Welcome to America – this is sickening (but sadly these days, par for the course — man, that’s even worse).
“How dare you treat an American officer with disrespect?” he shouted back, indignantly. “Believe me, we have treated you with much more respect than other people. You should go to places like Iran, you’d see a big difference.” The irony is that it is only “countries like Iran” (for example, Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe) that have a visa requirement for journalists. It is unheard of in open societies, and, in spite of now being enforced in the US, is still so obscure that most journalists are not familiar with it. Thirteen foreign journalists were detained and deported from the US last year, 12 of them from LAX.
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Three female officers arrived to do a body search. As they slipped on rubber gloves, I blenched: what were they going to do, and could I resist? They were armed, they claimed to have the law on their side. I was an anonymous foreigner who had committed a felony, and “those were the rules”.
Recently Bush has made the statement that “The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.” But it seems that people are all too willing and comfortable in carrying out grave injustices when encouraged by bureaucracy and institutionalism. And what can anyone do in retaliation?
I think that anyone that does much flying will recognize shades of the reporter’s experience. Flying back from Denver the other day, I was asked by a TSA lady whether I had a video camera. When I replied that I did not, but I had a digital camera she smirked and said that “that’s okay… for now.” This has nothing to do with public safety, but the knowledge of the very real power held kept me from giving her a proper sig heil.
Going to the airport gives one a very real taste of what it’s like to live in a police state. And the airlines wonder why they’re losing money.