"The Hill", A Washington, DC newspaper that covers Capitol Hill, ran a story November 14 about the experiences members of Congress are having while they travel -- it's interesting reading for their encounters with a lack of common sense at security and, in one case which I'll excerpt below, what California Rep. Darrell Issa believes was racial profiling which kept him grounded at Dulles while he was on a diplomatic mission to Saudia Arabia at the request of the President.
The story is at:
http://www.hillnews.com/111401/airport.shtm
and the excerpt from the story is:
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Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has also experienced travel frustration. In early October, he was sent by the Bush administration to the Middle East with Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) on a mission to convince the Saudi royal family to take a more active role in the war.
Arriving at Dulles Airport an hour and five minutes prior to takeoff, Issa, who has Arab roots, stood on line at the Air France ticket counter to obtain a boarding pass. He was wearing a suit and tie, his congressional pin and had in his possession his official congressional ID and passport.
Nevertheless, airline officials took his ticket and left him standing there for about 20 minutes. “They came back and said I wasn’t going that day,” he said, even though Wexler “made every effort to explain to them why I should go.” He added, “To this date, they haven’t explained anything to me.”
Air France officials cited “security purposes” for their refusal to allow Issa to board the plane. But Issa is convinced he was a victim of racial profiling.
Still, he’s uncertain. “There is an assumption possible that since I have an Arabic surname that whatever they punched into the computer caused it. We’ll never know. I believe it was profiling. I believe it was corporate bureaucracy.”
Issa said he is disappointed by what happened to him, but he understands “these are the times we live in.”
The following day he returned to the airport, determined to join Wexler on their Middle Eastern mission. Not taking any chances with Air France, Issa remarked, “I went British Air.”
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