Ted Kennedy & the No-Fly List: a Comedy of Errors
Friday, August 20, 2004
I just wish Michael Moore had video footage of Ted Kennedy being stopped and questioned (not once, but five times) because "T. Kennedy" appeared on the "No-Fly" list (Washington Post).
And I note, at the end of the WP article, that my college friend David Fathi, who I haven't seen in about 20 years, is quoted:
David C. Fathi, who said he is apparently on the no-fly list, obtained such a letter but said it hasn't done him much good. "By the time I show the letter, it is already too late," he said.
Fathi, a U.S. citizen of Iranian ancestry and an ACLU attorney, said he has been stopped seven or eight times at airports, but not on every flight. Once he was led from the counter by armed police and questioned extensively at the airport.
"There really is a no rhyme or reason" to getting delayed, Fathi said. "It illustrates the ridiculousness of the system. If it stops them because they're on the list they should stop them every time. Not every third time."
(He look a bit older in his ACLU picture, but then it's been nearly 20 years.)
Kathryn Cramer at August 20, 2004 03:18 PM
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Civil rights hero/Georgia congressman John Lewis, who was beaten up by racist goons in Alabama back in the sixties, said today that he had been stopped, and sometimes searched on the plane, almost forty times. I don't have the link but it's on the CNN site.
This looks deliberate. If they're going after high-profile Democrats already one can only imagine what will happen after the election.
Posted by: Jon Meltzer at August 20, 2004 09:19 PMWatching this story in the TV media is frustrating - its treated as a light-hearted anomaly in the 'war on terror' - the story should be that there are ''No-Fly Lists' at all!
The freedom to travel is a right for all.
Posted by: redjade at August 22, 2004 07:21 AM