Maine National Guard bars Green Party leader from flying

Bill Stewart bill.stewart at pobox.com
Sun Nov 4 17:59:03 PST 2001


At 10:09 AM 11/04/2001 -0800, georgemw at speakeasy.net wrote:
>I think "overlooking" is too strong a word,  I think it's more
>reasonable to call it mitigating circimstances.  The guardsman
>needs to have it explained to him (in a way that the lesson will
>stick) that he does not have the authority to block travellers
>because he doesn't like their attitude or their political views.
>I'm not sure what disciplinary action is appropriate,  probably
>a reptimand is good enough as long as it's made VERY clear that
>any sort of repeat performance will result in sever consequences.

It's one thing for a minimum wage ArentSoBright security guard
to be concerned about the people carrying scary computer parts.
(Hi, Dave!)  That's a problem, but it's a one-off.

This is something different - the Guardsman is sworn to uphold the
Constitution, yet he's violating someone's rights in what
appears to be a pre-planned retailiation for her political beliefs.
That's a one-strike firing offense, like a cop getting caught stealing.
The appropriate action is for the Guard's probably non-existent
equivalent of Police Department Internal Affairs to find out
who else was involved in this offense, and what level of pre-planning
really happened - was it truly a random thing?  If it was political,
that's also sufficiently illegal that the Uniform Code of Military
Justice requires soldiers to disobey, and failing to do so is another
one-strike-you're-out kind of thing.

Does the Guardsman only deserve firing, after an appropriate
court-martial, or does he also deserve civilian punishment?

The separate issue is the airline - the airline employee clearly
deserves a reprimand, and whoever told all the other airlines that
they don't want this Green Party person flying does as well.
They sold her a ticket, and violated their contract to carry her,
and the issue of whether it really was safety-related or whether
a really egregious breach of contract is a question for a court.









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