Booted From Airplane For Wearing Anti-TSA T-shirt 826
Cigarra writes "PhD student Arijit learned the hard way that in Brave New America you can't mock TSA's Security Theater and go on about your business. According to a recollection in RT.com: 'After being vigorously screened and questioned multiple times, Arijit says he was finally given permission, once more, to board his plane. The pilot of the aircraft, however, had had enough of the whole ordeal and asked the Delta supervisor to relay the message that, due to the discomfort the shirt had caused, neither Arijit nor his wife would be allowed to board the aircraft.' Just how much humiliation is the general American public willing to tolerate in the name of 'security'?"
It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
what kind of dipshit is afraid of a t-shirt? obviously this guy is being pushed around because of his name and genetic background. i smell LAWSUIT.
fear itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi folks,
Just as a brief FYI, we're REALLY starting to worry about you Yanks.
Please get your house in order, before things get truly out of control.
If you wait much longer (and we may be talking seconds here), the choice will be gone.
With compassion,
the Rest of the World
KKK to TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:2, Insightful)
Quite a lot (Score:5, Insightful)
>> Just how much humiliation is the general American public willing to tolerate in the name of 'security'?"
Quite a lot apparently, quite a lot.
Re:Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:5, Insightful)
And why should there be consequences to wearing a f***ing t-shirt, I think that is the jist of the discussion.
Re:TSA screens rape victem, further traumatizing h (Score:4, Insightful)
America is the only country that gropes It's passengers. Israel profiles, & has no hijackings.
Re:Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom to wear the shirt, not free from the consequences of wearing the shirt.
By that logic, even the people from North Korea are free, even to mock their beloved ruler...
Re:Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:4, Insightful)
However, those consequences should not have to include unwarranted abuse by the TSA. The TSA is there to keep passengers safe by keeping people with ill intent out, period. Their remit does not (or should not) include harassing people who rub them the wrong way. If they detained him purely because of the shirt, then they should be taken to task for that. And this seems to be the case... why else would the airline captain mention the shirt at all?
Simple...Don't Fly (Score:5, Insightful)
I see no reason to submit to their bullshit. I have not flown in nearly 7 years, and don't see it happening any time soon.
If enough people simply refuse to fly, the airlines will go belly up, or they will lobby to remove the TSA. Though, the private thugs they replace them with probably won't be any better.
Illusions (Score:5, Insightful)
While some people grumble and complain about the process, I've also encountered many people who believe what the TSA is doing is actually protecting them from terrorism.
More to the point, they honestly believe that there are terrorists right around the corner just waiting to blow them up. Not in an abstract but THEM, specifically. You know, it could happen anywhere so it could happen to YOU and it could happen HERE!
Their lives are so boring and mundane they get a thrill over the possibility that something important could happen to them or someone they know. Even if it is something like a terrorist attack, it makes them feel special. As if the town of Bumfuck, Nowhere was chosen special for a target.
It gives them something to gossip about. "What if..." It is essentially one of the same motivations that drives people to buy lottery tickets. They can dream "what if..." and not have to face the dull reality that is their life.
It's really sad.
Re:Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom from government consequences....
However, it appears it was Delta (a Private company) that complained and ultimately decided they did not want him as a customer. By his own account the TSA let him through without any hassle. They were probably busy groping children and old people.
of course he got booted (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm going to say that most people 45+ don't know what ZOMG means. Therefore, seeing something that says "Gonna Kill US All ZOMG" would be a bit unnerving. Even though it is security theater, society has norms that state when people deem to be right and wrong. Wearing a shirt that has that message is wrong because it breaks those societal courtesies. Putting someone's grandma in a state of unease for something that is already not exactly the most fun doesn't sit well in my book.
I applaud the pilot. It is his job to get the plane safely in the air and back to the ground. He probably saw it for what it was, but decided he didn't want one the passengers beating the shit out of this guy mid-air because they felt threatened. Bruce Schneier has pointed out numerous times that the acts against the World Trade Center have empowered the average citizen to stand up and fight if they closely felt threatened. That could have been the case and may have saved the student further grief.
Re:seriously? (Score:2, Insightful)
Damn near everybody that's committed a terrorist offence in the UK has been white (and funded by US republicans, but that's another story). How is racial profiling going to help, there?
