Originally Posted by doober (Post 8218153)

Inspector General - you know, the guy who keeps getting fired from DHS for telling the truth.

Originally Posted by goalie (Post 8217680)

a leo for the tsa but not a fam does exist in the i/g's office. that was goalie-sis up until friday. she got fed up with the b/s and other associated fubars and snafus and was on the verge of burnout so she's now gone into the private sector.

Originally Posted by Superguy (Post 8219118)

Maybe she knew law dawg then?

Originally Posted by Timfid (Post 8217559)

There seems to be another legal issue here besides free speech or discrimination. An airplane ticket is a legal contract. Doesn't the airline have to honor it?

Even if the CocC or some law or government rule says that the airline can deny boarding to passengers who the airline has reason to believe will be some sort of threat, surely a reasonableness test applies. (In fact, Jetblue's CoC specifically says that boarding can be denied to "assengers whose transportation on Carrier is reasonably deemed by Carrier to be inadvisable or inappropriate due to special circumstances..." [emphasis added.]) No matter what catch-all clauses apply, surely a passenger with a valid ticket can't be denied boarding because an airline employee doesn't like the passenger's attitude, or hears the passenger criticize a talk radio host, or sees the passenger carrying a copy of a book by a liberal or a conservative author. Does denying boarding because of a t-shirt slogan fall into this unreasonable category?

Idle thought: What would happen if a vaguely middle-eastern looking man tried to board an airplane wearing a t-shirt reading "God bless America the Greatest Country in the world," printed only in Arabic?

Originally Posted by polonius (Post 8216608)

Right here. But in my view, any old arabic t-shirt will suffice. WESC clothing sells t-shirts with their slogan "We are the Superlative Conspiracy" in about 20 different languages, including arabic. Maybe someone should make an arabic version of "Kip Hawley is an Idiot"?

Originally Posted by xanthuos (Post 8219356)

"We Will Not Be Silent" is a statement attributed to a student-resistance movement in Nazi Germany called The White Rose. It is a statement of purpose, intended to inspire acts of resistance and dissent against a corrupt government that abuses its power, and abandons the rule of law.
All of us who believe in our freedom and that of others, and are against a policy of war, torture and lies, cannot afford to be silent.
-http://thecriticalvoice.org/

Originally Posted by breny (Post 8212372)

ARE YOU JOKING??? What on earth is frightening about that phrase? Actually, what is frightening about Arabic writing? As far as I know, words never blew up anything.

Your ignorance frightens me.

Slippery slope, people, very slippery slope.

Originally Posted by xanthuos (Post 8212549)

Is it just me, or do some of the posts in this topic sound like they were lifted directly from transcripts of speeches, press conferences, and interviews from this current administration?

:td::td::td:

I don't "check" my constitutional rights along with my bag when I enter an airport.

Originally Posted by jetBlueNYFL (Post 8208470)

JetBlueFA is 100% correct. However, we live in a different world today and wearing a shirt that says "we will not be silent" in any language, let alone Arabic is very unsettling to many, many people. This is not discriminating against all people of Arab descent.

The fact is, no one is ignorant. Did we all forget that this country was sleeping on September 10, 2001? The next day, our lives changed forever. We're all (and should be) on high alert.

Originally Posted by 3Cforme (Post 8213381)

Any post that states a Constitutional right followed by 'however' shows a grave misunderstanding of constitutional rights. No one is in any way 'inconvenienced' by a message on somebody's T-shirt. When did I lose my right to free speech and you gain a right to convenience?!

Originally Posted by mkt (Post 8217889)

My old friend google says:

كب هاولي هو أغبياء

Originally Posted by Lonely Flyer (Post 8219365)

If on AA in Dallas he would be upgraded to First Class

If in Tehran he would be upgraded to missing and never seen again.

Originally Posted by polonius (Post 8220863)

I can't imagine anyone in either Dallas or Tehran being bright enough to read arabic.

Originally Posted by jetBlueNYFL (Post 8215717)

This is not a violation of rights, as for WHATEVER reason they saw it as a security risk. Maybe not driectly, but later on once airborne to help prevent a fight from breaking out.