A RIGHT-WING BLOG called “Pajamas Media” published an article on November 24 claiming that Saadiq Long, a Muslim American veteran of the U.S. Air Force, was arrested in Turkey for being an ISIS operative. Written by Patrick Poole, a professional anti-Muslim activist and close associate of Frank Gaffney, the article asserted that Long “finds himself and several family members sitting in a Turkish prison — arrested earlier this month near the Turkey-Syria border as members of an ISIS cell.” Its only claimed sources were anonymous: “U.S. and Turkish officials confirmed Long’s arrest to PJ Media, saying that he was arrested along with eight others operating along the Turkish-Syrian border. So far, no U.S. media outlet has reported on his arrest.”
But the story is entirely false: a fabrication. Neither Long nor his wife or daughter have been arrested on charges that he joined ISIS. He faces no criminal charges of any kind in Turkey.
Instead, he and his family are being detained at the Geri Gonderme Merkezi deportation center in Erzurum, Turkey, evidently because he was placed years ago by the U.S. on its no-fly list. And the U.S. Embassy in Ankara has been working continually with Long’s family to secure his release, and, if he chooses, his return to the U.S.
A press officer with the Bureau of Consular Affairs, who asked to be identified only as “a State Department official,” contradicted the Pajamas Media claim. “We are aware of Mr. Long’s case and are providing consular assistance. At this time, we are not aware that he has been formally charged with a crime,” the official told The Intercept.
The Turkish government would not comment on the record, but a Turkish source with substantial connections to law enforcement agencies in Gaziantep also told The Intercept that Long has not been arrested, but is merely being held for deportation.
Long received substantial media attention in late 2012, when he was told he would not be permitted to board a flight from Qatar, where he lived, to travel to the U.S. to visit his ailing mother. When he arrived at the airport in Doha, he was told by an airlines representative he had been secretly placed on the U.S. government’s no-fly list (The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, then with The Guardian, was the first to report on that story, writing an article about Long’s situation after interviewing him in Doha; Long was then interviewed on Chris Hayes’ MSNBC show, along with his attorney from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR).
Two weeks after that wave of media stories in 2012, the U.S. government issued a waiver from the no-fly list and permitted him to fly to the U.S. But he was once again denied boarding rights 10 weeks later when he attempted to fly from the U.S. back to Qatar, forcing him to take a bus to Mexico in order to get home. His situation became a case study in the injustices of the secret, due process-free no-fly list aimed overwhelmingly at Muslims. The Pajamas Media report trumpeted this angle in its headline:
In mid-November, Long attempted to enter Turkey along with his wife and daughter to explore the possibility of relocating there from Qatar, where Long has lived and worked for many years teaching English. Long had previously been stationed in Turkey as part of his 10-year Air Force service and thus knows the country well. The three of them were detained (presumably because he’s on the U.S. government’s no-fly list and other watchlists), told they would be deported, and were then moved to Turkey’s deportation center, where they have remained ever since.
From the start, U.S. officials repeatedly informed the family members of Long and his wife that they were being detained for deportation, not arrested or charged. On November 24, the day the Pajamas Media report was published, a security official with the U.S. Embassy emailed Long’s brother-in-law to say that the family “is being detained at the deportation center (Geri Gonderme Merkezi) in Erzurum, Turkey.”
Emails obtained by The Intercept between American consulate officials in Ankara and Long’s family members reflect efforts by a consular officer to facilitate the voluntary return of Long and his family from Turkey to the U.S. on commercial flights. On November 30, the consulate official wrote: “We are working with the Turkish government regarding your sister’s and her family’s departure from Turkey. We will contact you when tickets can be purchased.”
On December 2, the U.S. consular official wrote to Long’s brother-in-law: “We spoke to your sister’s husband today and are working with one of his friends to obtain tickets back to the United States for all of them. We hope to have them depart Turkey next week. We received a congressional inquiry today regarding your sister’s situation.” The consular official provided several flight itineraries on United Airlines from which they could choose and wrote, “We are waiting to hear from Mr. Long’s friend this morning to finalize the tickets.”
All of Long’s relatives have also been repeatedly told by Long’s Turkish lawyer, Harun Ozal, and by U.S. Embassy officials in Ankara that Long and his family were simply detained as part of the immigration process. “There are no local charges and they are being detained for immigration violations,” Long’s brother-in-law told The Intercept.
Long’s American attorney, Gadeir Abbas, similarly explained:
Saadiq and his family were detained by Turkey because they are all on the no-fly list, which means all of their names are in the Terrorist Screening Database — a database that the U.S. exports to governments across the world with the hope that doing so will make it as difficult as possible for the hundreds of thousands blacklisted to move about the world. This is what accounts for the family’s detention in Turkey, not the uncorroborated and unprofessionally reported smear that their predicament is somehow ISIS-related.
Notably, when the right-wing site the Daily Caller published its own follow-up report on the Pajamas Media story, it refrained from claiming that Long had been arrested on charges relating to ISIS or even that he had been arrested at all. Rather, it was willing and able only to report: “The Daily Caller was able to confirm that Long, his wife, and their daughter were detained in Turkey.” That’s because Long was not arrested or charged with anything.
It is, of course, possible that Long may be arrested or charged in the future: by Turkey, the U.S., or some other state. But to date, he has not been. The article claiming he has been, resulting in the widespread smearing of Long as having joined an ISIS cell, is completely false.
