Be careful what you say if you are wearing a scarf

It is unfortunate that American paranoia has come to this point. I recall reading a year or so ago that someone was wearing a t-shirt with Arab letters, and was told to change shirts if he wanted to get on a plane. You can't even wear a t-shirt that has Arab letters saying "I love my Mom" --- TSA will get you.

I don't say this because I am for any particular group, not even my own (American, female, Latina, mother, wife, Texan, academic?). It's that I think that all people should be treated fairly and we should always examine our reactions of fear, particular among policing institutions (like TSA).

Thanks Air Tran for apologizing to the family. PLEASE don't do this again. Same goes for the other airlines.

Airline Apologizes For Booting 9 Muslims
Group Plans Discrimination Complaint

Kashif Irfan with his sons Luqman, 4, Sinan, 2, and Murad, 7. Irfan and other family members are attending a religious retreat in Orlando, but were delayed on the way when AirTran kicked them off a flight from Washington.

By Amy Gardner and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 3, 2009; Page A01

A U.S. airline apologized yesterday to nine Muslim American passengers from the Washington area who were removed from a flight out of Reagan National Airport, but a Muslim civil rights group said it intends to press a discrimination complaint against the airline for its treatment of the passengers.

"It is incumbent on any airline to ensure that members of the traveling public are not singled out or mistreated based on their perceived race, religion or national origin. We believe this disturbing incident would never have occurred had the Muslim passengers removed from the plane not been perceived by other travelers and airline personnel as members of the Islamic faith," said the complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group...more

Flying While Muslim

Doesn't matter that the passengers were exonerated.  What an embarrassing incident for them to be taken off of a plane.  Even though an Anglo (white) guy in LA killed all his relatives on Christmas Eve, most mass murderers are NOT people of color.... (people of color can be Black, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Asian, South Asian etc) ---  being Muslim is enough to make people paranoid.

Very very  few Muslims subscribe to terrorism.  Many Americans subscribe to violence.  What does that tell you?

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9 Muslim passengers kicked off flight after remark
Associated Press/LA Times
7:48 AM PST, January 2, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Nine Muslim passengers were kicked off a flight from Washington, D.C., to Florida after other passengers reported hearing a suspicious remark about airplane security.

AirTran Airways spokesman Tad Hutcheson called the incident on the New Year's Day flight from Reagan National Airport to Orlando, Fla., a misunderstanding, but defended the company's response. He said the airline followed federal rules and did nothing wrong.

One of the Muslim passengers, Kashif Irfan, told The Washington Post the confusion began when his brother was talking about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

"My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security," Irfan said. "The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window."'

Irfan told the newspaper he thought he and the others were profiled because of their appearance. The men had beards and the women wore headscarves, traditional Muslim attire.

Irfan, 34, is an anesthesiologist and his brother is a lawyer. Both live in Alexandria, Va., with their families, and were born in Detroit. They were traveling with their wives, Irfan's sister-in-law and Irfan's three sons, ages 7, 4 and 2. A family friend also was traveling with the group to a religious retreat in Florida.

Federal officials ordered the rest of the passengers from the plane and re-screened them before allowing the flight to depart.

The family was upset that AirTran didn't allow the Muslim passengers to book another flight. They eventually made it to their destination on a US Airways flight.

"The FBI agents actually cleared our names," Inayet Sahin, one of the family members kicked off the flight, told CNN. "They went on our behalf and spoke to the airlines and said, 'There is no suspicious activity here. They are clear. Please let them get on a flight so they can go on their vacation,' and they still refused..."more

The List

link to photo

Surely I have written about this before. It's about flying while named Jose and Maria. Those are my parent's first names. They are in their mid eighties. Every time they fly they are searched. Why? Because their names are Jose and Maria. As Juan Fernando Gomez writes in his article in today's WaPo, too bad for any kid named Juan (or Jose and Maria). Think twice before you name your newborn.

Somebody out there, who the TSA is afraid of, has the same name as my parents. Every time their wheelchairs are pushed through security, someone says "stop!."

Of course, this isn't as bad as what Gomez experiences. The first time this happened to them, four years ago, the porter who was helping with their baggage had a quiet talk with the airline clerk at the check in counter. I called Continental and they assured me it wouldn't happen again. They were wrong.

Luckily, when we flew my Dad to New York for the opening of the 2007 Yankees season, the guy who searched him was sympathetic. With an apologetic smile, he gently searched my 84 year old father.

