstances being that each individual soldier/national
guardsman seems to be The Law
unto themselves. Each of them makes it up as they go along, punishing
people who don't hop to. Military law is not democracy.
He took me to the entrance area, apart
from anyone else. Then he ordered, loudly, "Sit Down!" I gave
him a look and then sat. The soldier found the airport policeman and
told him to stay with me. Upon reflection, I probably wasn't free to
leave, but I thought I was waiting for the next plane
so just stayed there.
The Airport policeman was a pleasant
local man and we talked about what had just happened as well as people
we knew, etc. Within minutes I looked up to see 5-6 National Guardsmen
in their camo gear all carrying machine guns
marching in a sort of formation towards me. I was sitting down quietly
talking with the policeman. The situation looked like a bad movie.
It occurred to me that this is how people
get "disappeared," which has happened to over 1,200 Americans
so far since September 11. We used to hear about this only in repressive
military regimes in other places (usually
bolstered by our tax dollars). I'm sure they were ready to arrest me for
allegedly "not cooperating with a security search," with which
I had, indeed, cooperated.
All of a sudden the ludicrousness of the
situation struck me. There I am, sitting down with my bags, a woman
clearly not a physical threat, and this phalanx of soldiers in formation
descends upon me ready to arrest me for something I did not do. I gave a
little laugh and said to the lead man, "What, all this, just for
me?" Then, I asked, "What's this really about? What's going on
here?"
He replied, "We understand you
didn't cooperate with a security search." I said, "That's
ridiculous. They searched my bags and they did the wand search. The only
problem was your man here [I indicated the short guy with the black eye]
grabbing my arm and spouting pro-war views loudly in my face." The
lead soldier (I don't know his rank) said, astonishingly, "He told
me only hit your arm."
I looked at the lead soldier wide-eyed
with a few unbidden (certainly unwanted when I'm trying to look fierce)
tears in my eyes, and asked, "Even if that's all he had done, would
that be okay?" I think he then realized the guardsman had been way
out of line and said, "Wait here." They left, and the
policeman stayed with me. I don't really think I was free to go,
although I had not been arrested.
I found out later they had gone upstairs
and told the Bangor Airport manager to tell all airlines in the Airport
not to allow me to fly out of Bangor that day, and possibly more than
just that one day. Since the military are in charge of our airports and
they can override civilians in charge, this
was made to happen.
I was to be punished for the crime of
questioning their authority, especially for the guardsman to hold my arm
and force me to listen to his brain-washed rantings.
Every airline in the Bangor Airport was
given my name and told that I did not cooperate with a security search.
Not cooperating with a security search at an airport is a federal crime.
If, indeed, I had not cooperated, they would have arrested me right then
and there. But I had been searched so they couldn't say that.
However, now I have to wonder if every
airline in the world doesn't have me in their computer as a person who
didn't cooperate with the security search, which means they can deny me
passage in their airplanes. We will find
out as time goes on.
They told the policeman this news
and had him tell me that I wouldn't be allowed to fly out of Bangor that
day. So I said I had to go American Airlines and get my money back. The
policeman came with me.
The same AA clerk was at the counter. He
stepped outside the counter to converse with the policeman and me. He
confirmed that they had been told not to allow me to fly out of Bangor
that day. I asked him about the next day and
he said he didn't know. This is not a small matter for me since the
Bangor Airport is 100 miles from where I live.
The AA clerk then suggested I drive to
Boston (5-1/2 hour drive) and fly out of there. There were several
problems with that, I told him. First, my old car barely made it the 100
miles to the Bangor Airport and might not make it to Boston or back
again. Then there were the parking fees in Boston
as well as the fact that I might not be allowed to fly out of there or
might not be able to get a seat once I got there. Also, if they would
not honor my now-expired ticket, I'd have to pay full fare, which I
couldn't afford. Not a serious option.
I then asked the American Airlines clerk
for my money back so I might consider some alternative means of
transport. He said he couldn't refund my money. I asked him why and he
said, "It's a non-refundable ticket." This was
so ridiculous that all three of us laughed a little. All the airlines
issue tickets on other tickets all the time. So I asked him again and he
said he couldn't refund the ticket, indicating it wasn't his decision,
which I understood, and told him I'd take it up with the airline later.
Then the policeman, half apologetically,
told me I'd been banned from the Airport for that day, and that he had
to escort me out. I told him I understood that he was under the
military's rule, and that I would call it his walking me to the door,
rather than escorting me out of the Airport. We
walked to the exit. I thanked him for being kind and considerate, which
he had been, and left with the sinking feeling that something bad is
happening to our country. And this is how it begins.
Postscript:
I have since gotten in touch with the
Bangor Airport manager who assures me that it's fine with them if they
fly out of there, but that it ultimately isn't their decision.
I've also been told by American Airlines'
head of security in Texas that I am welcome to fly on their airline any
time, and that they will contact Priceline.com about both of them giving
my money back. This is all good, excepting that the military can
arbitrarily, at any time, revoke my right to travel for no good reason,
as they did November 1 in Bangor, Maine. So long as the military are in
charge of civilian affairs, we are not free; we do not have our Bill of
Rights protecting us because they've abrogated it and declared
themselves the Law.
We are forming a national Bill of Rights
Defense Committee, and invite all of you and/or groups you're affiliated
with to help us form such a coalition based on defense of our civil
liberties. Please email back saying
you'll be part of this new coalition of groups and individuals, and
include your name and phone number. Then we can call a meeting to decide
what to do. We need a large, strong, united voice to tell the military
government we now have (Bush, Sr., who used to be not only President but
before that head of the CIA, Dick Cheney, Daddy Bush's fellow oil man
and defense contractor, and the Pentagon brass) that we will not accept
killing democracy in order to save it.
We do not want corporations, with their
only interest in next quarter's profits, running the world. We, the
people, should be making the decisions that affect our lives. Real
Democracy. Nothing less will do. CP
Nancy Oden is an organic farmer and Green
Party organizer. She lives in Jonesboro, Maine. She can be contacted at:
cleanearth@acadia.net
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=11638
Green Party USA Coordinator Detained at Airport
http://www.greenparty.org/bangor.html
BARED AT THE GATE: INTERVIEW WITH NANCY ODEN
http://www.counterpunch.org/oden2.html
============================================
SEE ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT POSTINGS ON APFN MESSAGE BOARD: http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html
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