>Few would deny that, however little or much Oden was involved in provoking the
>officials, her treatment was deplorable in many respects. And few
>would deny that
>the general drift of official behavior has taken a nasty turn of
>late, and we need
>to be concerned and take action wherever possible. But the entire
>thrust of the
>email is built around the explicit claim that Oden was initially
>singled out as a
>result of the stance of the Greens in relation to the bombing (and
>she even goes
>so far as to refer to an article she wrote a few days before as a
>catalyst), when
>in fact there is no substantiation for said profiling claim in this
>instance, and
>there may well never be.
>
>Given what we know of government behavior, we're no doubt fully entitled to
>suspect that said singling-out would be possible, but possible and
>verifiably true
>are two very different things. Does the possibility that it might be
>true remove
>us from the obligation of actually following through and verifying things? No.
>Furthermore, when there's no evidence whatsoever presented to substantiate the
>claim, wouldn't most sensible people understandably balk at
>accepting the conclusion?
I read the following article, also making a round electronically:
***** Green Party activist denied Chicago flight
BANGOR - Green Party activist Nancy Oden was grounded at Bangor International Airport on Thursday after reportedly becoming uncooperative when she was targeted for additional screening....
...Under newly adopted FAA regulations, more passengers - either randomly or based on a computerized profile - are being targeted for more intense screening during the boarding process.
While industry officials were unwilling to release the criteria under which they would profile a passenger, they said the criteria did not include federally protected characteristics such as race, religion, age or sex.
Without providing details, interim airport director Rebecca Hupp said that the FAA guidelines "have more to do with the ticket than the person." For instance, one airline official said, a passenger who pays cash for a ticket the day of the flight would likely undergo added scrutiny.
Oden bought her nonrefundable ticket online, she said.
While an FBI spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny the presence of any name on the terrorist watch list - another trigger for added security response - one law enforcement source said it was "extremely unlikely" Oden was on the list of potential terrorists because her name is unknown to the FBI....
<http://www.bangornews.com/editorialnews/article.html?ID=44958> *****
Given that both industry & law enforcement officials are unwilling to release the profiling criteria, who is under political surveillance, etc., leftists can & should demand that they release such crucial information. To make such a demand, you don't have to take Oden's story the way she wanted it to be received. You simply need to make a ruckus -- through FOIA suits, street protests, etc. -- so that either more info will be forthcoming from industry & law enforcement officials, or at least _they_ will have to be put in a defensive position. State & trade secrets are against our interest in democracy -- that should be one of the stories we emphasize.
An active member of the local Green Party (to whom I'm cc'ing this post) told me that while he's very skeptical about Oden's story of political profiling, he will call & ask his congressional representatives if members of the Green Party are being politically profiled & other pertinent questions. I think that doing so makes sense, in that such calls, if they come from many people, will show that people are concerned about violations of due process, negations of presumption of innocence, infringements upon the freedoms of conscience, association, etc. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Anti-War Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Anti-War Organizing in Columbus Covered by the Media: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/media.html>