Let's hope Obama gets some sense back into our Department of Homeland Security. He needs to have a talk with the head of the TSA.

My Dad fought in the Pacific Theater in WWII. He was part of the invasion of Luzon. He even took his kids to see the Alamo. That's pretty American for a guy born in Mexico. He doesn't deserve to be on anybody's list of questionable travelers. Neither does Juan Fernando Gomez.

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MISSED CONNECTIONS
Why Can't I Get Off This List?
Washington Post
By Juan Fernando Gómez
Sunday, December 28, 2008; Page B03

I call it the little room. In most cases it's actually not that small, but my claustrophobia seems to kick in as soon as the immigration officer separates me from the other passengers on my flight and escorts me through a door into my own private travel hell.

As you sit in crowded airports waiting for your long-delayed flights, cursing yourself for traveling over the holidays, remember: It could be worse. You could be me. My ordeal begins before the plane touches down in the United States, some time between the moment when the flight attendant begins handing out blank immigration and customs forms and when I hear the wheels disengaging in the belly of the plane. Will I sail through immigration and customs, I wonder, or will this be the time that they get me? Might I even be whisked off to Guantanamo?

The crazy thing is that I have done nothing wrong. I am a U.S. citizen and have no criminal record. I pay my taxes (well, except for those few years when, right out of grad school, I was convinced that taxes did not apply to me). I don't litter. The problem is that I happen to share a name with at least one shady character on the Terrorist Screening Center's watch list. At least, that's the list that I believe I am on, although no official will tell me for sure.



My name is common in Latin America, the Spanish equivalent of John Smith. It also seems to be particularly popular among law-breakers. I once sneaked a peek at an immigration officer's computer and saw an entire screen full of my doppelgangers. Who knows how many of them were bad guys and how many were law-abiding saps like me?

It doesn't help that my travel habits are similar to those of people who actually belong on a watch list. I grew up in Medellín, Colombia, during the height of the Pablo Escobar drug wars and have worked for the better part of the past decade in some of the most dangerous places in the world. In countries such as Afghanistan and Colombia, I help farmers find legal, profitable and sustainable alternatives to growing coca and poppies, the raw material for cocaine and heroin. So I guess it's understandable that my passport -- packed with added pages and stamps marking my entry into and exit from countries such as Cambodia, Bolivia and Haiti -- raises eyebrows.

It seems to me, though, that airport security should know enough to tell me from the terrorists. I'm not easily offended, but being treated like a dangerous criminal every time I enter the country is getting a little old...more


Juan Fernando Gómez is a director in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region for Chemonics, a Washington-based international development consulting firm.

From the ACLU Regarding DHS and Travel

...recently, the TSA expressed interest in having every traveler wear an "electro-muscular disruption" bracelet that airline personnel or marshals could use to shock passengers into submission. -ACLU web page

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Tell Congress: Rein in DHS Travel Abuses
Planning a vacation? Thinking about traveling outside the country?

If you travel outside the United States, you can kiss your right to privacy, and perhaps your laptop, digital camera and cell phone, goodbye.

With no suspicion and no explanation, the U.S. government can seize your laptop, cell phone, or PDA as you enter the United States and download all your private information -- including your personal and business documents, emails, phone calls, and web history.

And what happens if you refuse to let the agents download your personal photos? Or if you have encrypted your private information? Then Border Patrol -- which is now an agency of the Department of Homeland Security -- can simply copy your entire hard drive or even take your device and hang on to it indefinitely.

Tell Congress: it’s time to rein in travel abuses by the Department of Homeland Security.

Unfortunately, seizing laptops and cameras at the border isn’t the only travel security measure that infringes on our civil liberties.

Just last month, the U.S. government's "terrorist watch list" surpassed 1,000,000 names and is growing by over 20,000 names per month. The watch list includes the names of prominent people, like Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), plus hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans many of them with common names like Robert Johnson and James Robinson. Your name might be on the list. But there's no way to know for sure until you are delayed or even detained for hours in a back room. If you discover your name is on the list, it's nearly impossible to get off. It actually took an Act of Congress to get Nelson Mandela off the list. No joke. An Act of Congress.

These abuses have something in common: They make all of us into suspects, with no rule of law and no accountability.

Tell Congress: it’s time to rein in travel abuses by the Department of Homeland Security.

It’s hard to know what surveillance-state bureaucrats will come up with next. For instance, many airports are using scanners that are so invasive that they are like a virtual strip search! See-through body scanning machines are capable of showing an image of a passenger's naked body -- an example can be seen on the right. Security measures like this are extremely intrusive -- and should only be used when there is good cause to suspect that an individual is a security risk.

