Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Lawfare against domestic vigilence: The Jarrar case
Raed Jarrar, the political activist who set up JetBlue for a lawsuit over passenger security, has -- sadly -- won his case to the tune of $240,000. The appalling wire service coverage of the story completely ignores the background, which I described at length when Jarrar filed the case in the summer of 2007. Read my post, compare it to the AFP story, and decide for yourself whether the reporting of this story is anything less than incompetent.
The short version is that Jarrar intentionally pinged the airport security system two days after the exposure of the al Qaeda plot to blow up ten airliners over the north Atlantic. He wore an Arabic script t-shirt with a provocative message of "dissent," and when understandably fearful and jumpy passengers complained the TSA and JetBlue responded by requiring him to wear another shirt, which JetBlue purchased, over the t-shirt. So what did Jarrar establish with his victory? That it is possible for a man who looks like an Arab to scare airline passengers two days after it is revealed that al Qaeda tried to slaughter thousands of them. What does this prove? That the TSA and JetBlue are nefarious? No. This man deliberately scared passengers knowing that even a reasonable response from the TSA and JetBlue would trigger a case for damages. Yet he and the ACLU have also, though the good offices of the gullible press, achieved their objective, which was to "prove" that we use "profiling" in airport security. This was particularly ironic, because the ACLU argued in the case that the TSA should have known that Jarrar was not a threat because he has lived in the United States since 2005 and is married to an American. What is that, if not "profiling"? As I wrote at the time, the ACLU essentially conceded by this arguement that profiling works, and yet still it sought damages.
It fascinates me that the left is against fighting jihadis abroad with military force because it says we can protect ourselves with better security at home, and then it turns around and opposes any domestic security measure that might, even in the most theoretical sense, infringe on the most expansive possible reading of our constitutional rights. It is almost as if the left wants us to lose.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jan 06, 11:11:00 AM:
"It is almost as if the left wants us to lose."
Almost?
By , at
Tue Jan 06, 11:56:00 AM:
What the Left seems utterly unable to realize is that if we lose, they will also lose.
Big time.
By , at
Tue Jan 06, 10:52:00 PM:
Exhibit (A) for defeatist lefties, James Carroll of the Boston Globe, November 6, 2006:
"But what about the moral question? For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?"
What the h### is wrong with these people?
-gpc31
By , at
Tue Jan 06, 11:58:00 PM:
It fascinates me that the left is against fighting jihadis abroad with military force because it says we can protect ourselves with better security at home, and then it turns around and opposes any domestic security measure that might, even in the most theoretical sense, infringe on the most expansive possible reading of our constitutional rights.
I fail to see how a slogan on a T-shirt is a security risk. How does banning a T-shirt "protect" you?
By 
fffffffffff, at
Wed Jan 07, 11:58:00 AM:
OOGA BOOGA BIG SCARY BROWN PEOPLE AND THEIR T-SHIRTS ARE GOING TO DHIMMIFY US ALL!!
Conservatives can be such easily frightened pussies at times.
By , at
Thu Jan 08, 05:41:00 PM:
Being that the flight was from New York to the backwater of San Francisco, the idea that the people complaining about what is up with the Arab dude wearing this strange t-shirt is ludicrous.
Most likely 90% of them were liberals.
Raed however is a known communist. So the ACLU basically took care of its own in order to exploit as best it could the "rights" of their anti-American client.
And the reason he's in America is because he got a greencard by marriage to another anti-American Iranian.
I have family in the diplomatic corp. They came back from abroad and couldn't make a connection because they were profiled. A family of five, mother and four children between the ages of nine and fourteen.
And the only thing air passengers are concerned about in flight is from being silenced by bombs not being Dhimmified.
That is the method that Islamic radicals "speak" on planes these days.
By Bruno, at
Tue Jan 13, 03:32:00 AM:
I've met Raed and he is a very pleasant and respectful person. That JetBlue decided to harass this man, who was in fact wearing a slogan used by Anti-Nazi German protesters during the second world war, is despicable. Kudos and congratulations to him for winning his case.
