FC: Maine National Guard bars Green Party leader from flying

[Tim May]

On Saturday, November 3, 2001, at 07:02 PM, Steve Schear wrote:

> At 01:20 PM 11/3/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>> http://www.wartimeliberty.com/article.pl?sid=01/11/03/1813233
>>
>>    Military Bars Green Party Leader from Flying
>>    posted by declan on Saturday November 03, @12:36PM
>>    from the airports-are-now-a-no-speech-zone dept.
>
> If the information provided in the article and your interview is 
> reasonably accurate I suggest the Green Party, which is fairly popular 
> in Maine, and others who oppose this sort of McCarthyesque law 
> enforcement take direct action against them.  By that I mean they 
> identify the "thugs", including towns and photos, and invite the 
> opposition to shun them in every legal way possible (e.g., denying them 
> service at restaurants, shops, service stations, etc.)
>

This terrible situation shows what happens when the Government--cops, 
soldiers, agencies--have control over who is allowed to fly.

In the older system, general security was NOT tied to ID. No ID, no 
tickets. The pressure exerted on this Green Party woman could not have 
been applied as easily.

That this woman was obviously--if we are to believe what has been 
reported--singled out for harassment is a sign of what's to come. 
Consider the possibilities:

-- people like Cypherpunks put on a "watch list" and similarly harassed 
and ultimately blacklisted

-- journalists whose very jobs depend on airline travel may find 
themselves less willing to criticize government, lest they be added to 
the blacklist.

-- any person on the outs with government may find himself added to the 
blacklist

It really is no business of government to know the identities of those 
whose bags/etc.  they are checking. Having government able to single out 
some travellers for special processing is a recipe for this kind of 
mischief.

BTW, the _wrong_ tack to take would be some argument about a "right to 
travel," some over-ruling of Southwest's or United's right to pick its 
customers as it wishes. The preferred approach should be to have no ID 
at the _security_ checkpoint and to not have any laws requiring ID tied 
to tickets. In other words, the situation as of a few years ago. Then 
that Green woman would a) not have been stopped in the first place, and 
b) would have been able to hop any other flight without anyone being the 
wiser.

There is no particular reason to believe that having the guys with M-16s 
know the True Name of the person whose bag they are checking will 
improve security in any way.

--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.