GREEN PARTY "TERRORIST" NOT ALLOWED TO FLY
By Frederick Sweet, Intervention Magazine January 12, 2004
Art dealer Doug Stuber, who ran Ralph Nader's Green Party presidential
campaign in North Carolina in 2000, was pulled out of an airline
boarding line and grounded this past holiday season. He was about to
make an important trip to Prague to gather artists for Henry James Art
in Raleigh, N.C., when he was told (with ticket in hand) that he was not
allowed to fly out that day.
When he asked why not, he was told at Raleigh-Durham airport that
because of the sniper attacks, no Greens were allowed to fly overseas on
that day. The next morning he returned, and instead of paying $670 round
trip, was forced into a $2,600 "same day" air fare. But it's what
happened to Stuber during the next 24 hours that is even more
disturbing.
Stuber arrived at the airport at 6 a.m. and his first flight wasn't due
out until nearly six hours later. He had plenty of time. At exactly
10:52 in the morning, just before boarding was to begin, he was
approached by police officer Stanley (the same policeman who ushered him
out of the airport the day before), who said that he "wanted to talk" to
him. Stuber went with the police officer, but reminded him that no one
had said he couldn't fly, and that his flight was about to leave.
Officer Stanley took Stuber into a room and questioned him for an hour.
Around noon, Stanley had introduced him to two Secret Service agents.
The agents took full eye-open pictures of Stuber with a digital camera.
Then they asked him details about his family, where he lived, who he
ever knew, what the Greens are up to, and other questions.
At one point during his interrogation, Stuber asked if they really
believed the Greens were equal to al Qaeda. Then they showed him a
Justice Department document that actually shows the Greens as likely
terrorists just as likely as al Qaeda members. Stuber was released just
before 1 PM, so he still had time to catch the later flight.
The agents walked Stuber to the Delta counter and asked that he be given
tickets for the flight so that he could make his connections. The
airline official promptly printed tickets, which relieved Stuber, who
assumed that the Secret Service hadn't stopped him from flying. Wrong!
By the time Stuber was about to board, officer Stanley once again
ushered him out the door and told him: "Just go to Greensboro, where
they don't know you, and be totally quiet about politics, and you can
make it to Europe that way."
In Greensboro, after Stuber showed his passport he was told that he
could not fly overseas or domestically. Undeterred, he next traveled an
hour-and-a-half to Charlotte. In Charlotte, the same thing happened.
Then Stuber drove three hours to his home after 43 hours of trying to
catch a flight.
Stuber said he could only conclude that the Greens, whose values include
nonviolence, social justice, etc., are now labeled terrorists by the
Ashcroft-led Justice Department.
Questions about how one gets on a no-fly list creates questions about
how to get off it. This is a classic Catch-22 situation. The
Transportation Security Agency says it compiles the list from names
provided by other agencies, but it has no procedure for correcting a
problem. Aggrieved parties would have to go to the agency that first
reported their names. But for security reasons, the TSA won't disclose
which agency put someone on the no-fly list.