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it hard to take anyone seriously that uses the word "retarded" as a synonym of "dumb".
Since I doubt he meant to observe that slashdot can't speak...
I find it hard to take anyone seriously that uses the word "dumb" as a synonym of "stupid", while getting butthurt about "retarded". Clinically correct language: take it or leave it, but you can't have it both ways.
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:fear itself (Score:1, Insightful)
Precisely the sort of attitude that got you in this mess in the first place.
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Poke an animal or a person, with a sharp stick, and see what kind of reaction you get - it won't be a smile and a "Let me do whatever it takes to help you...". Instead it will be similar to what this guy saw, by metaphorically poking the bureaucrats that are the TSA and airline security crowd with an offensive-to-them shirt.
Unless they work for Chick-Fil-A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-jzlWcc0E [youtube.com]
As a doctoral candidate, he should be intelligent enough to hypothesize this sort of reaction, yet when that is exactly what happens, he gets all huffy. No sympathy from me, for being a dumbass and now getting whiny about it. Man up, Arijit, stop being a whiny puss. Should the TSA and airline security be what it is now? IMO, hell no, it is doing no good, it is pointless, security theater. But that doesn't change that this person got pretty much what anyone with a lick of common sense would have guessed would be the sort of reaction one could expect. Newtons Law, and all that...
He was standing up for his rights and mocking a reviled government agency. And they let him past! It was Delta that bounced him and pitched a fit. Yep, Delta screwed him over because some people were uncomfortable. Never flying Delta...
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is you're not allowed to abuse your power to get back at a provocateur if the person hasn't done anything illegal.
Which this is; a gross abuse of power: stopping somebody from traveling, potentially stealing hours if not DAYS of their time stranding them at an airport -> borderline imprisonment, simply because you "didn't like them". You can yell as much as you want about how "they started it" you were still the one that started the metaphorical punching AND you were several sizes larger than they were on the metaphorical scale.
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that's not what happened. TSA cleared him without incident. Delta (as in: the airline) raised a fuss. TSA then cleared him *again* with considerably more hassle, and Delta still wouldn't let him on the plane.
TSA is bad, but they aren't actually the culprits in this story.
Re:TSA screens rape victem, further traumatizing h (Score:5, Insightful)
America is the only country that gropes It's passengers. Israel profiles, & has no hijackings.
Profiling by ethnicity doesn't work; for one thing, it's vulnerable to proxy bomb attacks. I've posted links on this many times before; search for the "Carnival Booth" paper from MIT. I recommend Schneier's site or DuckDuckGo.
El Al's security apparatus (behavioral profiling, interviews, luggage depressurization, and tarmac security, off the top of my head) have been said to be infeasible due to scalability in a country of over 300 million. However, I haven't seen an data to back up this claim, nor have I done the math.
I'm not saying I support the current system; I find it deplorable and refuse to fly, going on six years. I'd like to see a return to sane, pre-2001-09 security procedures. At least, that's what it'd take to get me to voluntarily set foot on a commercial airliner again.
Re:Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:5, Insightful)
How can anyone be naive enough to think that you can wear an anti-TSA T-shirt when you're going through a TSA checkpoint and not have a problem?
I don't know, perhaps they read the First Amendment and thought it actually still applied.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
We have the right in this country to criticize our government, its agencies and agents without fear from legal repercussions from them. So, yes, when government agents harass him simply because he criticized them it is a big deal.
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is, in its own way, pretty crummy.
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the same class of argument as those people who claim rape victims are not actually victims because they wore a short skirt or went home with someone they didn't know.. yeah it is a risk, but it is still the rapist in the wrong.... and telling people they should live in fear and avoid things because bad people will get them does not help, it just shames the behavior and normalizes the bad behavior.
Re:TSA screens rape victem, further traumatizing h (Score:5, Insightful)
El Al's security apparatus (behavioral profiling, interviews, luggage depressurization, and tarmac security, off the top of my head) have been said to be infeasible due to scalability in a country of over 300 million. However, I haven't seen an data to back up this claim, nor have I done the math.
Oh, the math is easy.
