Fwd: Re: GROUNDED: The Feds DO maintain an air travel blacklist

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Sun Nov 17 13:50:28 PST 2002


Sheasby along w/Joel Kovel, is a neo-marxist Green, one of the more grounded in reality folks there. Has written pieces for Against The Current. The "someone" is Mitchel Cohen of the Brooklyn Greens, who (used to?) write for Z. Michael Pugliese

------- Start of forwarded message ------- From: Walt Sheasby <WSheasby at CS.COM> To: SPSM-LIST at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU Reply-To: Society for the Philosophical Study of Marxism Listserve <SPSM-LIST at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU> Subject: Fwd: Re: GROUNDED: The Feds DO maintain an air travel blacklist Date: 11/17/02 12:55:26 PM

Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 15:55:26 EST

From: Walt Sheasby <WSheasby at CS.COM>

Subject:Re: GROUNDED: The Feds DO maintain an air travel blacklist

To: SPSM-LIST at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU

My apologies for posting this here; it is only in response to an earlier

one.

In a message dated 11/17/02 4:20:42 AM Pacific Standard Time,

someone wrote somewhere:

>In November 2001 Nancy Oden of the Greens /Green Party USA was

denied boarding on a plane leaving Bangor, ME for Chicago. Across the US

there were even some GREENS who sided with the police and accused

Nancy and the G/GPUSA of frabricating the whole story and blowing it out

of proportion.

They even accused Ms. Oden of escalating her encounter with the

authorities at the airport. Well, the following appears in an article in

today's edition of Salon. I am reproducing it here in its entirety because

the whole text is available only to premium subscribers and I think it's

important this information gets out to as wide an audience as possible.

- Someone <

Hi Someone-

Your recycling of the Salon.com article on the No-Fly list without

any further checking is typical of the way this incident has been

broadcast without any attempt to ascertain the reality. Salon.com

has made substantial corrections in this sloppy article that you

re-posted, the main point of which seems to be an attack on the

skeptical Greens who did not buy Nancy Oden's story of being

spotted on a computer list of Green Party activists. Recently there

was a second airport incident involving a Green Party activist, and

after being questioned he admitted that he made up the part about

being spotted on a computer listing his Green Party connection.

We in the Green Alliance, and the spokespersons for the Green Party

United States who challenged Nancy Oden's report, never denied that

there was a Federal government No-Fly list, only that the Green Party

was included in that list as of November 2001. We have always opposed

such a list. Here is what I actually wrote back on Nov. 9, 2001. Those

sites like Counterpunch that ran with the original article attacking me

for my skepticism never posted this message and as far as I know

never posted my letter to Cockburn and company. My comments about

"Other domestic groups had been identified as so-called "terrorist" groups

in a May 10, 2001 FBI report by Louis J. Freeh on the "Threat Of Terrorism

to the United States...." were ignored.

-Walt

Subject: RE: More on Bangor Airport incident

From: Bob (bob at com)

Date: Fri Nov 09 2001 - 14:39:54 EST

Walt Sheasby, whose original rebuttal to the Nancy Oden brouhaha was

widely posted, follows up with more comments... ( He said I could post

this here )

-----Original Message-----

My original post regarding the incident at the Bangor Airport disputed

Nancy Oden's contention that she had been tagged by a computer search

as a Green Party opponent of the bombing in Afghanistan: "I was targeted

because the Green Party USA opposes the bombing of innocent civilians in

Afghanistan."

In all of the flurry of news releases denouncing this as a sectarian

plot by the Green Party of the United States, which yesterday received

FEC recognition, to undermine its tiny rival, the GPUSA, which had tried

to block the FEC decision, neither Nancy nor the other GPUSA publicists

offered any other explanation for the incident. They insisted the FBI

had tagged her as a Green and so prevented her from boarding the plane.

Given the implausibility of this explanation, some Greens admittedly

gave greater credence to the version given by airport staff and

security. On Nov. 4 Jeff Russel, who is with airport security at Bangor

International Airport, said, "Ms. Oden's version of events, while

certainly exciting, are far removed from reality. We are unaware of any

role Ms. Oden's status as a Green may have played."