From the start, there were all sorts of glaring red flags with this Pajamas Media report that warranted great skepticism.
To begin with, it’s irresponsible in the extreme to spread claims that someone has been arrested for joining ISIS without a very substantial basis for believing that’s true. That’s a claim that will be permanently attached to the person’s name. The people who uncritically spread this “report” had nothing approaching a sufficient basis for doing so, and worse, most of them simply repeated the assertion that he was an ISIS operative as though it were verified fact.
But let’s assume that this fabricated report had been accurate. What would it have meant? Even the Pajamas Media story did not claim that Long had been convicted of being an ISIS member. It claimed that he had been charged with that: by the government of Turkey, which notoriously exploits terrorism accusations to imprison people ranging from Vice journalists to critics of the prime minister.
In general, only the most irresponsible people treat unproven government accusations as proof of guilt. That’s the lesson we were all supposed to have learned from the Guantánamo travesty, where large numbers of people were and still are imprisoned with no trial or due process of any kind, and many proved to be completely innocent. In this case, the government alleged to have accused Long of joining ISIS is particularly worthy of skepticism. Who treats unproven terrorism accusations by the Turkish government as gospel?
It is repellent to blithely assume that someone is an ISIS operative because they have been alleged by a government — with no proof or even a trial — to be one. But just review the links provided above of those citing this Pajamas Media story: that’s exactly what they did, including supposed journalists. “Hey CAIR, any comment on your good friend Saadiq Long being caught in an ISIS cell in Turkey?” the Toronto Sun’s right-wing columnist Tarek Fatah crowed. Note that there’s no indication this is merely an unproven charge; his guilt is just assumed. They all owe Saadiq Long and his family an apology.
The reason so many people were eager to mindlessly endorse this ISIS accusation is obvious. For his no-fly list challenge in 2012, Long was represented by CAIR. His story was first reported by The Guardian. And he was featured by a clearly sympathetic Chris Hayes in an MSNBC interview. So this entire episode started by this anonymous Pajamas Media claim became a means of attacking people who have defended Muslim Americans from the relentless assault on their civil liberties, as well as generally trying to discredit claims that Muslims are the victims of civil liberties abuses. Smearing Long as an ISIS operative was just a tool to accomplish that end. He, his family, and their reputations were just collateral damage.
Beyond all that, even if Long had, after 2012, broken some law that justified his current detention or arrest, it would not remotely undermine or even affect the argument made three years ago about his situation. No matter who ends up being placed on it, the no-fly list is a travesty of justice because it entails citizens being denied rights in secret, by unknown authorities, without any evidence or explanation, and lacking any transparency or real recourse to challenge it (just as due process-free imprisonment at Guantánamo is a travesty even if some of the people held there are actually guilty).
In fact, from the start, Long’s primary grievance was that the U.S. government had punished him but never charged him with anything, thus depriving him of the right to confront the evidence and challenge the accusations. As he told The Guardian back in 2012: “I don’t understand how the government can take away my right to travel without even telling me. If the U.S. government wanted me to question or arrest or prosecute me, they could have had me in a minute. But there are no charges, no accusations, nothing.”
Abbas, Long’s lawyer, made a similar point back then: “It is as if the U.S. has created a system of secret law whereby certain behaviors — being Muslim seems to be one of them — trigger one’s placement on government watchlists that separate people from their families, end careers, and poison personal relationships. All of this done without any due process.”
The point of the 2012 media coverage was not that Long was innocent: One can never prove a negative. The point was that it is unjust in the extreme for the U.S. government to deprive citizens of basic rights, such as the right to travel, without due process of any kind. As the original Guardian article stated: “Secret deprivation of core rights, no recourse, no due process, no right even to learn what has been done to you despite zero evidence of wrongdoing: that is the life of many American Muslims in the post-9/11 world.”
Ironically, the monumental injustice of the no-fly list has become a standard position within the GOP since President Obama began advocating its use to deny gun purchases. On CNN last Sunday, Sen. Marco Rubio sounded exactly like the ACLU, or CAIR, saying, “These are everyday Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism, they wind up on the no-fly list, there’s no due process or any way to get your name removed from it in a timely fashion.” Ben Carson made the same point on ABC News:
Well, as you, I’m sure, know, there are a lot of people on that watchlist and they have no idea why they’re on that list and they’ve been trying to get their names off of it and no one will give them information. … It’s really unfair that people can’t get a real hearing. And they get put on a list and nobody can tell them why they’re there, and they go through for years and years and they have to be tormented. It just doesn’t make any sense.
That was, and is, the point of the 2012 coverage of Long’s story: that the no-fly list is inherently unjust because it deprives citizens of rights based purely on government suspicion and without any due process. If Long ends up subsequently being charged with a crime, that does not alter that point at all. Indeed, Long has long been hoping for an opportunity to clear his name.
In many ways, what just happened to Long is a microcosm of the abuses of the 14-year-old war on terror. First he was denied basic travel rights based solely on secret government suspicions. Now, an anonymous government official smeared him as an ISIS terrorist. A right-wing website “reported” the smear. And from there, a wide range of media outlets and individuals with prominent platforms and all kinds of axes to grind explicitly declared him to be a Terrorist: no evidence, no trial, no due process, not even any charges. The fact that he’s Muslim and under suspicion is enough for huge numbers of people to declare him to be a Terrorist, and he will now live his entire life under that cloud.