And recently, the TSA expressed interest in having every traveler wear an "electro-muscular disruption" bracelet that airline personnel or marshals could use to shock passengers into submission. Unless something is done, this plan may not be as far-fetched as one would think.

Traveling shouldn’t mean checking your rights when you’re checking your luggage. It’s time for some sanity when it comes to security.

aclu.org

"This is the Border and You Have No Rights"

from a comment made by a ICE officer



from Immigration Prof Blog:

Travel Advisory Related to Racial Profiling

N. Cal. residents report excessive searches, questioning at airports when returning to the United States
(San Francisco, Oct. 16) – Responding to growing complaints of harassment at U.S. airports, the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus is issuing advice for U.S. citizens and immigrants repeatedly searched and questioned when returning to the United States. The new multi-lingual advisories will be distributed at cultural centers, places of worship, and other community institutions and are available at the group’s website, www.asianlawcaucus.org.

Since January, the Asian Law Caucus has received regular complaints from Muslim, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern individuals – including U.S. citizens – who say they are singled out by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials each time they fly back to the country. Customs officials question travelers, sometimes for several hours, about their families, travels, religious practices, and political beliefs. In addition, agents examine reading material and other highly personal items travelers are carrying, including books, notes, cell phone directories, and files on laptop computers. When individuals complain, they have been told, “This is the border, and you have no rights.”
Complaints received by the Asian Law Caucus include the following:

* A Santa Clara resident and high-tech marketing rep originally from Sudan was detained for five hours at San Francisco International Airport and quizzed about the books he was carrying, his volunteer activities at the mosque, his travels, and other issues. On three separate return trips, Customs agents have searched his laptop computer; once, they questioned him about articles he had read online. Despite using a government procedure set up for individuals mistakenly flagged on watchlists, he has seen no improvement in his situation and fears the same treatment each time he returns home.

* A U.S. citizen who teaches ethnic studies at a local college and writes for national magazines was questioned extensively about his trip to Lebanon. Border agents at San Francisco International Airport questioned him on the reporter’s notes he took at political demonstrations, even asking him about scrawlings on “post-it” notes in his luggage. Agents removed his laptop computer to another room for 45 minutes and told him they were downloading all the files from his computer. When he protested his treatment, he was told, “This is the border, and you have no rights.”

* In the last two years, a San Jose imam who is a U.S. citizen has been taken aside seven times for questioning and extensive luggage searches when returning to the United States. On one occasion, when returning from a U.S.-government sponsored conference in Europe, agents removed all the business cards he had collected from individuals he met at the conference, presumably to photocopy them. A leader who promotes interfaith work and civic engagement within his community, he has repeatedly complained to federal officials about his treatment, but with no resolution.

“The government’s intrusive questioning and searches has a chilling effect on free speech, freedom of religion, and political association. No one should have to undergo such an interrogation into their thoughts and lawful activities as a condition for returning home,” said Shirin Sinnar, staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus. “The fact that so many Americans are repeatedly subject to this treatment, not knowing why and unable to clear their names, violates basic notions of fairness and due process.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses a federal Terrorist Screening Database to pre-screen all air travelers seeking entry into the United States, including U.S. citizens. Tens of thousands of people are reportedly flagged as security risks by this secret database, and misidentifications based on similar names are frequent. CBP also employs an “Automated Targeting System” that stores and analyzes travel records in order to assign secret risk scores to millions of U.S. travelers. Recent news reports indicate that the ATS may store such information as one’s race, traveling partners, and reading material, raising privacy and First Amendment concerns.

The Asian Law Caucus advisory provides guidance for travelers on preparing for one’s return, responding to inordinate scrutiny at the airport, and filing complaints after returning. The information is available in English, Urdu, Arabic, Hindi, and Dari. The Asian Law Caucus is a 35-year-old nonprofit organization in San Francisco that advocates for the legal and civil rights of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

* To view the travel advisories, please see “Advice for International Travelers Returning to the United States” at www.asianlawcaucus.org.
* To interview an individual flagged by repeated screening or Asian Law Caucus staff attorney Shirin Sinnar, please call 415-848-7714 or email shirins@asianlawcaucus.org.
* To reprint the advisory in any of the languages available, please call 415-848-7711 or email catL@asianlawcaucus.org.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2007/10/travel-advisory.html