[Seattle-editorial] FI: Green Party Official Grounded and Labeled

[sheri at speakeasy.org]

FI - new category for feature idea :)

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Ingrasci M.D. [mailto:rick at bigmindmedia.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 11:38 PM
To: 'Invitational', 'hnet', 'natcap'
Subject: [Invit] Green Party Official Grounded and Labeled "Terrorist"

From: Charlie Garfield

Anyone who harbors a shadow of a doubt as to the direction in which the Bush administration is taking this country should read the following
article and soberly assess its implications.


===============================

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=278

Green Party Official Grounded and Labeled "Terrorist" in Living Nightmare 
(excerpted from the article 'Blacklist Grounds American Passengers')

By Frederick Sweet, Intervention Magazine January 12, 2004

Writing about his no-fly nightmare in the Fairfield County
Weekly, Art dealer Doug Stuber, who ran Ralph Nader's Green Party 
presidential campaign in North Carolina in 2000, was pulled out of 
an airline boarding line and grounded this past holiday season. He 
was about to make an important trip to Prague to gather artists for 
Henry James Art in Raleigh, N.C., when he was told (with ticket in 
hand) that he was not allowed to fly out that day.

When he asked why not, he was told at Raleigh-Durham airport that 
because of the sniper attacks, no Greens were allowed to fly overseas 
on that day. The next morning he returned, and instead of paying 
$670 round trip, was forced into a $2,600 "same day" air fare. But it's 
what happened to Stuber during the next 24 hours that is even more 
disturbing.

Stuber arrived at the airport at 6 a.m. and his first flight wasn't due 
out until nearly six hours later. He had plenty of time. At exactly 10:52 
in the morning, just before boarding was to begin, he was approached 
by police officer Stanley (the same policeman who ushered him out 
of the airport the day before), who said that he "wanted to talk" to 
him. Stuber went with the police officer, but reminded him that no 
one had said he couldn't fly, and that his flight was about to leave.

Officer Stanley took Stuber into a room and questioned him for an 
hour. Around noon, Stanley had introduced him to two Secret 
Service agents. The agents took full eye-open pictures of Stuber with a 
digital camera. Then they asked him details about his family, where 
he lived, who he ever knew, what the Greens are up to, and other 
questions.

At one point during his interrogation, Stuber asked if they really 
believed the Greens were equal to al Qaeda. Then they showed him a 
Justice Department document that actually shows the Greens as likely 
terrorists just as likely as al Qaeda members. Stuber was released just 
before 1 PM, so he still had time to catch the later flight.

The agents walked Stuber to the Delta counter and asked that he be 
given tickets for the flight so that he could make his connections. The 
airline official promptly printed tickets, which relieved Stuber, who 
assumed that the Secret Service hadn't stopped him from flying. 
Wrong! By the time Stuber was about to board, officer Stanley once 
again ushered him out the door and told him: "Just go to Greensboro, 
where they don't know you, and be totally quiet about politics, and 
you can make it to Europe that way."

In Greensboro, after Stuber showed his passport he was told that he 
could not fly overseas or domestically. Undeterred, he next traveled 
an hour-and-a-half to Charlotte. In Charlotte, the same thing 
happened. Then Stuber drove three hours to his home after 43 hours 
of trying to catch a flight.

Stuber said he could only conclude that the Greens, whose values 
include nonviolence, social justice, etc., are now labeled terrorists by 
the Ashcroft-led Justice Department.

Questions about how one gets on a no-fly list creates questions about 
how to get off it. This is a classic Catch-22 situation. The 
Transportation Security Agency says it compiles the list from names 
provided by other agencies, but it has no procedure for correcting a 
problem. Aggrieved parties would have to go to the agency that first 
reported their names. But for security reasons, the TSA won't disclose 
which agency put someone on the no-fly list.


Frederick Sweet is Professor of Reproductive Biology in Obstetrics and 
Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. 
Louis.

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