As Walter F. Murphy attempts to board an American Airlines flight to attend a conference in Princeton University, he is denied a boarding pass because he’s on a terrorist watchlist. Being a former Marine Corps member and a professor emeritus of Princeton, he’s rather surprised, so he attempts to clarify the situation with the clerk.
“I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: “Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.” I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. “That’ll do it,” the man said. ”
“After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: “I must warn you, they’re going to ransack your luggage.”
Methinks that having a book titled Constitutional Democracy didn’t help that much either. I sometimes think this sort of post does nothing but preach to the choir, but there still are some people for whom they might be useful - those that don’t realize that the U.S. Government has reached the absurd levels of bad libertarian fiction.
Here’s the full story.