Mineta :-(

[enigma]

I love Ann Coulter

enigma

ARAB HIJACKERS NOW ELIGIBLE FOR PRE-BOARDING
Thu Apr 29, 8:01 PM ET Add Op/Ed - Ann Coulter to My Yahoo!


By Ann Coulter

In June 2001, as Mohammed Atta completed his final "to do" list before the 9/11 attacks ("... amend will to ban women from my funeral ... leave extra little Friskies out for Mr. Buttons ... set TiVo (news - web sites) for Streisand on 'Inside the Actors' Studio' ..."), Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta (news - web sites) was conducting a major study on whether airport security was improperly screening passengers based on ethnicity. As Mineta explained: "We must protect the civil rights of airline passengers." Protecting airline passengers from sudden death has never made it onto Mineta's radar screen.

A few months later, after 19 Muslim men hijacked U.S. airplanes and turned them into weapons of mass destruction on American soil, Mineta was a whirlwind of activity. On Sept. 21, as the remains of thousands of Americans lay smoldering at Ground Zero, Mineta fired off a letter to all U.S. airlines forbidding them from implementing the one security measure that would have prevented 9/11: subjecting Middle Eastern passengers to an added degree of pre-flight scrutiny. He sternly reminded the airlines that it was illegal to discriminate against passengers based on their race, color, national or ethnic origin, or religion.


Mineta would have sent the letter even sooner, but he wanted to give the airlines enough time to count the number of their employees and customers who had just been murdered by Arab passengers.

On Sept. 27, 2001, The ACLU sent out a press release titled, "ACLU Applauds Sensible Scope of Bush Airport Security Plan," which narrowly won out over the headline: "Fox Approves Henhouse Security Plan." As a rule of thumb, any security plan approved by the ACLU puts American lives at risk. ACLU Associate Director Barry Steinhardt praised Bush's Transportation Department for showing "an admirable degree of restraint by not suggesting airport security procedures that would deny civil liberties as a condition of air travel." The ACLU had zeroed in on the true meaning of 9/11: Americans needed to be more tolerant of and sensitive toward ethnic minorities.


Flush with praise from the ACLU, Mineta set to work suing airlines for removing passengers perceived to be of Arab, Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian descent, and/or Muslim. If we're going to start shifting money around based on who's rude to whom, my guess is Muslims are going to end up in the red. But that's not how Mineta's Department of Transportation sees it.


Despite Mineta's clearly worded letter immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and another follow-up letter in October, the Department of Transportation found that in the weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks carried out by Middle Eastern men, the airlines were targeting passengers who appeared to be Middle Eastern. To his horror, Mineta discovered that the airlines were using logic and deductive reasoning to safeguard their passengers -- in direct violation of his just-issued guidelines on racial profiling!


The Department of Transportation filed a complaint against United Airlines, claiming United removed passengers from flights in "a few instances" based on their race, color, national origin, religion or ancestry. Mineta gave United no credit for so scrupulously ignoring ethnicity on Sept. 11 that it lost four pilots, 12 flight attendants, and 84 passengers (not including the nine Arab hijackers). In November 2003, United settled the case for $1.5 million.


In another crucial anti-terrorism investigation undertaken by Norman Mineta, the Department of Transportation claimed that between Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 31, 2001, American Airlines -- which lost four pilots, 13 flight attendants and 129 passengers (not including 10 Arab hijackers) on Sept. 11 by ignoring the ethnicity of its passengers -- removed 10 individuals who appeared to be Middle Eastern from American Airline flights as alleged security risks. On March 1, 2004, American Airlines settled the case for $1.5 million.


The Department of Transportation also charged Continental Airlines with discriminating against passengers who appeared to be Arab, Middle Eastern or Muslim after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In April 2004, Continental Airlines settled the complaint for $500,000.

Like many of you, I carefully reviewed the lawsuits against the airlines in order to determine which airlines had engaged in the most egregious discrimination, so I could fly only that airline. But oddly, rather than bragging about the charges, the airlines heatedly denied discriminating against Middle Eastern passengers. What a wasted marketing opportunity! Imagine the great slogans the airlines could use:


"Now Frisking All Arabs -- Twice!"


