war times / "freedom" of speech

[claudia westermann]

http://www.war-times.org/


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http://www.aclunc.org/911/030422-statement-nofly.pdf

Statement by Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams
Tuesday, April 22, 2003

On August 7, 2002, we, Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams, went to San
Francisco airport to fly to the East Coast to visit relatives. We were
astonished to be stopped by airline employees, told we were on an "FBI no
fly-list," and detained briefly by San Francisco police. When we were finally
allowed to fly, our boarding passes were each marked with a red "S" and we
were re-searched at each checkpoint on the way to the plane.
Although we were eventually able to get on our flight, we nonetheless are
very disturbed by this episode. Why did our names turn up on a "no fly list?"
We are long time peace activists, among the publishers of War Times, a
bilingual, nationally circulated, anti-war newspaper. Does someone in some
government agency believe that our opposition to the current war policy
means we are likely to commit terrorist acts?
We think that if the government is going to create secret lists of what it
thinks are "dangerous persons," the criteria for inclusion should be
something everyone can find out about. We want to know how we got on a
secret government list. Is there any way to get off if you find yourself on
such a list? And are we now off the list?
Secret unaccountable government lists don't make us safer; they just create
fear, confusion, and lead to arbitrary discrimination against currently
unpopular people and views. The lists might make some people fear to speak
out if they differ with the government. We enter this legal process hoping to
shed some light where currently there is a fog of secrecy and denial.