Doing it THAT way would require them to actually train (as opposed to simply recognizing the threat color scheme) and pay skilled-worker wages, as opposed to giving a badge to -- well, to what we have now (See? I was nice)
Re:fear itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear rest of the world,
We're trying, but as you can see in the other replies, we've got some real idiots to deal with...
- the (intelligent citizens of the) USA
Re:Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:2, Insightful)
Freedom to wear the shirt, not free from the consequences of wearing the shirt.
Very true, and it's something that's often forgotten by people who cry about their freedom of expression.
But it's not true. Freedom *is* to be free from the consequences--in this context, specifically the government-imposed ones.
Otherwise, we would say everyone has the freedom to wear (or do) whatever they want, but you know, you might just get disappeared by government agents for it as a consequence. I wouldn't call that freedom at all.
What I think you meant, however, is that people often forget that having freedom from government-imposed consequences does not magically make them free from all consequences.
Not the TSA this time (Score:5, Insightful)
...but he had the balls to risk some heat to exercise his rights and bring attention to the stupidity of the TSA.
It was not the TSA that were being stupid here - they passed him through all the security checks the first time without any particular issue. The problem here lies in the general reaction of US society. Yes the guy was being an idiot and living in the US should have known the likely outcome but why is it that nobody could recognise him for the idiot that he was and treat the situation appropriately? Blowing it out of all proportion like this only makes the authorities appear like idiots themselves and encourages more of this stupid behaviour because of all the attention their response gets. You would have thought that with a lesson like the Salem witch trials 300+ years ago US society would have learnt the lesson by now.
Re:Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:2, Insightful)
Two things: You have no constitutional right to free speech on private property; and,the constitution provides limits to governmental powers (specifically the federal government) rather than listing an individuals rights. So Starbucks can kick you out for any reason, and the constitution works differently than you seem to think.
Re:Freedom to wear the shirt. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:TSA screens rape victem, further traumatizing h (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:t-shirt trolling (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not the TSA this time (Score:5, Insightful)
If by lesson, you mean, "we can burn innocent people on trumped up charges and get away with it," then yes, there was a lesson there. However, I don't think it was the lesson you think was learned.
Thing is, this is a very strong example of the difference between public and private in the US. He did something he has every right to do, which is wear an inflammatory statement on a t-shirt. Delta did what they had every right to do: ban him from the aircraft. Arjit was counting on the fact that the government is bound by the First Amendment. What he failed to consider is that Delta Airlines is not, and they didn't feel like dealing with him.
In short, if he was prepared for this result as a part of a larger protest, then I get it. If he just wanted to get from one place to another, he's a moron.
Re:of course he got booted (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, that was a lot of rationalization. Let's examine the serious crimes you say justified the pilot's actions:
1. Being "Unnerving" to people aged 45+
2. Breaking societal courtesies
3. Putting grandma in a state of unease
4. Potentially becoming a victim of assault by another passenger
Yea, I'd say the pilot exercised good judgment. Clearly this guy was a serious threat.
Re:TSA screens rape victem, further traumatizing h (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you want me to prove something I didn't claim? Why didn't you demand proof from the person who actually _did_ claim something?
Re:Bombs and terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
You do have the freedom to express yourself.
Delta pilots also have the freedom to kick you off their planes if you do so in a disruptive way.
Re:Not the TSA (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're expressing concern over the content of someone's t-shirt, you are the one who should be removed. No exceptions. That kind of behavior should never be tolerated.
Let me restate for emphasis: If you are panicking over the content of someone's t-shirt, you are far more dangerous than the t-shirt wearer.
Re:duh - his name (Score:5, Insightful)
So are Eric and Dylan [wikipedia.org], Timothy [wikipedia.org], Ted [wikipedia.org], Jeff [wikipedia.org], and John [wikipedia.org]. Should we bar everyone with those first names from flying?
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't flow Delta in years, and after hearing that they don't believe in the US constitution and free speech I will NEVER fly them again.
Think I should linkt to this in my blog.
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
The 1st amendment is about GOVERNMENT suppression of speech. Corporations can do as they well please.
Considering that the two become more and more indistinguishable from one another as the days roll on, perhaps it's time we reconsider that particular limitation.
