According to this article, Green Party coordinating committee member Nancy Oden was prevented from flying to Chigaco, where she was scheduled to speak, because her name is on a list of people who are not allowed to board an aircraft.
WTF?!
Oden speculates that she was targeted because the Green Party “opposes the bombing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan.”
I have two questions:[ul][]Did this really happen? It seems incredible.[]Is there some other reason that this happened? Did she have the misfortune to share a name with a known terrorist?[/ul]Google has failed me.
I’m not surprised. FWIW, I have a clipping lying around from a few years ago detailing how, before the infamous APEC conference in Vancouver, CSIS (Canada’s equivalent of the CIA) was found to have opened files on the Anglican Church, the Raging Grannies, and the New Democratic Party as potential threats.
I read two different articles on this issue. One, which looked like it was based solely on a Green Party press release, sounded much like the article Larry saw. However, I read another article (I believe AP) which gave a similar version, then went on to include interviews with the police force in question (somewhere in Maine, IIRC). Their account was that what triggered their attention was that she booked a one-way ticket over the Internet, which is one of the (non-racial) profiler indications that US security forces are using to trigger heightened scrutiny. Then, when the police approached her, she was said to accuse them immediately of targeting her because of her political beliefs.
So which to believe? As between the two accounts, I would put greater reliance on the reporter who talked to both sides. I’d also wait and see if anything further comes out.
Well, as usual if you actually read both sides of the story you find that there’s a bit more to it than her being denied a flight because she’s a member of the Green Party.
Then, of course, they may be reacting to statements like this, which she gave when asked about eco-terrorism:
So, she’s A)Probably on a watch list for her association with eco-terrorism and her PUBLIC statements in support of it. So she got a bit more scrutiny, and threw a fit. So they punted her. GOOD FOR THEM.
How about that? An example of airline security that actually worked!
It is probably also important to recognize just what is meant by “green party.”
For the record, the organization Nancy Oden belongs to is not the same green party as Ralph Nader ran with. Ralph Nader ran with the Green Party of the United States, which has issued a statement on the topic. Nancy Oden is involved in the smaller Green Party USA.