That’s life as an American Muslim in the war on terror. But even more importantly, it’s reflective of the rotting media and political climate that now festers, in which unproven, due process-free accusations against Muslims, unaccompanied by any evidence, are instantly equated with proven guilt.
Additional reporting: Tolga Tanis
Beyond the “bigoted” implication of the Western Media, one must look to the constant re-enforcement of European primacy in the Americas. These are the fruits of imperialism and hegemony . Beyond the egregious 5th amendment violations of due process but the abrogation of liberty of men and women outside the territorial jurisdiction of the State. What happened to enlightenment and the genius of man or the ability co-exist. The proletariat is being coerced by fear to not just accept but appreciate tyranny. Chomsky was apparent in his views on mass consent, Baudrillard was exact in his views on image but most important Waever abandoned his stance on securitization and threat construction and the Society chooses to digress…..
Does anyone here possess any sort of reading comprehension? I guess that’s why you idiots read Greenwald.
Maybe if you entered into a more elaborate conversation then we could determine your angst!
” Does anyone here possess any sort of reading comprehension? ”
My sympathies to you. Nothing can be harder than to suffer from a reading comprehension deficit. If it continues to appear to be a challenge to you, keep trying.
Someday, you just might get there…Like the rest of us.
Mr. Long and his family “… arrested as part of an ISIS cell…” has been shown to be untrue. Reporters and news outlets make mistakes and under most libel law, corrections and withdrawal are seen as proof of “absence of malice” so critical to a suit for libel in the United States. Publishing on an international forum (the internet), where articles reach audiences in some nations where libel is much more narrowly defined, I believe PJ Media and its reporter Patrick Poole could be sued successfully and hopefully put out of business.
“So this entire episode started by this anonymous Pajamas Media claim became a means of attacking people who have defended Muslim Americans from the relentless assault on their civil liberties, as well as generally trying to discredit claims that Muslims are the victims of civil liberties abuses. Smearing Long as an ISIS operative was just a tool to accomplish that end. He, his family, and their reputations were just collateral damage.”
I agree but rather than became a means I’d say it was more likely designed to do that.
The right wing establishment is well funded, very organized and deliberate with connections on the inside and all over the world which includes on line.
If there’s something out there that discredits what they want they just create what they need to counter it, be it information or enemies. They know exactly what they’re doing.
Threats, harassment, vandalism at mosques reach record high
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/10/living/mosques-attack-study-2015/
Multiculturialism fights back in Australia.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/12/nick-folkes-barbecue-party-turns-cold-on-10th-anniversary-of-cronulla-riots
“career homeland security professional Patrick Poole” and his “career of warnings” … “might have saved many lives in Paris and San Bernardino.”
I’ll wager the people who read PJMedia also subscribe to Reader’s Digest.
I just did a quick review of Poole’s writings and statements over the past few years.
“[P]rofessional anti-Muslim activist” seems like an apt and accurate description, although Poole does take time out, now and then, to disparage other ethnic groups and their condemn their cultural activities:
Happy Kwanzaa! — Patrick S. Poole
If Patrick Poole was such a trailblazer and “career homeland security professional” why is he toiling at some obscure ultra right wing blog , which for some odd reason is named Pajama Media ?
I’m a bit confused about the reasoning behind granting anonymity to the “press officer with the Bureau of Consular Affairs” and the “Turkish source with connections”. The article never clearly explains the decision, other than to say that the press officer asked not to be identified and, presumably, the “Turkish source” asked the same (as the Turkish government wouldn’t go on record). But this seems, on the face of it, to be in conflict with what The Intercept has said in the past about citing anonymous sources. I was just wondering why we aren’t provided with more information about why they were given anonymity.
Dear Peter,
What a question! You seem to be listening with both ears today but we are using our eyes right now.
The point of the article is that PJMedia claimed the guy was “arrested as a member of an ISIS cell” yet no one, other than PJM, actually claimed that. That’s the point. The Intercept was not doing an expose which relied on anonymous sources. TI reported what anonymous sources said and that it was different from what PJM ‘sources’ said.
Is that clear enough? Let me know; don’t be embarrassed to ask for further help. We don’t know yet that you can’t learn new things, so we are going to keep trying until it becomes too obvious.
Another victim of this war run by the media. They probably consider him to be collateral damage.
……even if the people there (Guatanamo) are sometimes guilty”. What would they be “guilty” of, GG? Defending their homes and families from an army of foreign invaders and occupiers?
*Guantamano*
FBI Investigating Blaze at Coachella Mosque Reportedly Hit with ‘Fire-Bomb’
http://patch.com/california/palmdesert/coachella-mosque-hit-fire-bomb-report
Because spontaneous firebombings occur on a regular basis. :-s
Update: FBI taking over. That pretty much means they’ve decided that it’s arson, and arson that constitutes a civil rights violation, which is the basis for FBI jurisdiction in cases like this.
FBI to take over possible arson at Coachella mosque
Ah, yes, the ongoing confusion WRT Sikhs. The nasty piece of work who provoked and insulted the San Bernardino massacre shooter, Farouq, (Nicholas Thalasinos) was also given to long rants about “turban heads” in his social media postings.
Lawsuit: No-fly list has left Muslim Air Force veteran detained in Turkey
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawsuit-no-fly-list-has-left-muslim-air-force-veteran-detained-in-turkey/2015/12/11/f5700dc6-a034-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html
I don’t see a “balance fallacies” people could have lost their job, the kid’s family is trying to sue the school for 15 million. The media coverage of that story was several magnitudes larger than this one.