Re:of course he got booted (Score:4, Insightful)
Has anyone, ever, been, for example, shot by someone wearing a shirt that said "I'm going to shoot you" on it? Or seen robbers wearing "I'm going to rob you" shirts?
When I was a little kid 30 years ago, I always thought the Halloween costumes of the day were dumb -- Darth Vader DOES NOT HAVE A PICTURE OF HIMSELF ON HIS CHEST. Same thing here.
> I'm going to say that most people 45+ don't know what ZOMG
> means. Therefore, seeing something that says "Gonna Kill US
> All ZOMG" would be a bit unnerving."
Really? People who have lived that long tend to be SOMEWHAT smart. Furthermore, they have DECADES of experience seeing boys and men of all ages in wacky shirts. If a 45 year old saw someone in a shirt that said "blah blah blah Gonna Kill US All blah blah blah" do you REALLY think their first thought would be "Oh my dear sweet white God in heaven, he's announcing his plans to harm me!", or do you think they'd go "Huh? Must be some video game or rock thing I don't know about."
A 45 year old was a teenager when the Dead Kennedys were in their prime. You think they've forgotten subversive shirts?
Most probably wouldn't even try to read the letters. Those that did, wouldn't care.
Re:of course he got booted (Score:4, Insightful)
Even though it is security theater, society has norms that state when people deem to be right and wrong
Is it too much to ask that those norms be at least partially based on reason?
Wearing a shirt that has that message is wrong because it breaks those societal courtesies
In any sane society complaining about a tshirt would be wrong because it breaks social courtesies.
Putting someone's grandma in a state of unease for something that is already not exactly the most fun doesn't sit well in my book.
Persecuting people for the contents of their tshirt puts me at unease. Take the paranoid racist grandma off the flight and leave the nice man with the tshirt alone.
He probably saw it for what it was, but decided he didn't want one the passengers beating the shit out of this guy mid-air because they felt threatened.
Then he should have removed the people he felt were risks of violence and not the victim.
Re:duh - his name (Score:4, Insightful)
sounds like the pilot was being vindictive and trying to push his political views...no fair and bad service.
Re:It's even worse (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not the TSA this time (Score:5, Insightful)
You see this sort of thing on consumer advocacy sites all the time. Some petty beaurocrat from an airline will get their panties in a bunch and you will be denied entry to the airplane. It's not just limited to people that are trolling the TSA.
This seems much less like an example of the TSA acting like brown shirts. This seems to be the all too common case of some b*tch at the gate going on a power trip.
Trivial nonsense can set these people off. You don't have to be confrontational at all.
Re:It's even worse (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
What's safety got to do with it? The guy wasn't a danger.
And I'm pretty certain a pilot can't assault or kill someone and claim it was for safety reasons (he was giving me the evil eye!) and get away with it. So absolute authority my arse, he's answerable if he abuses it and hope this cuntrag gets shitcanned.
A Tiger-repellant rock? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying I support the current system; I find it deplorable and refuse to fly, going on six years.
Before the current policies (groping, irradiating, etc) began: What has been the rate of *successful* terrorist attacks over the previous 10 years? (I'm asking about actually successful attempts. I'm not talking about idiots who almost won a honorary darwin awards by setting their pant on fire, or got zerg-rushed by the rest of the passengers. Or the crazie raving lunatics who got encouraged by a cover agent who had to provide them the whole (fake) material and an actual plan, just so they would act out something [stupid] and get caught because otherwise they would have kept mumbling things and drooling alone)
How does their annual death toll compare against victims of car accidents and victims of cardio-vascular diseases ? (To take the 2 leading causes of death in the developed world). Or even compared to victims struck by lightning (to take another example of dramatic and rare cause of death) ?
My opinion is that such common sense analysis will prove that we aren't gaining much by all this theater appart from inconvenience, and that (no matter how much tragic and traumatic it has been for the victims of 9/11 and their families) the impact of terrorism is a very small and insignificant occasional bump in the statistics.
It's as useful as the simpson's tiger repellant rock.
We would gain much more by a "War on cars!!!!" and "War on burgers!!!!" than a "War on ter'rists!!!" But we still have to wait longer for those.