"More Civil Rights Lawsuits Brought by Arabs Than Any Other Airline!"


"The Friendly Skies -- Unless You're an Arab"


"You Are Now Free to Move About the Cabin -- Not So Fast, Mohammed!"


Worst of all, the Department of Transportation ordered the settlement money to be spent on civil rights programs to train airline staff to stop looking for terrorists, a practice known as digging your own grave and paying for the shovel. Airlines that have been the most vigilant against terrorism are forced by the government into re-education seminars to learn to suppress common sense. Airlines are being forced, at their own expense, to make commercial air travel more dangerous.


If John Kerry (news - web sites) would promise to fire Norman Mineta and start racial profiling at the airports, I would campaign for him. Unfortunately, like George Bush, Kerry doesn't travel commercial air with the little people.

 

[mar]

It's been asked before:

So which do you choose?

Freedom?

Or Security?

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

Re: It's been asked before:

So which do you choose?

Freedom?

Or Security?

I'll take my chances with freedom which also includes the "freedom" to defend ourselves against our enemies.

 

[Jedi_Cheese]

Freedom doesn't include the right to kill others. Freedom doesn't give me the right to have thermonuclear weapons for my own personal arsonal. There are limits to freedom.

This is not to mention that if you wanted true freedom, the airlines would be allowed to discriminate at will.

 

[chawbein]

Re: It's been asked before:

So which do you choose?

Freedom?

Or Security?

In this case Freedom means turning a blind eye to common sense and logic.

As for me, I'll drive. Thank 'ya, Thank 'yaverymuch!

 

[Timebuilder]

Why ask "freedom OR security?"

Why not demand "freedom AND security?"

Freedom for those who subscribe to the values of freedom, not those who hate it.

Those who hate it should be searched three times, not twice.

Those who have stood by and allowed other muslims to grow in power and hatred can be searched too. Just twice for them.

The price of freedom IS eternal vigilance.

 

[RightPedal]

Why ask "freedom OR security?"

Why not demand "freedom AND security?"

Freedom for those who subscribe to the values of freedom, not those who hate it.

Those who hate it should be searched three times, not twice.

Those who have stood by and allowed other muslims to grow in power and hatred can be searched too. Just twice for them.

The price of freedom IS eternal vigilance.
<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><>

Amen Bro!
I couldn't have said it better myself.
The only thing I would add is that if Mineta did what was said, He should be strapped to the next Tomahawk outbound to wherever.

 

[enigma]

Re: It's been asked before:

So which do you choose?

Freedom?

Or Security?

mar, I thought we worked this out last year. But, I'll try and explain myself again. Freedom has limits, it always has had limits and always will. My freedom stops, when its exercise infringes upon another persons freedom, assuming that we are both self limited by long accepted societal rules (laws). Freedom does not mean a total lack of outside control. Americans enjoy an exceptional amount of personal freedom, yet we are constrained by legal code that takes thousands of pages to detail. We are currently controlled by hundreds of thousands of laws. I don't know your definition of freedom, but it would seem that you are looking for total lack of control.
I'm a realist, as such I accept that we the people have a right, no..........an obligation, to collectively limit absolute freedom. Our forefathers devised a system that allows the largest amount of freedoms a society has ever known, but limits freedoms when those freedoms infringe upon others.

From that perspective, as a Texas citizen (and a US citizen), I expect to be able to live my PRIVATE life with out restriction. I define private as the part of my life that does not involve, in any way, other free citizens. But on the other hand, I expect my public life to be controlled by the need to protect others/society at large. In my way of thinking, the muslim women in our country have a perfect right to wear their veil in their own house, but when they enter a security sensitive area (like an airport) their personal freedom takes a back seat to the freedom of others and they have no right to remain concealed. In the same vein, I have no problem with profiling in the security checkline. I disagree with randomly pulling middle eastern men out of their homes just because they are middle eastern, but once they enter a public place, I have no problem with giving them increased scrutiny. If middle aged, bubbas from Texas prove to be a risk to society, I'll support profiling them/myself.