There are 46 organizations identified on the terrorist list for the new

USA Patriot Act, none of them domestic. Other domestic groups had been

identified as so-called "terrorist" groups in a May 10, 2001 FBI report

by Louis J. Freeh on the "Threat Of Terrorism to the United States," but

were not connected in any way with foreign-sponsored acts of terror, but

simply with anti-globalization vandalism:

"Anarchists and extremist socialist groups -- many of which, such as

the Workers' World Party, Reclaim the Streets, and Carnival Against

Capitalism -- have an international presence and, at times, also

represent a potential threat in the United States. For example,

anarchists, operating individually and in groups, caused much of the

damage during the 1999 World Trade Organization ministerial meeting

in Seattle."

All Greens, socialists, and others oppose this characterization of

these groups as terrorists, however much we may disagree among ourselves

on the tactics of any particular group, and we all oppose any attempt to

revive McCarthyism, blacklisting, or witch-hunting in any fashion. We

all support the basic human right of freedom of travel, and no one I

know in any way condones the profiling or unwarranted searches of flight

passengers, regardless of their political affiliations.

Some of us did and still do insist that Nancy Oden's statement "I was

targeted because the Green Party USA opposes the bombing of innocent

civilians in Afghanistan." was incorrect and irresponsible.

Paul Prior, a Web publicist with GPUSA, maintains in reference to my

post: "Obviously, the writer below had no evidence for claiming 'It now

does not appear that her connection with Greens/Green Party USA had

anything to do with the harassment at the airport'. The only way we

could ever know that is to see the FBI database ourselves."

While I doubt that is going to happen any time soon, it should still be

the practice of the government to announce changes to any list of

suspected terrorist groups, domestic or foreign, and if that is no

longer true, then civil liberties are in worse shape here than anyone

suspected. The actual attacks on the rights of habeas corpus by

imprisoning hundreds of alleged "material witnesses" are enough to

demand the concentrated resistance of all democratic constitutionalists

and civil libertarians, and we do not need to muddy the situation with

assertions that go way beyond the facts.

In the last few days more of the details about the actual events in

Bangor, Maine, have come to light, partly in interviews given by Nancy

Oden herself. As a NYC supporter described the interview with Amy

Goodman of Democracy Now: "I heard Ms. Oden on Democracy Now this

morning (Amy Goodman interviewed her by phone) and she explained what

happened to her at Bangor airport: ...She gave her name and the ticket

agent apparently immediately recognized it and did not ask for

additional identification;"

Democracy Now describes Nancy Oden as an "organic farmer in Maine and

part of the Northeast Resistance Against Genetic Engineering." Nancy

apparently is relatively well-known through accounts in the local media,

particularly the Bangor Daily News. In particular, an incident in 1999

had brought her to the attention of law enforcement.

One story about the incident, involving destruction of a genetically

modified corn field, "Vandals hit modified corn at UM" from the Bangor

(Maine) Daily News on August 20, 1999 p. B1 is posted on the web at

http://www.tao.ca/~ban/899maine.htm "Environmental activist Nancy

Oden of Jonesboro said Thursday that while she did not destroy the

plants, she commended those who did. 'I'm glad they did it,'' Oden said

during an interview at the Bangor Daily News offices. 'It may not have

been legal, but it was the moral thing to do.' ... In an Aug. 16 e-mail

sent to other activists and also sent to the NEWS, Oden gave explicit

directions to the location of the cornfield...."

Confirming what I posted about this, GPUSA's Paul Prior of New Mexico,

pointed out on Nov. 6 that, "The truth is, Nancy Oden has been a target

of Monsanto and just about everybody else for years. They had her

targeted for an 'ecoterrorist' long before this war."

Whether or not her name was known to the FBI, it is certainly familiar

to the authorities in Maine, and the association with the corn field

incident may be the precipitating cause of her victimization. It

certainly does not appear that her connection with Greens/Green Party

USA had anything to do with the harassment at the airport, but it does

seem that her other activities had brought some unwanted attention.

Needless to say, freedom of travel is a fundamental human right, and

whatever interest Monsanto has in all this, political activities should

not bar anyone from being able to exercise their rights.

Viva la Causa Verde!

Walt Contreras Sheasby

-- -------- End of forwarded message --------



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