[Infowarrior] - Airport Gestapo

[Richard Forno]

(the last paragraph is particularly relevant.....-rf)

Airport Gestapo

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07172008.html

The Bush Regime’s “terrorist” protection schemes have reached the  
height of total incompetence and utter absurdity.  According to the  
American Civil Liberties Union, a private organization that defends  
the US Constitution that inattentive Americans neglect, there are now  
one million names on the “terrorist” watch list.

One of them is that of former Assistant US Attorney General Jim  
Robinson, whose top security clearances are current.  Every time  
Mr.Robinson flies away on business, he is delayed by a totally  
incompetent “terrorist” protection racket that cannot tell a person  
named Jim Robinson, who served in the highest echelons of the US  
government, from a Muslim terrorist.

What confidence can we have in a regime that is incapable of  
differentiating an Assistant US Attorney General from a terrorist?

Mr. Robinson said: “If I were convinced that America is a safer place  
because I get hassled at the airport, I might put up with it, but I  
doubt it.  I expect my story is similar to hundreds of thousands of  
people who are on this list and find themselves inconvenienced.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people” on a watch list that they have no  
business being on?

Yes. “Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ‘suspicious  
characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have  
become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little  
hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU  
Washington Legislative Office.

And this is America, not Nazi Germany?

How can Airport “Security” possibly protect anyone when the idiots  
cannot differentiate a  high level American government official from a  
terrorist?

Do you really believe there are one million terrorists and nothing has  
blown up in the US since September 11, 2001 (assuming you believe the  
government’s account of that episode)?

How can there possibly be 1,000,000 terrorists and America still be in  
one piece?  If there were 1,000,000 terrorists, America would be in  
ruins.  According to the Bush Regime’s line, it only took a handful of  
terrorists to destroy America’s tallest skyscrapers and a section of  
the Pentagon and to send the President of the United States scurrying  
to a hiding place.

One million terrorists could bring America to its knees, and they  
wouldn’t need to fly on airplanes to accomplish this.

What we are witnessing with the one million person “watch list” is  
bureaucracy run amok.  One Million Terrorists makes the danger seem  
overwhelming.  Such overwhelming danger rationalizes the aggressive  
behavior of the bullies and thugs attracted by the power of  
confiscating your toothpaste and bottled water and riffling your  
belongings in your luggage.

Show your ID.
Take off your shoes.

Take off your belt.
Take off your jacket.

Empty your pockets.

Don’t complain about being searched without a warrant or you will miss  
your flight.  You might be arrested, handcuffed, kicked and otherwise  
abused--the fate of many American citizens.

The morons who comprise the US government call the “watch list” one of  
the government’s “most effective tools in the fight against terrorism.”

What an effective tool it is!  It cannot tell the difference between  
Jim Robinson and a Muslim terrorist.

The “watch list” has not apprehended a single terrorist, but thousands  
of American citizens have been inconvenienced and arrested.

The ACLU says that “putting a million names on a watch list is a  
guarantee that the list will do more harm than good by interfering  
with the travel of innocent people and wasting huge amounts of our  
limited security resources on bureaucratic wheel-spinning.”

It is worse than that.  What the “watch list” or “no-fly list” is  
doing is training Americans to submit to warrantless searches, to  
abandon their constitutional rights, and to submit to humiliation by  
thugs and bullies.  A Gestapo is being trained to have no qualms about  
searching and intimidating fellow citizens, using any excuse to delay  
or arrest them.  Americans are being taught to use arbitrary power and  
to submit to arbitrary power.  In the false name of “safety from  
terrorists,” Americans are being made the least safe people on earth.

=======

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the  
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street  
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He  
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts at yahoo.com