Let me ask you this, if you take a hike in the outdoors and happen upon full grown mamma bear, do you treat her like a potential danger, or do you continue on your merry way and wait for her to charge before you become concerned? For me, if I'm out in the pasture, and I happen upon a diamondback, I don't wait for him to strike to make up my mind; I can tell that he is potentially dangerous just because of the way he looks. Or maybe the coral/king snake scenario would be a better way of explaining it. A king snake looks remarkably similar to a deadly coral snake. When I see a snake with red/black/yellow bands, I don't give him the chance to bite me; I maintain a safe distance and verify that the red bands are seperated from the yellow bands instead of adjacent to those yellow bands. I look at profiling exactly the same way.

Increased scrutiny is only prudent when one animal closely resembles a killer, whether it be a human animal or a reptile.

regards,
enigma

 

[enigma]

.
The only thing I would add is that if Mineta did what was said, He should be strapped to the next Tomahawk outbound to wherever.

You can bank on Ann Coulters word. She is one of the most, if not the most reliable, opinion columnists alive. Because she is so inflammatory towards liberals, she has to be doubly careful to check and recheck any fact she claims, or assertion she makes. Ann Coulter in no Jason Blair.

enigma

 

[Timebuilder]

Great analogy.

Perhaps we should also be asking if certain leopards can change their spots.

 

[mar]

First things first

Enigma--I guess I know that you've addressed the Freedom/Security issue but I'm just not buying it.

It's just that some of your postings seem, ah, a little out of touch with the spirit of your signature.

I appreciate how deeply you've thought about the subject and I respect that.

But it's offensive to me, as an American citizen myself, that true and proper patriots are quoted by people who support the further erosion of various Constitutional tenets all the while chanting, "If we give in they have won."

Well what's it gonna be?

I'd like to know.

Because at this rate we can no longer hold ourselves out to the rest of world as a leader in Democracy! Civil rights! Human rights!

How can we, if we REACT to this threat with a systematic and deliberate diminishment of the very laws that make us American.

And yet we thump our chests and proclaim our strength as we simultaneously become a nation of little worried, neurotic, hand-wringing paranoids!

Give me liberty or give me death. RIGHT?

How do I hike in the woods? You're gonna love this. First of all, I don't carry a gun. Second, I never go alone. Third, someone at home always knows my intention and I don't deviate from the plan. I never assume the woods belong only to me and my friends. And momma bear always knows where I am even if I'm not aware of her. She can smell me and hear me. But I accept the risk that one day I may inadvertantly come between her and her kill--or worse--her cubs.

I accept the risk because I'd rather live my life with hikes in the woods than at home, in bed, with the lights on and a gun under my pillow waiting for the boogeyman.

It's a question of philosophy.

The American people have already proven to me they're not serious about security. We value *convenience* too much.

If we were serious about security I would say go ahead with profiling because I agree it's the most effective technique.

But if the one's doing the profiling happen to be hastily assembled by an organization conceived out of the administration's desire to put a pacifier in the public's mouth, well then, please don't give me the old song and dance about freedom having it's limits.

I'll take my America with every right accorded me by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights thank you very much. Either that, or martial law. In which case I'll take the bullet between my eyes.

 

[Timebuilder]

How can we, if we REACT to this threat with a systematic and deliberate diminishment of the very laws that make us American.

I don't think that statement characterizes the current environment, not one bit.

The constitution charges our government with the responsibility to protect the citizens of the united states. How we go about that is important, and the level of effectiveness of that protection is indeed an important value.

We balance security and freedom because we do not, at least at this point, live under martial law. We, as a society, find the idea of direct profiling to be offensive, and the Bush white house knew this just as well as anyone did. We are not prepared to take an "El Al" approach to airline security, so we have opted for a level of security that addresses the fears of Americans, since fear is the intent of the terrorists. In a way, the "hastily assembled" group is a cure for the effect of terrorism in the minds of the public, that effect being fear, and the cure being visible security at the airport.