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
My taxes have shot up
Bullshit: Please cite how your taxes have "shot-up" since Obama took office. Is it because you have a job now, and thus are paying more in taxes than you were while unemployed during the Bush administration that makes you believe your taxes have "shot up?"
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Rule 1, when dealing with people with authority. Treat them with respect.
Funny I thought 'Rule 1' was 'Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech'
Silly me.
There are times when security trumps free speech ("Fire!" in a theater, etc.) but those are few and rightly heavily restricted. Wearing a fucking T-Shirt mocking someone is NOT one of those cases.
Can those in power overreact? Sure, but that doesn't make it right.
Re:It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
So should we get rid of any clothes we have that might offend someone? Bumper stickers? Sikhs will need to stop wearing their headdresses so they don't stand out and possibly make someone uncomfortable on a train or bus or plain. And just forget about burqas or other traditional dress from non-Western cultures (do you think people would be more concerned about a guy wearing lederhosen or a woman wearing a burqa, given no difference in behavior between the two?).
I'm not typically a fan of slippery-slope thinking, but if you pay attention, you'll realize we've already slid well down that slope. Posts like yours demonstrate that quite clearly. It's now okay to be forced to self-censor, and those that don't (and who clearly are not breaking any laws) deserve some or all of the blame. Does it bother you at all that you have to be careful about which shirt you might be wearing when you go on a flight? It bothers me.
And on a side note, it's actually nice to get a view of the TSA where they aren't portrayed as stupid brainless vindictive security drones. Given the overwhelmingly negative portrayal they get here on /., it's a good thing to be reminded that they are people and that some of them, at least, can do their jobs in a reasonably respectful way.
Re:It's even worse (Score:2, Insightful)
"cuntrag "
That statement make many women uncomfortable. Just thought you might want to know.
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it be hypocritical? Just because I claim I have personal free speech rights doesn't mean I have to put up with you shouting obscenities in my house.
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Treat them with respect if you want things to get steadily worse in the long run. Treat them with respect if you don't want things to get much worse in the short run.
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
The retard got what he deserved. He chose to wear a shirt to get attention and didn't like the attention he got as a result. That's up there with thinking it's a great idea of wearing a gay pride shirt and prancing around making an ass of yourself at a country fried rock concert to get attention for your political slant, cause, or moral views and being surprised when you get your ass beat by all the rednecks around you. Save that kind of shit for the appropriate venue, like your blog, with your like minded friends, or gay pride parades, places where you're not on enemy soil surrounded by the enemy itself. If you're determined to go to where the enemy lives, there is safety in numbers, don't be stupid and do that shit solo or you will get the attention you're looking for and you won't like it.
Clearly anyone who disagrees with the erosion of rights and the ever ballooning tyranny of the government should be treated shabbily.
Re:It's even worse (Score:4, Insightful)
nationality is simply a concept that exists solely on paper and cannot be discerned from just looking at someone.
It is amazing how many people don't recognize this. People who should know better consistently get race and nationality confused. It is particularly ironic when people do it in a rant complaining about racism.
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:4, Insightful)
They are allowed extra powers, for the most part they refrain from using them, but if you are going to make their lives difficult, they will use their power to make yours difficult too.
Yes, I do seem to recall the reason behind empowering police and the justice system being to make life difficult for anyone who sticks their head up. It's time we lifted the burden of preserving public safety from these people; they clearly have enough abuse already!
Respect? Question! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's odd. In the America I grew up, on a military base surrounded by F-4 Phantom jets and armed men ridiculously overqualified to kill you, on the school on that base I was taught to QUESTION AUTHORITY, to HOLD AUTHORITY ACCOUNTABLE, that my father and his colleagues practiced the bloody art of mayehm to KEEP US FREE, not to kowtow to those in authority.
I was taught that we routinely hold elections so we could hold elected officials, referred to as PUBLIC SERVANTS, accountable for their actions. I grew up among armed men in uniform who took me to national monuments and proudly declaimed that We the People were the source of authority, that men in uniform always, always, ALWAYS deferred to a civilian commander in chief.