No one lost their job, and the family has every right to sue. There’s nothing to apologize for, and your whining doesn’t change that fact.
“There’s nothing to apologize for”
The narrative pushed by the media was clearly wrong.
How?
And yet, you persist in not identifying the specific statements Greenwald supposedly should apologize for. That is no doubt because your entire shtick here is an exercise in misdirection.
Bugger off, and let the reasonable folk converse.
This whole article was based on false assumptions https://theintercept.com/2015/09/16/arrest-14-year-old-student-making-clock-fruits-15-years-fear-mongering-anti-muslim-animus/
“There’s absolutely no evidence that this was anything more than a clock, nor any indication of any kind that the talented and inventive freshman built it as anything other than a school project”
Of course he didn’t build anything, he took the guts of clock and put it in a pencil box knowing full well what it looked like. He was told to put it away, he didn’t, it went off in class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UGLM31S6II
Except you don’t say what they are. And I don’t accept Youtube videos as evidence in most cases. Find something in writing and link ,as well as quote what you believe is the salient point(s).
But you can’t and won’t; this is just a misdirection project.
True, but where’s the hoax?
So now we know what kind of media the holier-than-thou Sam Harris reads—and trusts.
What a jerk.
Pajamas Media should definitely apologize for the story, and Glenn, along with the rest of the media, should apologize for pushing the Ahmed Mohamed aka “Clock boy” case and accusing teachers and school officials of Islamophobia when it was proven to be hoax.
What was proven to be a hoax?
Do you take milk and sugar with your balance fallacies?
How 70,000 Muslim Clerics Are Standing Up To Terrorism
Religious leaders are emphasizing that they don’t consider terrorists to be true Muslims.
At http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/muslim-clerics-condemn-terrorism_566adfa1e4b009377b249dea
I’d like to see 70 000 Chrisian clergy denouncing Islamophobia.
Have the Keystone Journos over at Pajamas Media been heard from on this story?
I was wondering where you were.
Yes, so was I.
I finally have some time to participate in TI threads for a while and find that Mona seems to be absent. Not good, because I so enjoy her rapier wit and sharp analysis — even when she pisses me off.
I was just about to ask Glenn if he knew whether she was OK.
Good to see you again, Mona.
Brain Cancer treatment?
Wishful thinking?
Not a problem you’ll have to worry about. Just one of the many advantages of being brainless.
Oh, I’ve been busy over at Rational Wiki, settling in and editing numerous articles touching on Israel-Palestine — and have prevailed for the facts and correct point of view (it got bloody!). Additionally — and inspired by the very disturbing cranks who often infest these comments and who just caused comments to be very quickly shut down for Schahill’s recent Intel scoop — I am collaborating on an article about so-called Targeted Individuals.
The TI piece is very young and not at all complete or polished with final editing. Further, I’ve learned, and will eventually add, the rather high profile names of a few who support this lunacy. So, it is not finished, but we’ve got a good start.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to.
Thanks,
I was concerned you might have been ill.
Yes, I get that way as well when regulars suddenly go dark. I guess I just figured that most here would see that I was still active on Twitter. And, I would have participated in comments for the Scahill Intel-leak story, but comments closed so fast due to the nutbars swamping it that I didn’t get the chance.
Way cool! Totally looking forward to it.
Mona–Your article on TIs is disgusting. You site some of the wackiest claims and ignore stuff coming from rational TIs, and you do it in such a snarky, unprofessional tone.
Let me enlighten you with some things that have happened to me.
I glanced in my rearview mirror one afternoon and realized I was being closely tailgated by a vehicle with out-of-state tags. The driver had ample opportunity to pass me but chose to stay on my bumper for a several miles. I had been aggressively tailgated so often at this point that I was beginning to wonder if this was more than just a bunch of rude drivers.
I decided to test this guy. With no intention of making a turn, I switched on my right blinker. He switched on his right blinker. Continuing straight, I switched on my left blinker. He switched on his left blinker. When I came to an intersection, I switched on my right blinker but turned left. He turned on his right blinker but turn left. He stayed on my bumper (again, with ample opportunity to pass) for another mile or so. To my great relief, when I arrived at my destination, he turned in another direction and disappeared. I ran a five minute errand and got back on the road. Within a minute, he was on my bumper again.
This was not tailgating. This was stalking. But it made no sense. Why would a complete stranger from a state that I have never been to stalk me? It was clearly meant to intimidate, and it worked. (And by the way, I am not some quavering weakling. I’ve done things in my life that 99.9% of Americans would not have the guts to do. Almost nothing frightens me, but this did.)
Fast forward about a year, and many stalking and harassment events later: I am 35 miles from my home, returning to my car in a parking lot when a women suddenly appears between parked cars pushing an empty shopping cart. We nearly collide. I smile and say, excuse me. She says, “I’m not stalking you. I’m just returning my shopping cart.” Now, to any other person that would just be an odd comment, an awkward joke, but when you know you’re are being stalked, the message is clear: I AM stalking you. You will be stalked wherever you go. There is no escape.
The number of stalking and harassment events that I’ve endured for the last several years are far too many to list in these comments, but I will add that I have had feces smeared on my front door, in my birdbath, and on the handle of my car door. What is even more troubling than these disgusting assaults using excrement is that feces has also been smeared on a home that I own 100 miles away.
