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So King Downing, ACLU national coordinator for racial profiling, is at Logan International Airport in Boston, and something about him attracts the attention of airport security. They ask him for his identification and he refuses it. He just refuses it—refuses to cooperate at all. Nothing suspicious about that, is there? They ask him to leave, and he starts walking out of the airport—as if he has no plane to catch. Then they go to arrest him for failing to show identification, and he finally starts cooperating and shows his ID and tickets.
Downing said he was asked for identification while he was making a phone call in October 2003 at Logan. He refused because he did not know the basis for the request, he said and was told to leave. As he tried to depart, he was told he was under arrest for failing to produce identification.
Downing said he subsequently produced a driver’s license and travel documents and was allowed to go; no charges were filed.
Why didn’t Downing start cooperating in the first place? “Because he did not know the basis for the request, he said.” Plus which, I speculate, it’s because it’s his job to make trouble for people who are trying to save lives.
So now of course, the ACLU is suing the airport.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the “behavior pattern recognition” program at Logan where two planes were hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center saying it “effectively condones and encourages” racial and ethnic profiling.
Downing comes up with this whopper:
“I hadn’t done anything wrong and I definitely hadn’t done anything suspicious,” Downing said. “All I was left to suspect was the fact that I was a person of color might have been the motivating factor.”
Sure—there’s nothing suspicious about refusing to cooperate with airport security, refusing to show ID, and leaving the airport and your plane behind when questioned. What a bunch of baloney. He baited airport security. He caused this situation.
The airline states that racial profiling is not part of the equation:
State police insist they focus on travelers’ behavior, including loitering without luggage, wearing heavy clothes on a hot day and watching security methods at the airport.
George N. Naccara, the federal security director at Logan under the Transportation Security Administration, said troopers are trained not to stop people based on race or ethnicity.
I support racial profiling at airports for the purposes of stopping Islamofascists from blowing up airplanes. It’s very unfortunate for Muslims that they haven’t put a stop to the Islamofascists in their midst. It’s unfortunate for the whole world as well, and if it causes Muslims some problems at airport security, they should speak up louder and work harder to rid themselves and the world of these terrorists. The price to them of their unwillingness to do so is inconvenience at airports. The price to non-Muslims —who are much more frequently the targets of terrorists—is much higher. Why should Muslims get a free pass from the difficulties caused by terrorists?
The ACLU is against racial profiling for purposes of airport security, despite the fact that the vast majority of terrorists seeking to kill Americans are Islamofascists. This isn’t new. For years the ACLU has endangered lives in order to pay lip service to a twisted notion of political correctness. From a May 1, 2004 post on this site:
Ann Coulter has the shocking story about how, in the name of political correctness, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta has actually sued airlines for trying to keep us from getting blown up:
In June 2001, as Mohamed Atta completed his final to do list before the 9-11 attacks.. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta 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 Minetas radar screen.
Amazingly, Mineta continues this practice after 9-11 and to this day:
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.
...Despite Minetas 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!
Mineta has caused the same airlines that were targeted by terrorists on 9-11, to pay millions to settle lawsuits.
This is infuriating. The terrorists are counting on this sort of behavior on our part to permit them to get in here and nuke us. Mineta must be made to understand that this kind of brain-dead political correctness is a relic of the past.
Let the ACLU ask airline passengers which they’d rather be: subject to the kinds of procedures used at Logan—or in greater danger of being blown up. I’d be very interested in seeing what Muslims would say in answer to this question. They would impress me greatly by saying that they support all efforts to make our airlines safer, even at the cost of some inconvenience to themselves.