Reading your post sounds odd to someone raised by the sound of Phantom and Tomcat jets. Respecting authority for authority's sake was something we said the Commies and the Nazis did. :-) Americans were born free and bowed to no one. Give me Liberty or Give Me Death. Don't Tread on Me.
Of course, I'm sorry. Reading your post, I assume you must come from some tragic country like Burma or North Korea where you have to bow and scrape just to get by. Please send our warmest regards and deepest repect to Aung San Suu Kyi, who knows more about what it means to be an American than you ever will.
Hey, wait a minute. Cartman? Eric Cartman?! Is that you Cartman?
Re:Except captains, they have the right (Score:4, Insightful)
Only if the dogs can read. Unfortunately for us, Delta personnel can apparently read, and not only read, but can read things which are irrelevant to the safety and operation of the airplane.
Nope, not even close (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are in the military and a general comes, you salute him even if you hate his guts, and you don't give him the middle finger.
Nope. You absolutely don't salute Him. Unless he has personally done something that has earned your respect, you're never saluting him.
You're saluting the uniform. You always, always, always salute the office, not the man. The office, again, is a function of the People of the United States, and a symbol of our highest ideals. That uniform is a walking implementation of the idea that "All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..." That's why it's worthy of a salute, because it carries an Idea, not just Power. That's why the Oath you swear when you pick up a gun is always to the Constitution, never a man.
If all that uniform carries is Power, if the only thing a uniform has to offer is Force, then "it is [your] right, it is [your] duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for [your] future security."
It chills me to my bones to hear an American claim that a government official should be respected simply because he has brute force behind him. Whatever happened to "the Spirit of '76?"
Re:Nope, not even close (Score:5, Insightful)
People like yourself give me hope that one day I will be able to enjoy a visit to a USA that wont keep my prints on file permanently just cause i wasnt born in the country. People should be able to come to the, 'land of the free', 'home of the brave' and marvel at the things accomplished by one of the greatest nations in history. Not feel like they are entering a suspicious surveillance state where as a foreigner they will be measured, details filed permanently away 'just in case', and tracked with advanced dragnet digital surveillance systems looking for key words regardless of who they are, be it 6 year old girl from France, 30 year old man from Japan, or 80 year old woman from Iraq, all because the people are too afraid to accept the reality of life that it includes risks, that bad things happen, bombs go off, people die, and more of their people die of heart disease, cancer and crossing the street than they ever lost in a war anywhere or on any stupid ideological invisible enemy.
Your Intelligent words have made me smile and reminded me why I grew up as a child admiring all the great things done by the USA and wanting to go see those places.
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you sleep through this part of bootcamp? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a moral objection to an order, you are obligated to make your concerns known. However, making your concerns known does not have to happen immediately.
Were you asleep that day? Does "Nuremburg" ring a bell? How about "My Lai?" If you have a moral objection to an order, you PUT YOUR DAMNED WEAPON DOWN! Your official scripted response is "I'm sorry, sir, but that is an unlawful order and I cannot follow it." The military makes it crystal clear that not only do you have a duty to refuse an unlawful order, but you will be prosecuted and punished if you follow that order and commit a crime. You absolutely do not "wait until later." You refuse that order right then, right there, or pay the price later for following it.
Seriously, you can't tell the difference between saluting the office and saluting the man? It does have a touch of subtlety, I grant you. Were you an Aggie by any chance? :-)
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:4, Insightful)
Delta is not the government. However there were multiple government entities represented there and they weren't telling Delta to stand down, they were trying to take this guy in for *more* questioning.
You treat authority with respect...when they deserve it. Simply wearing a T-Shirt is NOT treating them with disrespect.
Going by what we know of the situation, he did nothing to warrant such intensive treatment by multiple (armed) security guards. He said he clearly stated it was mocking the state of security and thus is without doubt free speech. If authority can't deal with being mocked, its rather an American tradition, then well we have bigger problems as a nation than we're talking about here.
Re:KKK to TSA (Score:3, Insightful)
The retard got what he deserved... That's up there with thinking it's a great idea of wearing a gay pride shirt and prancing around making an ass of yourself at a country fried rock concert...
You're equating the TSA and Delta Airlines to a bunch of drunk rednecks.
Someone is being insulted there. I'm just not sure who.