These are not figments of my imagination, Mona. I am the target of a pervasive harassment campaign that has followed my across several counties. This is devastating to targets who lose friends, jobs, partners because of the smear campaigns and the sheer stress of dealing with this shit day in and day out. Are Targeted Individuals paranoid? Of course they are! Anyone would get paranoid after awhile. As anyone who has ever been stalked and harassed or who has known someone who is stalked and harassed, paranoia is an absolutely NORMAL reaction. It is a defense mechanism–you are being overtly threatened by perfect strangers and you start to constantly look around you and wonder–is it him? Is it Her? is it them?
Please do take Torturestan’s advice and look into Zerzetsten. This shit is happening to good, law abiding citizens and, make no mistake, even if you are not being subjected to DEW and all that, This is Torture on Americans by Americans. Walcome to Fascisistan.
It is telling that you, Mona, make no mention of http://www.fightgangstalking.com, a website that is very well researched and so much better written than your Rational Wiki bullshit.
And finally, why would you mock people who you claim are mentally ill? That’s pretty low.
You are writing a propaganda piece using familiar disinfo and decoy targets’ bs to essentially discredit disinfo agents — yourself among them. This is not working as well as it used to against actual, mentally competent targets who endure. I have plenty of credibility, far more than the cringing native-born patriot audience your viciousness appeals to. I have learned many people not born in the usa do understand at a primal level that countries engaged in perpetual war engage in perpetual torture, without exception, and your desperate attacks won’t persuade anyone but habitually and willfully blind americans — comprising a mere 5% of ‘our’ species.
Your audience lives in a zoo, its survival instinct and awareness of the real world completely bred out.
You display a typically fanatical American’s denial of the reality of “That”. You should bone up on the Checka and its Stasi protege, which developed Zersetzung using tactics excluding: microwaves, “psychotronics”, secret mind control, “remote sexual abuse”, surgical insertion of alien implants and even reptilian involvement. But you won’t. History is not your forte. Spewing disinfo and attacking people already being subjected to torture is your job. Expending wasted energy on harming others must be a very satisfying vocation for you… so ubiquitously american.
It is not possible to be so relentlessly ignorant and be as intelligent as so many commenters say you are, at the same time. However, as so many among the other 95% know, native-born americans are very easily and repeatedly fooled.
At least you sandwiched one bit of truth in your big lie: organized stalking.
Give it a rest. You and Kitt should get real jobs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Torturers would not exist without lawyers that toil day and night, to protect their diabolical and treasonous acts, that external enemies – state and individual actors alike – could only dream on inflicting on American citizens. And so, when they realized the fire is spreading, they recruited you to attempt to destroy the credibility of the TI phenomenon.
It is the old, cheapest, most tired, haggard and overused tactic in the book. Worked no doubt at some stage, but not anymore.
So earn your money well; there’s nothing like feeding off someone else’s pain, blood and tears.
my money was on diversity training …
Harris did, but you (and the thread) have probably already seen it.
https://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg/status/675030323923656704
Good for him.
And yes, glad to see you back again. :-)
Actually, I had not seen that before and appreciate your letting me know. I just RTed. Thanks!
Here’s another quote from Harris which Mona might find interesting:
Does that statement make Harris “an actual anti-Semite”?
I think Harris is a bit of a dullard as he has stated Mormonism is worse than other forms of Christianity. Any form of sky-dweller worship is irrational and therefore suspect. Applying a scale to a binary concept is foolish.
How many Jews do you suppose are on the No-Fly list?
Zionists have absolutely no need to blow themselves up to kill you,they have the IDF and Nato for that.
And every stupid terror attack on the West makes them smile.
Again I ask, what is the legal justification and practical rationale for a no-fly list?
Any country has the right to deny access to any non-citizen; that is a sovereign right that I do not dispute. But at the same time, why should anyone be denied the right to visit a family member in another country? In doing so, the US firmly allies itself with North Korea.
As for prohibiting one’s own citizens from traveling, again the US is like North Korea, and like the Soviet bloc, during the height of the cold war period. We all suffer the expenses and outrages of security inspections when we travel by air (and occasionally by other means); these intrusions are said to be for our safety, to prevent bombers or otherwise armed people from doing harm. Why then should someone who has cleared these intrusions, who carries no armaments of any kind, be prohibited from traveling? Is it because the inspection process is nothing more than theater, designed only to convince an unthinking public that the Government is performing some valuable and necessary service, or to intimidate the populace into docility? If so, then we should put an end to it, and if not, then anyone who can afford a ticket should be allowed to fly.
For those of you who do not travel abroad, I can assure you that the practices of the US are more draconian than in other western nations. I have personally purchased a ticket, been subjected to security inspections and traveled between cities in Europe, post 911, without ever showing an ID of any kind. Why should it be any other way?
Could The Intercept walk us through this thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_Screening_Database Apparently there are 11 different lists, of which the no-fly list is just one, and 400,000 people in total
According to Salon, the total list is being widely spammed to countries all over the world in order to ‘make travel difficult’ for the people on it. But here’s the question: HOW can the U.S. be disseminating this crap all over the world, all the governments know it, yet they have it totally secret here, you can’t ask if you’re on it, and nobody has given it to Wikileaks or The Intercept??? Something is very wrong with that.
