Imagine a glass cage, inside it; you see two muscled law officers, a man and a woman, each of them carrying on their body and belt guns, hardware, instruments of repression, and telecommunications equipment that will make any law enforcement person envious. The woman officer is body searching a 3-years old girl. She is asking the child to standstill, raise your hands, and face the luggage that is pouring out of the bully of the x-ray machine in this security checkpoint at National Airport, in Washington DC.
US citizens should really feel safe and secure because our government has invested, over the past 6 years, millions of dollars of our tax-money, to build the so-called the "Transportation Safety Administration" (TSA) with lucrative investments in training, equipment, communications, devices, and personnel to be used to body search 3-years old children.
This is a true story, it happened on Sunday December 21, 2008, in Washington's Reagan National Airport, at 11:30 am. The 3-years old child is my beloved granddaughter, Sama Jahmila May AlBanna-Levy. This child is an American born citizen, of American born parents. She has lived all her long 3-years on earth in Takoma Park, MD, played in local playgrounds, with local children, and attended a local day care.
In fact the true story is even worse, the whole family of four adults, two are above sixty years old, my wife Linah and I, are naturalized US citizens, and two young people, my daughter, Badia (34 years old), the mother of Sama, and my son, Badr (26 years old), both young people are born American citizens. We were travelling to the US Virgin Island, to take a long awaited family vacation. In fact, we were all subject to this 'thorough' body search and detailed searching of our luggage.
The ordeal started on Saturday December 20, 2008 with us rushing at 5:00 am to Dallas Airport to catch the US-Airways flight to USVI. We were more than 2 hours early we checked-in, passed security checks, and arrived at the gate long-enough to have breakfast while waiting to board. Our flight was cancel due to equipment failure. We then waited for 9 hours more for US Airways to re-route the five of us. They could only find seats on Delta Airlines flights originating in National Airport, laying over at Atlanta, GA and connecting to Delta flight heading to St. Thomas, USVI. We had to return home Saturday after about 15 hours ordeal and wait till Sunday morning to return to National Airport.
At the Delta Airlines check-in counter, the family survived the long waiting lines and the luggage scanning process, our spirits lifted as the prospects of actually having a vacation increased. We proceeded to the security TSA checkpoint before entering the departure gate area. The TSA officer informed the members of the family, one by one, that TSA selected us for the "special security check", to which a "random sub set of passengers" are subjected to, which involves a more detailed body search and carry-on luggage check than what other passengers have to endure. We asked on what basis where we selected; the officer explained that our boarding passes had the "S" marking printed on it. The implication is that the Delta Airlines passenger processing system had selected us, supposedly randomly, and marked our boarding passes with the notorious "S".
Well, let us analyze this a bit further. The Delta Airlines system has an algorithm that decides who gets the 'royal' treatment and prints and "S" on their boarding passes. The TSA must have added this algorithm must, or at least the algorithm, the TSA approved it, since they accept its designations. On what basis does this algorithm work? I imagine that it will have a number of business rules and designation lists that it uses to reach the conclusion this passenger is "S", clear, cannot board, etc. Either the lists could be a list of specific names, particularly last names, or certain syntax that allows the business rules to decide that such and such passenger deserves an "S". In our case, the algorithm seems to have selected us based on our last name, AlBanna, which is the only common thing to all five of us. Neither age, nor affiliation, nor previous activities, nor birthplace, nor citizenship, nor profession can be a common feature to select for all five of us. The algorithm does not seem to distinguish between a 3-years old girl from a 63 years old man.
AlBanna is an Arab name. Never mind the protection of the US Constitution or Citizenship in good standing. If a person is an Arab, or of an Arab descent, then one is a suspect by virtue of his/hers birth. This is racial profiling.
Does Congress care when it allocates our tax money for these purposes?
Does Congress ask questions about results or process, or rules, or performance?
Does any elected official really care, how in the name of the security of the people of United States, basic human rights are being trampled on?
I will not ask the Bush government about this infraction of civil liberties. One only has to compare this incident to the now well known record of 'accomplishments' in torture, abridgement of the writ of habeas corpus, rendition, Abu Gherab, Guantanamo, illegal wire-tapping, illegal invasion of Iraq, and, God, the list of infractions against our own Constitution is too long, horrific, and shameful.
The people of the United State will need to review, reflect, understand, and explain, over the next century, what this whole experience means for our democracy, for the future of the republic, for its impact on the image and the moral standing of the US in the world.
