Plastic bag writer
Slashdot has a disturbing article about a quiet protester at Milwaukee Airport (MKE) who wrote "Kip Hawley is an idiot" on the outside of a plastic bag being searched by TSA. Hawley is head of the TSA. The longer discussion started on a message forum here.
To make a long story short, the baggie-writer was confronted with the marked baggie and hassled. When asked about his 1st amendment right to Freedom of Speech, he was told that that right was for "out there", not here. Cops were summoned. The ritual look-him-up-in-the-database-and find-some-dirt process ensued. Luckily for him, they didn't dig anything up. After 25 minutes he was allowed to go after having been forced to give his address and other information.
I almost didn't write about this story because it didn't surprise me one bit. It's not about TSA or DHS, CIA, FBI, IBM or even HP (well, maybe HP). It's about a prevailing attitude that's been hardening in this country since 9/11. You know the one. The mindset that caused the TSA agent to say--no doubt with a straight face--that there was no Freedom of Speech in an airport line.
Bull. That's exactly when you need a civil right--when the country is acting strange and some bureaucracy has you lined up somewhere to be searched and ID'ed, no matter what the justification. Rights are not just for the whitebread effete sniffling at cocktail parties, they are for the dubious, the unprotected classes, the people who spend most of their life in lines. Remember that the uber-rich do not go through security because they fly on private jets, which at most airports means a private terminal with laughable or nonexistent security. The almost rich will soon be able to buy their way into a speed line at airports by submitting (and paying for) a background check.
So does that mean that the Freedom of Speech is denied for 21st Century Steerage Class?
The TSA guy probably didn't know any better--he probably didn't think any more of it than would a turn-of-last-century patrolmen stealing free apples from sidewalk vendors. It's the mindset of the whole group that's questionable.
What would happen if you wore a tee shirt with protest language printed on it? How about a tattoo?
Protecting America starts at what makes us most American and that's our Constitution. Someone should send TSA a copy.
Posted on September 28, 2006