Of course, in addition to the visible security we have the invisible monitoring, investigating, and indicting being carried out by the larger forces of our government. We also realize that in order to guarantee security, we have to be 100% on our game, and the terrorists only have to be on their game once in a great while. It's a challenge in a free and open society, but that's the mandate.

And yet we thump our chests and proclaim our strength as we simultaneously become a nation of little worried, neurotic, hand-wringing paranoids!

I hope that isn't a personal observation, Mar. As for me, I know of NO ONE who fits that description.

I guess you have to believe in the inherent superiority of good over evil to remain positive.

I do, and I am.

 

[enigma]

Re: First things first

If we were serious about security I would say go ahead with profiling because I agree it's the most effective technique.

I am serious about it, and you're correct, profiling is a most effective technique.

But if the one's doing the profiling happen to be hastily assembled by an organization conceived out of the administration's desire to put a pacifier in the public's mouth, well then, please don't give me the old song and dance about freedom having it's limits.

Freedom will always have it's limits, no matter what the administrations desire. You, nor I, will never be free to harm someone else. In this case, this moderate/liberal administration is following your wishes. The article I posted proves that to be a fact.

I'll take my America with every right accorded me by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights thank you very much. Either that, or martial law. In which case I'll take the bullet between my eyes.

mar, I just went to the Cornell U website and reviewed the Constitution and all 26 amendments. I don't see any rights there that are compromised by law enforcement profiling. Profiling to identify risks is not objectionable to me, and I don't believe that profiling infringes upon ones rights unless one is held/arrested/constrained in some manner only because he fits the profile of a criminal. Profiling may not be fair, but I don't remember ever seeing a written guarantee that life was going to be fair.

Ultimately, our form of government was intended to limit the power of governments. Sadly, the intent of the founders has been subverted in the last 140 odd years, leaving us with a nation in which the Constitution is used more to constrain people than it is used to constrain government.

As you read that, you started to think that you had me, and you would have me if we still had a limited government. But we don't, and my stand on profiling is a pragmatic response to the situation we face today. Today, the situation is simple; our government doesn't allow us to provide our own security.

Maybe we could compromise. Would you allow me, and every other citizen of these United States, to pack a deadly weapon with which to provice our own security if I agreed to stop profiling?

regards,
enigma

 

[mar]

"this moderate/liberal administration"

WHAT?

COME AGAIN?

You're coming in broken and unreadable. I thought you said this administration is moderate and liberal.

Are you living in the same America I'm living in?



Wow. Lots to respond to. But let's narrow it down ok?

Profiling: You claim the practice doesn't compromise anyone's rights. I would submit it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment which states:

<<The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.>>

So what's my point? Either declare martial law and suspend all Constitutional rights and enforce profiling *or* dammit follow the letter of the law and get a friggin' search warrant.

You cannot (legally) have your cake and eat it too.

We're either free (we agree: constrained by Constitutional law).

Or we're hostage (to the whim and fancy of a government insubordinate to established law).

 

[A Squared]

Incidentally, last time I went hiking with mar, we did see a bear. mar was not armed, neither was I. we just stood quietly as it walked off a brushy slope and across a flat area of glacial runoff near us. he took pictures (mar I mean, I'm pretty sure the bear didin't have a camera)

 

[enigma]

Incidentally, last time I went hiking with mar, we did see a bear. mar was not armed, neither was I. we just stood quietly as it walked off a brushy slope and across a flat area of glacial runoff near us. he took pictures (mar I mean, I'm pretty sure the bear didin't have a camera)

Glad to hear that Alaskan bears are civilized. The last time I happened across a rattler, I almost crapped my pants. There I was, about to open the barn door, when I heard a thump and a loud buzz. I looked down at my feet and saw a diamondback coiled up into the size of a medium pizza pan. I was too close to him to just stop and let him have the right of way; I suppose we scared each other because he was so close that had he seen me coming, he'd have already struck. So I chopped his head off with the garden tool in my hand. I'm sure glad that I happened to be holding those clippers, if I hadn't have been able to get him, he'd have bitten me when I fell down on top of him due to the heart attack I was about to have.

