[Imc] detailed account of airport incident (fwd)
David Young
dyoung at onthejob.net
Tue Nov 13 05:40:29 UTC 2001
Sascha et al.,
Are there any witnesses to Ms. Oden's mistreatment at the airport besides
Ms. Oden herself? This story tripped my skept-o-meter the first time
I read it. After reading the more detailed version, my brain screams
for corroboration.
Dave
On Mon, Nov 12, 2001 at 01:55:26PM -0600, Sascha Meinrath wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I received this today from Nancy Oden (an activist who was detained at
> Bangor International Airport) in early November. There is an interest in
> forming a national "Bill of Rights Defense Committee" and I thought that
> both the IMC and AWARE might be interested in affiliating with this
> coalition.
>
> --Sascha
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 01:32:15 -0500
> From: nancy oden <cleanearth at acadia.net>
> To: nancyoden at greens.org
> Subject: detailed account of airport incident
>
> Excellent Cartoon -
> http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?id=522
> >From Nancy Oden, Green Party USA
> , www.greenparty.org, gpusa at igc.org
> 1-866-GREENS2 (toll-free)
>
> What's Happening with the Bangor Airport Incident
> - Nancy Oden, November 10, 2001
>
> 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.
>
> ***********************************************************
>
> Bangor Airport Incident, November 1, 2001
> - Nancy Oden, Jonesboro, Maine
>
> 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.
>
> **********************************************************
>
>
>
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--
David Young On the Job Consulting
dyoung at onthejob.net Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933
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