[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Maine National Guard bars Green Party leader from fl

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Sat, 3 Nov 2001 13:20:50 -0500
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
Subject:        	FC: Maine National Guard bars Green Party leader from flying
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com



http://www.wartimeliberty.com/article.pl?sid=01/11/03/1813233

   Military Bars Green Party Leader from Flying
   posted by declan on Saturday November 03, @12:36PM
   from the airports-are-now-a-no-speech-zone dept.

        As one of the U.S. Green Party's top officials, Nancy Oden is
   used to controversy. But Oden never expected to be hassled by
   National Guard troops at her hometown airport of Bangor, Maine on
   Thursday and barred from flying out of it. She thinks it's because
   of a Green Party statement she co-authored that ran in the local
   newspaper. The statement calls for universal health care,
   limitations on free trade, and a stop to "U.S. military incursions"
   including the bombing of Afghanistan. (The Green Party has labeled
   the U.S. military action an act of "state terrorism.") Oden's
   unsuccessful attempt to fly to Chicago for a Green Party national
   meeting follows a Philadelphia man's unpleasant experience after
   reading the wrong book at an airport, a California journalist's
   headaches for daring to take photos inside an airport, and the
   arrest of another man in Germany for bringing
   politically-unacceptable reading material to an airport. Also see
   Indymedia coverage of Oden's experience; the transcript of our
   interview with her from her home in Jonesboro, Maine is below.

   ---

   Interview of Nancy Oden by Declan McCullagh
   November 3, 2001

   (Ed. Note: Nancy Oden is a top U.S. Green Party official and a
   member of the party's coordinating committee. An organic farmer,
   peace activist, and all-around firebrand, she lives in Jonesboro,
   Maine.)
     _________________________________________________________________

   "Just a few weeks ago I had a piece in the Bangor paper. It's on
   our website, greenparty.org... I submitted it under my name alone.
   It's a fairly radical piece; that's what I do. I'm a political and
   environmental activist.

   "I walked into the Bangor airport. What I saw was National Guard
   folks all over carrying machine guns... The atmosphere was very
   tense... This was Thursday... I went over to the American Airlines
   ticket counter way down at the end. Nobody else was there, except
   the clerk. I gave him my name. He didn't even ask for photo ID. It
   was almost like they were expecting me. He put it into the
   computer. He stayed on the computer a long time, like 10 minutes.

   "He put an S on the boarding pass, for search. He said, 'You've
   been picked for having your bag searched.' ... I said to him, 'This
   wasn't random, was it?' He said, 'No you were in there to be
   searched, no matter what.' I went over to baggage to put my bags
   through the X-ray and then went into the boarding area.

   "There was this National Guard guy there. He yells over at me, so
   everyone can hear, 'Bring your bags over here.' You know how they
   are when they're all puffed up with themselves. He said, 'Hurry
   up,' so I slowed down some more.

   "I put my bags on the table. The two women employees were standing
   there. [I tried to help them with a stuck zipper.] He grabbed my
   left arm, he started yelling in my face, 'Don't you know what
   happened? Sep. 11, don't you know thousands of people died?' I
   said, 'You can't do that.' He went to grab my arm, and I said,
   'Don't touch me.' I saw an older airline guy shake his head, 'No,'
   and he backed off.

   "That insulted his little manhood. He could not force me to listen
   to his idiot ideas on Sep. 11, whatever it was he wanted to say. So
   he was angry. I hadn't done anything except pull away from him... I
   think he was trying to provoke me. They did the wand thing, they
   were done, and I heard him say real soft, 'Don't let her on the
   plane,' like he was talking to himself.

   "Then I go to get on the plane since we're all done and everything,
   and the American Airlines ticket guy says,' You can't get on the
   plane.' I say, 'Why not?' ... He says, 'Because this guy says you
   didn't cooperate with the search.' ... I said, 'Didn't you see him
   grab my arm?' He said, 'No, your back was to me.'

   "He said, 'Maybe we can get you on the 4:00 plane, it's the last
   one today.' I felt, okay, let's put up with this aggravation now
   and I'll go to Chicago and we'll see what we can do... Then this
   little guard guy, it wasn't enough to stop me, wasn't done with me.
   He said, 'Come with me.' I followed very slowly, I sat down for a
   while. I said I'm carrying these bags; I need a rest... It's called
   passive resistance.

   "He went and found the airport police to come and talk with me. He
   went and got six other National Guard guys and they all approached
   me. Here are these six untrained, ignorant,
   don't-know-how-to-deal-with-the-public, machine-gun-armed young
   guys in their camouflage suits with their military gear hanging off
   of it.

   "I looked up and started laughing, 'Is all this for me, guys? What
   is this about?' There was this big burly guy, he was in front. He
   said, 'You didn't cooperate with the search.' ... I said what he
   did was grabbed my arm, and I backed away... He said he only hit
   your arm. I said even if that's all he did, he's not allowed to do
   that. He can't hit my arm and demand I listen to him.

   "They had the airport policeman tell me, 'You're not flying out of
   this airport today.' ... Of course I had cooperated; why do I care
   if they search my bags? ... What I didn't like was being singled
   out because of my political views. They couldn't arrest me because
   there was no reason for that. They had people who saw there was
   nothing to arrest me for. They wanted to get back at me somehow
   because I was not a subservient female, because I questioned their
   manhood.

   "I went to the American Airlines guy and said, 'Is this just
   today?' He said, 'I don't know.' One clerk said, 'You could drive
   to Boston [five hours away] and see if you can get out of there.'

   "I never made it out of Bangor. I had to turn around and drive 100
   miles back home... The fact that they gave the other airlines my
   name... They told me they did that... That's incredible."

###



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