Category Archives: Civil Liberties

Item One: Henry Jenkins is the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He has a very thoughtful summary of the Star Simpson story, which you may recall was the recent incident in which an MIT student triggered a bomb alert at Logan airport because she turned up wearing a t-shirt with blinking lights and other funny looking stuff. Plus she was playing with a roll of Play-Dough.

Prof. Jenkings also has good things to say about what this teaches us about the difference between dead-tree media and blogs, and also what this tells MIT students about how to dress for the airport.

Item two: Today's Miami Herald reprises the case of Kyla Ebbert, who was told she couldn't fly on Soutwest Airlines because she was wearing a short skirt, and expands it to discuss the online fashion police more generally. These print version of the article has a photo of the offending garments, which are certainly not eyebrow-raising by south Florida standards, and which the article tells us involve more fabric than the outfit Ms. Ebbert is required to wear on her job as a Hooters waitress.

In a separate incident, Southwest's fashion police also required a passenger to change what it called a sexually suggestive T-shirt or risk getting thrown off the plane. Apparently this sort of thing happens with some frequency. Apparently too much skin prevents airplanes from getting sufficient lift to fly or something.

Could the “no-fly rule” have taken on a new meaning?

Or is could it just be irrational, arbitrary, behavior on the part of (some) flight attendants? Consider this from Ms. Ebbert,

What really tops the whole story off is that Ebbert wore the same outfit on the return flight to San Diego later that day. A female flight attendant also took note of it, according to Ebbert.

“I was complimented by the stewardess on my return flight,” she said.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Rev Lennox Yearwood, Jr., who had his leg broken by Capitol Police the last time he tried to get into a congressional hearing had most of the charges against him stemming from that incident dropped, but he still is having a hard time getting into hearings. No one has come forward to explain why.

We shall overcome… harassment and intimidation | Iraq Veterans Against the War

Yesterday I announced that the US Attorney dropped the charges against me of assaulting a police officer (http://www.citizensforethics.com *).

Today, Tuesday Oct 2nd, I was in line for the Blackwater hearing on Capitol Hill at 9:15 in the morning. When I got to the front of the line at 11:30, Capitol Police stopped the line. I stood there for two hours while the same officers who leapt on me three weeks ago outside of the Petraeus hearing, pointed and stared at me. I stood there, humming “we shall overcome.”

Congresswoman Maxine Waters showed up at 1:30 and saw me standing there. She demanded that I be let into the hearing. Cops were swarming the door, and the honorable Congresswoman from California escorted me into the hearing. Once I got in, three cops stood near me, so I would not forget that I was in their territory.

It is just incredible that as a peace activist, a former Chaplain candidate in the Air Force Reserve, and a Minister, I would be treated so disrespectfully in the halls of Congress.

But, this is part of the struggle, and like my brothers and sisters before me, I know that we shall overcome.

* Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who represents me in this case, have been incredible allies, and show true courage in their work to expose corruption and injustice in Washington.

As I understand it, there's still a charge of disturbing the peace outstanding from the earlier incident, but the man is presumed innocent isn't he?

Earlier related posts:

• Violence at the Iraq War Hearing
• Rev. Yearwood Talks About His Arrest

Wayne Slavin, missed his trip to South Africa because the TSA (and hired airport security) acted really badly. (And Delta Airlines wasn't much help.)

The question is, does this mean that the TSA staff are regressing to the mean for people with guns and power treating the powerless (that is, you and me)?

It's not surprising that we are seeing the emergence of occasional airport petty tyrants. The sheer scale of the operation ensures there will be some. When TSA began, however, it was notable for the unusual courtesy with which the staff treated the passengers, especially as compared to their predecessor contract screener. Was that focus on decent interaction just the police equivalent of a credit card teaser rate, or the TSA ready to crack down on its bad apples?

History offers little ground for optimism here.

[Bonus TSA follies posting.]

I'm happy to report that the Chemerinsky affair has come to what appears a happy conclusion. But even at its worst, that kerfuffle might be small potatoes compared to the worst interpretation (which is not the only one possible) of what is recorded in this video of U.Florida police tasering a student:

The video begins at the end of what appears from the excerpt to be the student's mildly confrontational question. But we don't know what went before — for example, did the student hog the mike for 10 minutes, refusing calls to relinquish it?

ABC News reports

University spokesman Steve Orlando said Meyer was asked to leave the microphone after his allotted time was up. Meyer can be seen refusing to walk away and getting upset that the microphone was cut off.

As two officers take Meyer by the arms, Kerry, D-Mass., can be heard saying, “That's all right, let me answer his question.”

Did he go over time a little, or a long time? Does U.Fla have a 10-second rule — go over 11 seconds and it's the pokey?

I'm certain the police will say they tasered the student for resisting arrest, and viewed strictly from the point of police procedure and starting from the rule that even people subject to false arrest are supposed to go quietly that seems plausible from the video. The student isn't going quietly — he's shouting for help and asking what he's done to merit arrest.

Yet, at another level, that defense elevates procedure over substance: Why was this student arrested at all? Dragging people away for asking a question in a public forum at a public university suggests we may be reaching a new low in civic values and freedom.

The Village Voice website asks,

1) Did this actually happen in the United States of America?
2) How is it that 98 percent of the audience sat in silence?
3) Can you believe that Kerry just kept on answering the question as if everything were normal?
4) What would have happened if the Senator stood up and told the cops to stop instead of offering weak protestation?

I think the second question is the key: Why did the audience fail to react?

Did the audience fail to react because this is a known crank who was looking for trouble and was abusive in the (seconds? minutes?) preceding this video, and they felt he had abused the audience as much as Senator Kerry, or did the audience fail to react because we're no longer shocked by people being dragged away if they ask unpleasant questions in public?

Comments — and eyewitness reports — particularly welcome.

Rev. Yearwood talks about his arrest. He certainly has a way of sounding very reasonable. It would be nice to hear the other side, if there is one. Have the Capitol Police (or the Speaker and Majority Leader's Offices to whom I believe they report?) said anything about the incident?