P.S. looks like Media Matters, Salon and News9.com have lined up with Greenwald, while all the PJ Media supporters have gone silent, at least as Google News reckons it. I still haven’t seen any word on the “Syria border” claim (or ISIS!) but the inference is reasonably clear.
“hyperbolic -left-wing lunacy that is taking over the media in general”
I suppose you are talking about that communist rag, the NYT, yes? And maybe the BBC as well?
Your American style fascism is showing.
This writing typifies the sort of hyperbolic -left-wing lunacy that is taking over the media in general, and encourages the insanity of nit-wits such as those directly below…
You username befits a goon such as yourself.
@BS
Please explain why you think it is correct to put people on a no fly list without justification so that they will be detained when they attempt to travel.
Do you approve of this policy just for Muslims, or for people of any religion?
Should there be special exceptions for those who have earned the thanks of all Americans by serving in the US armed forces?
What would you do if you were put on the list and failed to complete your trip?
There are other lists besides ‘no-fly’ lists. There are stalk/harass/torture lists too, and some of those targets, such as myself, are allowed to fly (and be stalked and harassed in airports and flts in between).
Also, religion is not always the target selection criteria. Anyone who opposes unprovoked American belligerence, in the form of racist terrorism and terrorist wars of aggression may be singled out for torture. The target’s religion, or absence of, is not always relevant.
“It is as if the U.S. has created a system of secret law whereby certain behaviors — being Muslim seems to be one of them — trigger one’s placement on government watchlists that separate people from their families, end careers, and poison personal relationships. All of this done without any due process.”
This is precisely what has happened. Every target know this, and every target is the evidence.
But they sometimes fail. The goons organizations’ success or failure depends upon the character of the people related to the target — the quality of the target’s choice of family, friends, and employer.
The extra judicial system of personal destruction is worked by people who believe they understand everything about human nature, but obviously, they are mistaken.
Oh no, the sky is falling!!!
All American Muslims are under attack, and must watch around every corner for the brutal government stalker or simple citizen out to get them!!!
No, not the sky. Just your country, and the low-life stalkers infesting it.
While unhappy haters likes BS spew their venom…just 150 miles north of the border , this is happening…….Welcome to Heaven
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/world/americas/syria-refugees-arrive-in-canada.html?_r=0
The only major city in Canada more than a 100 miles from the US border is Edmonton,I believe.
Yes,a much more civilized and just welcome.
America has been divided and conquered to the extent that humanity is a foreign concept,for wimps.He’s going to legalize the herb.Wow.Awesome.And we got sh*t.(Obomba)
.
Detainment – like fluoride in water. It just suddenly started and whoever started it acted like it’d always been there
Who decides, and on what criteria, which individual, family or group goes on the secret no-fly list? Do these bureaucrats have personal agendas and biases when determining who goes on that list?
Who signs off on those lists?
It is the blackhole of secrecy that swallows up any rational debate on these issues and slowly erodes the legal basis of our constitutional democratic governance.
I would like us to look at whose benefiting from all this destructive violence and wars? One thing for sure it is not the American people whose wealth is been siphoned by undeclared wars, goverments’ destabilization around the world. Those who aspire for America to be a planetary empire at all costs are deluding themselves and those they supposedly serve and fleece.
It is time to change course and focus on our own domestic problems and the climat change looming large and menacingly over humanity’s fate!
Some of that list info is here:
https://theintercept.com/2014/07/23/blacklisted/
… Breaking News …
US citizens overwhelmingly endorse fascist foreign and domestic policies… Intend to continue electing politicians from cesspool of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.
Routine extra judicial organized stalking, torture, and mass murder occurring daily, inside and outside US borders.
US citizens Love It… Admire home grown goon squads… Ship them overseas, many seen in Sao Paulo, Brazil in recent weeks, including yesterday.
Source: Look Around You.
I’m looking around me, and all I see is regular people going about their daily routines in a normal manner. Of course, I don’t live in a paranoid-schizophrenic world that exists only in my seriously messed-up mind…
Touched a nerve, stasi rent-boy? Anyone looking around and laying eyes on you is looking at exactly what I’m talking about.
Source: You, one of the goons who created that paranoid-schizophrenic world.
You are insane – get help.
Mom, is that you?
You are evil. Now go hide.
That’s such a brain dead comment. In North Korea, I bet at least 95% of people just go about their daily routines in a normal manner. What does that have to do with issues that matter?
Hey Genius, it means that I have not witnessed or heard of any hateful actions directed towards any Muslim in my community.
I am not saying it does not occur, but it is not typical of American society in general, as this poor excuse for an insightful article is trying to portray
Got it? Good…
What I’m saying is that your personal experience as a conformist establishment-defending ordinary American is too irrelevant to even be brought up.
You make a lot of ignorant assumptions for such a smart boy…
Betan Seyad
1. Anyone can be whatever they want on the Internet, and 2. Some Uncle Tom Arabs and Persians exist. This is to be expected — craven types are found in virtually every persecuted people.
@Mona
Results of Google search for “Betan Sayed”:
That’s the only one, except for three repeats.
Results for a search on “Betan Sayed” at Intelius:
Not dispositive, of course . . .
@BS
Emphasis added.
Hey, genius: couldn’t even be bothered to scan the (not all that long, yet) thread for evidence that contradicts your cherished beliefs, eh?
Americans think Islam is ‘at odds’ with US values, see discrimination against Muslims
Got it? Probably not. ;^(
Yes,most Americans do live and let live,and wouldn’t insult those of the Muslim faith whom they see every day,but the heat from the media, the heretic Christians and the rabid virulent Zionists is palpable,and the politicians aren’t helping either.
