There’s a new addition to the list of prohibited items by the TSA. There’s the obvious: guns, knives, explosives… the ridiculous: liquids, and in the UK you can’t take pens and crossword puzzles.
But now there’s an incident that shows the true nature of what’s happening out there in the airports.
An Arab human rights activist was prevented from boarding a plane at Kennedy Airport while wearing a T-shirt that read, “We will not be silent” in English and Arabic.
Raed Jarrar was at the gate to board a JetBlue Airways flight to Oakland, Calif., on Aug. 12 when four officials from the airline or a government agency stopped him and told him he could not board with the shirt on, he said Wednesday.
One official told him, “Going to an airport with a T-shirt in Arabic script is like going to a bank and wearing a T-shirt that says, `I’m a robber,'” he said.
In other words, he was attempting to fly while Arabic. And on top of that, he had a dissenting opinion. And as we all know, these days a dissenting opinion is not only treasonous, but dangerous.
Clearly unconstitutional under Cohen v. California (http://www.epic.org/free_speech/cohen.html). But then again, a federal court said it was ok to have “secret” laws in the context of air travel security regulations. When John Gilmore was denied boarding on a plane without ID, he asked the goverment to show him what law said they could. The government said the law was secret. And then the Founding Fathers spun in their graves like dreidels.