FC: Maine National Guard bars Green Party leader from flying

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Sat Nov 03 2001 - 10:20:50 PST

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Microsoft's Passport service leaks credit card numbers"

    http://www.wartimeliberty.com/article.pl?sid=01/11/03/1813233
                                          
       Military Bars Green Party Leader from Flying
       posted by declan on Saturday November 03, @12:36PM
       from the airports-are-now-a-no-speech-zone dept.
    
            As one of the U.S. Green Party's top officials, Nancy Oden is
       used to controversy. But Oden never expected to be hassled by National
       Guard troops at her hometown airport of Bangor, Maine on Thursday and
       barred from flying out of it. She thinks it's because of a Green Party
       statement she co-authored that ran in the local newspaper. The
       statement calls for universal health care, limitations on free trade,
       and a stop to "U.S. military incursions" including the bombing of
       Afghanistan. (The Green Party has labeled the U.S. military action an
       act of "state terrorism.") Oden's unsuccessful attempt to fly to
       Chicago for a Green Party national meeting follows a Philadelphia man's
       unpleasant experience after reading the wrong book at an airport, a
       California journalist's headaches for daring to take photos inside an
       airport, and the arrest of another man in Germany for bringing
       politically-unacceptable reading material to an airport. Also see
       Indymedia coverage of Oden's experience; the transcript of our
       interview with her from her home in Jonesboro, Maine is below.
    
       ---
    
       Interview of Nancy Oden by Declan McCullagh
       November 3, 2001
       
       (Ed. Note: Nancy Oden is a top U.S. Green Party official and a member
       of the party's coordinating committee. An organic farmer, peace
       activist, and all-around firebrand, she lives in Jonesboro, Maine.)
         _________________________________________________________________
       
       "Just a few weeks ago I had a piece in the Bangor paper. It's on our
       website, greenparty.org... I submitted it under my name alone. It's a
       fairly radical piece; that's what I do. I'm a political and
       environmental activist.
       
       "I walked into the Bangor airport. What I saw was National Guard folks
       all over carrying machine guns... The atmosphere was very tense...
       This was Thursday... I went over to the American Airlines ticket
       counter way down at the end. Nobody else was there, except the clerk.
       I gave him my name. He didn't even ask for photo ID. It was almost
       like they were expecting me. He put it into the computer. He stayed on
       the computer a long time, like 10 minutes.
       
       "He put an S on the boarding pass, for search. He said, 'You've been
       picked for having your bag searched.' ... I said to him, 'This wasn't
       random, was it?' He said, 'No you were in there to be searched, no
       matter what.' I went over to baggage to put my bags through the X-ray
       and then went into the boarding area.
       
       "There was this National Guard guy there. He yells over at me, so
       everyone can hear, 'Bring your bags over here.' You know how they are
       when they're all puffed up with themselves. He said, 'Hurry up,' so I
       slowed down some more.
       
       "I put my bags on the table. The two women employees were standing
       there. [I tried to help them with a stuck zipper.] He grabbed my left
       arm, he started yelling in my face, 'Don't you know what happened?
       Sep. 11, don't you know thousands of people died?' I said, 'You can't
       do that.' He went to grab my arm, and I said, 'Don't touch me.' I saw
       an older airline guy shake his head, 'No,' and he backed off.
       
       "That insulted his little manhood. He could not force me to listen to
       his idiot ideas on Sep. 11, whatever it was he wanted to say. So he
       was angry. I hadn't done anything except pull away from him... I think
       he was trying to provoke me. They did the wand thing, they were done,
       and I heard him say real soft, 'Don't let her on the plane,' like he
       was talking to himself.
       
       "Then I go to get on the plane since we're all done and everything,
       and the American Airlines ticket guy says,' You can't get on the
       plane.' I say, 'Why not?' ... He says, 'Because this guy says you
       didn't cooperate with the search.' ... I said, 'Didn't you see him
       grab my arm?' He said, 'No, your back was to me.'
       
       "He said, 'Maybe we can get you on the 4:00 plane, it's the last one
       today.' I felt, okay, let's put up with this aggravation now and I'll
       go to Chicago and we'll see what we can do... Then this little guard
       guy, it wasn't enough to stop me, wasn't done with me. He said, 'Come
       with me.' I followed very slowly, I sat down for a while. I said I'm
       carrying these bags; I need a rest... It's called passive resistance.
       
       "He went and found the airport police to come and talk with me. He
       went and got six other National Guard guys and they all approached me.
       Here are these six untrained, ignorant,
       don't-know-how-to-deal-with-the-public, machine-gun-armed young guys
       in their camouflage suits with their military gear hanging off of it.
       
       "I looked up and started laughing, 'Is all this for me, guys? What is
       this about?' There was this big burly guy, he was in front. He said,
       'You didn't cooperate with the search.' ... I said what he did was
       grabbed my arm, and I backed away... He said he only hit your arm. I
       said even if that's all he did, he's not allowed to do that. He can't
       hit my arm and demand I listen to him.
       
       "They had the airport policeman tell me, 'You're not flying out of
       this airport today.' ... Of course I had cooperated; why do I care if
       they search my bags? ... What I didn't like was being singled out
       because of my political views. They couldn't arrest me because there
       was no reason for that. They had people who saw there was nothing to
       arrest me for. They wanted to get back at me somehow because I was not
       a subservient female, because I questioned their manhood.
       
       "I went to the American Airlines guy and said, 'Is this just today?'
       He said, 'I don't know.' One clerk said, 'You could drive to Boston
       [five hours away] and see if you can get out of there.'
       
       "I never made it out of Bangor. I had to turn around and drive 100
       miles back home... The fact that they gave the other airlines my
       name... They told me they did that... That's incredible."
    
    ###
    
    
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
    You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
    Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
    To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
    This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Nov 03 2001 - 10:19:00 PST