Paris,and now San Bernardino have given the crazy instigators of this whole clash of East Wast,the Zionists,a perfect vehicle for more stupid intervention and death.
Made to order,Fred C Dobbs might say.
Yes, this is totally kafkaesque and horrible and this man and his family should have never had to suffer any of this. And yes, obviously the “no-fly” list is bullshit. And great article. But just one objection:
“Beyond that, the only outlet to have “reported” this claim about Long and his family is Pajamas Media. Does anyone find that to be a credible news source, let alone one credible enough to permanently vilify someone as an ISIS member?”
Facts is facts. Sources/motivations of facts are irrelevant if facts are facts. Impugning a maybe-fact due to it’s source is wrong-headed. If facts are wrong then they are, but that doesn’t have much to do with otherwise “trusting” credible sources [how “credible” is CNN or Fox or MSNBC??].
If sources are shit they’re shit; if good they’re good; in any event rational people will try to confirm purported facts independently from any one single news source’s article. Even The Intercept.
What? “…rational people will try to confirm purported facts independently…” Seriously? Are you talking journalists or readers? Because the vast majority of readers, rational or not, are going to the go, “Wow! That Saadiq guy and his family sure are a bunch of shits.” End of story. Everyone has to be an investigative journalist now? People find the National Enquirer to be a credible news source, FFS! You are overestimating American readers.
It should not be up to the reader to fact check every article they read. “Journalists” and their masters should be held to some standard. The Long family was slandered and harassed, and they not only deserve an apology, they deserve a hefty settlement.
Well then, you’ll have to scroll back up to the article you’ve supposedly read to note and open the links that are listed within my quote below to see how many ‘irrational people’ you’ll need to consider removing from your list of “rational people.”
If sources are shit they’re shit; if good they’re good; in any event rational people will try to confirm purported facts independently from any one single news source’s article.
That was quite a list of irrational people Glenn provided via links in his second paragraph. How does that mesh with your assertion, especially when you consider how widely their “rational” opinions – not facts – get distributed?
https://twitter.com/BFriedmanDC/status/675148061346299908
Much, much bigger.
Please read Pedinska’s linked tweet, please, folks.
The US elected and reelected a black president, but beyond that nothing much has changed in “god’s own country” in terms of racism. No, there is no more official segregation, but in practice it is still there. A large part of the whites still have this burning hatred for anyone who is not white, and they pass this on to their children. It’s a sick country.
You contradict yourself.We did elect a (half )black man to be POTUS,and he even was portrayed as a Muslim socialist(obviously wrongly,he dislikes Muslims,and he aint no socialist) by the MSM,so your depiction of the electorate is way off.
We are suffering from a parasitical ailment,Zionism,eliminate it from America,and both we and Israel will be saved.
With respect, nothing that Paranam wrote was self-contradictory in the slightest.
If you continue to think otherwise, please tell us, specifically, which element(s) of his post you believe contradict(s) (an)other element(s).
meh.
He wouldn’t be on the no-fly list in the first place if he didn’t – at some point – pose a credible threat to our American Way of Life.
That his family is placed on it, too, is good policy – much like that which Himmler advocated vis-a-vis children of Jews…collectively punish them to eliminate the threat that they should seek revenge for the treatment meted out to their elders.
It would be even more effective if we blew up the family homes, as our Likudnik buddies like to do.
If only those pesky parts of Article I (Sections 9 & 10) weren’t standing in our way . . .
Indeed! That is undoubtedly why Ted Kennedy was on the list, too. Right on, jdanekJamesBond!
Why did he move to Qatar?
According to this article, he served 10 years in the Air Force, got a degree, and flew his immediate family (separating them from his own mother) to the other side of the world so he could teach English. Yeah, okay…
They try to claim that he was put on for the no-fly list simply for being Muslim.
No, he was put on the no-fly list because he chose to move to a country that is known to finance and support numerous different terrorist groups. Officials take note of EVERYONE who travels to regions known for extremism, whether you’re Muslim or not.
But of course, the US should just have completely open borders, unlike every other country in the world.
It’s wrong of them to exercise even the smallest amount of caution.
A large portion, if not most, of the funding for
twisted jihadist ideology
comes from Saudi Arabia
and the fake USA supports and funds the Saudi’s vicious militarism.
What exactly does that have to do with what I said?
Think about what you’re saying. What kind of government would put you on a watchlist on the basis that you’ve moved to another country?
You act like they tortured the guy.
I live in an area known for Muslim extremism. Put me on a watchlist. Who cares.
They’re monitoring everyone as it is. But of course many can’t see the forest for the trees and would rather cry about racism.
The guy uprooted his entire family to go “teach English” in a country that practices Sharia law and is known for harboring extremists. Yet the article tries to paint it like they just target any and every Muslim for no reason at all. That is factually incorrect.
I live in an area known for Muslim extremism.
A shame. Mr. Long was born in, and is a citizen of, an area that has a document called the Constitution, part of which – the Bill of Rights – states that the government cannot deprive him of his rights without being accused of a crime and subject to due process of the law.
The guy uprooted his entire family to go “teach English” in a country that practices Sharia law and is known for harboring extremists.
