The three people hauled off of a Detroit airplane by FBI counter-terrorism forces did “nothing wrong,” the FBI has admitted, adding that the flight crew had expressed “concern” because one of the three, an Indian, went to the bathroom because he was airsick.
The decision to board the plane and capture the airsick man, along with another Indian on the plane whom he didn’t know, and also along with a half-Arabic, half-Jewish woman who was sitting next to him, were “a precautionary measure.”
Shoshana Hebshi, the woman in question, is particularly irked about the fact that she and the other brown-looking people on the plane were hauled off in handcuffs and strip-searched, which she’s pretty sure was racial profiling.
Experts quoted in the mainstream articles about her captivity agree that it probably was racial profiling, but as one of the FBI agents involved declared “the public would rather us err on the side of caution.” And by caution of course he means strip-searches without probable cause.
The tragic irony is that the stereotypical image of "Muslim" in the average American mind is one who is dark skinned and looks like an Indian.
I have met Moslems who have lighter skin than Sarah Palin. And they weren't converts or anything like that.
Incidentally, it's nice to know that the FBI will abide by the mob rule instead of abiding by the law. But, that doesn't fully explain the FBI's behavior. No. The FBI is merely using "public" as an excuse for its own racist profiling. Surely, that "public" also includes people who have the same skin color as those who were hauled off the plane. Does the FBI think that only scared white people constitute "public"?
"Experts quoted in the mainstream articles about her captivity agree that it probably was racial profiling, but as one of the FBI agents involved declared “the public would rather us err on the side of caution.” And by caution of course he means strip-searches without probable cause."
” And by caution of course he means strip-searches without probable cause."
Actually, that would be the least of our worries. The poor devils in Guantanamo are also there cause the CIA was "erring on the side of caution"
Death of liberty and rule of law! Now how did Al kaeda fail in it's mission?
Good thing they'll never pick me out of a line-up! I'm the whitest, most Anglo-Saxon-ish looking guy you'll ever see- blond hair, blue eyes, something you'd see in German political magazines in the 30's. And guess what, FBI- jokes on you: I'm Muslim. And guess what, too? There are thousands of white American Muslims just like me out there, and there are thousands of black American Muslims out there, and thousands of Hispanic Muslims and Chinese Muslims and … and…. and….
So go ahead and profile away to your heart's content, Mr FBI Man. You'll have everybody in jail except for the one you want. And you know what? He'll probably look just.like.you.
Does anyone surveyed in all the prisons in American how many are whites and how may are blacks?
Take note Americans, having diarrhea on a plane now carries an automatic conviction of "terrorism" – Pretty soon, I suppose they're going to start suspects off the planes while in flight. What a pitiful circus this country has become.
Acuerdo, the fascist police state that is amerika just hastens the collapse of the empire; todo necesario !
tio zapata, Mexico
The guilty government has got so many crimes stacked up that mass diversion into irrational fear is necessary.
Society is toxic with the lies of people who should be under the control of legal justice (remember that?), not walking around selling their pathetic books.
Congress should pass a mandatory $5000 payment to airplane travelers who are falsely accused and treated like criminals. It's suspicious now if you need to throw up and you go to the bathroom?
The public would rather you FBI guys erred on the side of decency and individual rights.
welcome to the United Police States of America. flight crews are now vigilantes. police, FBI, CIA can act secretly and with total impunity. SWAT teams make 50,000 hits a year. the feds copy and scan all emails, tap all phones, bug bedrooms. the President can order the murder of any person anywhere, and not be questioned. the President can start wars and invasions, without Congressional approval. even Stalin never had it this good. and yet, with all this, America-Joe says nothing, does nothing, thinks nothing. all so willing to bomb innocents you wish not to see, but too gutless to stand up for yourselves.
Is this erring on the side of caution also includes "collateral" killing?
Why would a terrorist act suspicious? Wouldn't he try to act normal so he is not caught. From now on all those who act normal should be reported to FBI.
The point of the entire discussion at shebshi.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/some-real-shock-and-awe-racially-profiled-and-cuffed-in-detroit/ ~ nearly 3300 comments ~ is that those WE elect or appoint or hire to “do the job” are NOT to “trample upon the rights” of anyone, the guilty or the innocent. And in this case, no consideration was given to this requirement of “law enforcement” or whatever people imagine this totally ineffective “security theater” supposedly was.
Article I, Section 1 of the Washington State Constitution states it very clearly: “All political power is inherent in the people, and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.” The Declaration of Independence holds certain “truths” to be “self-evident” ~ including “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …”
This is the thinking that built America, that made America able to defeat German imperialism and dictatorship in World War I when all of Europe was unable to do so, and again in World War II when all of Europe and Asia were unable to defeat the Nazi war machine. It’s “American” thinking, and it’s fundamental. We learn it in school, we see it in our entertainment media, and we hear it from every direction whenever we don’t “tune it out” because we’ve heard it all before. It’s the basis for the “They hate our freedoms” nonsense propaganda explaining why nineteen maniacs unable to fly a Piper Cub, directed by an ignorant rich kid dying of kidney failure in a cave on the other side of the planet, flew giant airplanes into two tall buildings as a cover for controlled demolitions that murdered nearly three thousand people ~ most of them Christians, several hundred Jewish Americans, as many as a hundred American muslims, and three Israelis ~ and just happened to save Larry Silverstein the billion-dollar cost of removing asbestos from the obsolete Trade Center Towers as well as the fourteen-billion-dollar cost of dismantling them piece-by-piece before they collapsed from electrolytic corrosion of their steel-aluminum outer support shells, not to mention providing an excuse for invading Afghanistan to build an American pipeline from the Caspian petroleum deposits through Afghanistan, and Iraq to take control of the second-largest oil region on the planet.
The incident and events under discussion ~ Shoshana’s nightmare experience ~ are a holograph of what has been happening all over America since the passage of the Alien and Sedition Act of 1789. In our lifetimes it’s become endemic, not just with air travel but in neighborhoods, business districts, church sanctuaries, private homes, and literally in every variety of “public places.”
Every government of every form with coercive powers in human history has attempted to establish tyrannical, dictatorial control over the lives of its people. In ancient Israel, any violation of The Law was a capital crime ~ and still is, if you’ll read the Talmudic writings. This is exactly what the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Bill of Rights to restrain and prevent from corrupting the liberty of the American people. By 9/11, people blindly trusting government had allowed those restraints to be so eroded, and had ignored so many failures to prevent violations of individual rights, that the Constitution might as well not have been written.
And today a lot of Americans afraid of every shadow are screaming “Protect me!” because today’s bogey-man golem-gollum isn’t just under the bed or in the closet, but on television, in the newspapers, movies, classrooms, minds and eyes of people who can’t see beyond their own skin color. What’s the difference between “Uncle Sam is watching over you” and “Big Brother is watching you?”
[Duplicated comment deleted by ankaboot]