Seriously, glad to hear that the bear didn't eat you. Does Avbug know about that wimpy bear?


enigma

 

[enigma]

Re: "this moderate/liberal administratio

WHAT?

COME AGAIN?

You're coming in broken and unreadable. I thought you said this administration is moderate and liberal.

Are you living in the same America I'm living in?

You read correctly. What has the Bush administration done that was/is conservative? President Bush has increased government, increase the education bureacracy, is trying to forgive ILLEGAL aliens, supported the liberal versus a conservative in the recent PA senatorial primary, supports Israeli concessions in the middle east, supports unrestricted trade with communist China, etc. Believe me, true social and economic conservatives will be holding their noses when they vote for President Bush. I don't dislike the man, In fact I have a great deal of respect for his leadership in response to the terrorist attackes, but he isn't a conservative.

How about this, you tell me what he has accomplished/proposed that makes you think he is not liberal to moderate.

Wow. Lots to respond to. But let's narrow it down ok?

Profiling: You claim the practice doesn't compromise anyone's rights. I would submit it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment which states:

<<The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.>>

So what's my point? Either declare martial law and suspend all Constitutional rights and enforce profiling *or* dammit follow the letter of the law and get a friggin' search warrant.

You cannot (legally) have your cake and eat it too.

We're either free (we agree: constrained by Constitutional law).

Or we're hostage (to the whim and fancy of a government insubordinate to established law).

Maybe your right about the fourth amendment thing, If so, then why do I have to stand in a security/search line at all? Why do I have to piss in a bottle on a random basis? How can the traffic police set up road blocks that stop all traffic, just to check for drunks? What gives the game warden the right to come over and force me to show him my catch? He didn't see me keep a bigmouth that was too small, so why can he just up and search me without cause?

MAR, underneath it all, I believe that we are much closer than outward appearances indicate. The current situation (current for decades, BTW) is not the optimal in either of our opinions. I don't like much about it either. I would rather live by my signature, but that era passed about the time I was born. Reality doesn't allow me to be totally free, so I take a pragmatic approach to the situation. If the govenment has the right to force a mullah into a search, then they also have the right to profile the crowd to find said mullah.

See, I agree with you about getting a search warrent, but our fellow citizens have not agreed for years and years. We live in their world, not in ours.

regards.
enigma

 

[Timebuilder]

<<The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.>>

When you present yourself at an airport for boarding, you are essentially volunteering to be searched. There is no guarantee to air travel, or any kind of travel. Even on a road, courts have found DUI checkpoints to be constitutional, under most circumstances, such as providing that one can turn off and avoid the checkpoint.

It is your option to stay home, take a bus, a train, or even to walk. There is no violation of "rights."

Yes, the Bush administration is a somewhat liberal administration. That's probably why I differ with the president, and differ often. Immigration is just one such difference.

If the Bush administration was indeed the evil that most liberals say, you would see a far more intrusive, and dare I say, effective security plan in place.

And neither you or I would like it very much.

 

[mar]

I'm out

Hey guys. Thanks again. Don't think I'm a flake for bailing out of the discussion.

I'm out of town on the public library's computer and the clock is ticking and people are tapping their feet waiting for me to log off.

Good discussion.

Just one point: Enigma initiated the bear in the woods metaphor so make a point about confronting a real threat.

My response concerning my hikes in the woods was written as a metaphor to address threats in this nation.

It's true that A Squared and I came upon a bear that couldn't be bothered to rip our lungs out. But, again, I acknowledge the risk.

I'd be a fool not to.

 

[A Squared]

I threw out the bit about our bear encounter merely as an aside, not as something that shone meaningful light on the analogy