Your ignorance is showing in a telling misrepresentation of the entirety of the Qatari legal system:
http://ddc.aub.edu.lb/projects/pspa/qatar.html
Qatar and the US have bilateral relations, including military bases:
And finally, please list for me the countries on the planet that don’t harbor extremists of some ilk. You get a biscuit for each entry on your list.
@Pedinska
Two, actually: one Army, one Air Force.
Oh, just BTW, Qatar is also the location of the U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.
So you have no comment or problems with the fact that pajamas media made the whole fucking thing up, eh?
Where did I say that, eh?
I am commenting this article, not the one on Pajamas Media.
Nice straw man.
Due to you continuing to have no comment or problems that you’ve stated with the fact that pajamas media made the whole fucking thing up — I repeat:
So you have no comment or problems with the fact that pajamas media made the whole fucking thing up, eh?
Lemme guess, John–you’ve never been outside of the United States, right?
The point I was trying to make is,
You indicated that since Mr. Long had moved to Qatar
THAT was enough of a reason to treat him like a threat.
AS IF moving to Qatar
(a corrupt ally of Saudi Arabia and of the fake USA)
is somehow different than the numerous fake US “contractors”
like Halliburton who have moved their offices to
Dubai and other locations within the Saudi dominated
corruption.
What is of utmost importance to the fake USA and its
predatory allies in the region is the lie that they do these
sadistic things to people to protect their citizens
while the facts show that the real agenda is privatized
corporate profits from the resources in the region.
The manipulations of people through fear and brutalities
( more variations of torture )
are how they browbeat and force compliance
on the majority of people near and far.
In essence, the fake USA is saying,
“We do these things to protect you while we
support the terrorism we are ‘protecting you’ from.”
Even if the obvious injustice afforded this man and his family are ignored, when the enemy du jour has moved on from Muslims, who’s next should concern everyone. Those with a functioning conscience, on the other hand, need to speak up in defense of those whose justice has been denied. Secret memos, secret lists, secrets galore. Is this any way to run a nation purported to be spreading Democracy?
This is also a good case study in how readily the sights of unjust government policies could be turned on those who supported them.
In a talk in Burlington, Vt in May,1985, Noam Chomsky predicted that Syria would be the place where conflict could escalate into the next world war. He was introduced by mayor Bernie Sanders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvZRsdHgxgA
Wow. Thanks.
One of Noam’s best speeches ever, and I’ve never heard it before.
And it was good to see Bernie in the job he did so well and the one for which he has always been best suited.
Trustworthiness is the big problem with most Muslims – that’s what we are finding out. Paki people kept fooling us (which we always knew anyway) pretending to search for Mr Terror bin Laden when they were hiding him in open sight. The Saudis were planning all sorts of illegal activities while pretending to be our bestest best friend. The turkeys are pretending to fight ISIS while they are actually helping them. They sent their army to Mosul for helping ISIS. I have been searching for many years to find a single Muslim fellow whom we can trust but till now I have not come across anyone. Maybe this website should publish a list of Muslims whom they consider trustworthy (there won’t be very many) so that in future we do not include them under our suspicious people list. It is really frustrating to find the Muslims first befriending us as pious souls and then later using that piety to murder us and our families.
If you’re looking to find examples of hypocrisy and backstabbing, I would suggest an American to start with America..
Americans are mostly good people, though I’m afraid some are secretly indulging in all the defective Muslim practices. In my opinion the Germans need watching because of some of their treacherous behavior in the recent past.
GH, you’re no BM.
I had a good mind to propose your name in the list of reliable Muslims that TI will publish, if only you can convince all your community folks to become like you and think of helping others instead of chopping their heads.
A single person can only do so much. The cancerous tumors within Islam have grown quite a bit. I’m extremely concerned.
“Trustworthiness is the big problem with most Muslims . . .”
Yeah, absolutely! Just when they think they can trust us to bring freedom and democracy to their communities, we bomb another wedding party or drone another teenager, or sell another few billion dollars of weapons, along with a wink and a nod, to the Wahabi-captive KSA princes who are spreading their own brand of terror across an enormous region.
You’re totally right: trust is a major issue.
Thanks for endorsing my views about trust deficit in relation to the Muslim people.
Regarding droning wedding parties, that’s an unfair generalization. We drone only those gatherings where terrorists collect together – this much the terrorists can trust us to do – unlike their cowardly acts of targeting totally innocent people. We don’t even drone the moderate terrorists, and instead supply them with arms to fight the more extreme terrorists.
“We don’t even drone the moderate terrorists, and instead supply them with arms to fight the more extreme terrorists.”
Yeah, the moderates like al-Qaeda and al-Nusra. And, if you count the billions in support we give to the Saudis who provide even more weapons and support to the Salafists, and the contributions we’ve made to the establishment and growth of ISIS through such brilliance as “de-Baathification” and the disbanding of the Iraqi military, why, we’re even bigger contributors to those fine “moderate terrorists.”
“Oh, say, can you see. . .”
Al-Qaeda and al-Nusra are not moderate terrorists – they fall in the bad terrorist category. There are some moderate terrorists like FSA, but that’s also part of the problem with the Muslims. They pretend to be moderately good terrorists till they get our arms shipment, and once they do they quickly turn into bad terrorists. Can never trust those blokes … Even Jordan has forgotten that ISIS once roasted alive one of their pilots. Mr Trump has his vision right although he wasn’t being too diplomatic about it.
“Al-Qaeda and al-Nusra are not moderate terrorists – they fall in the bad terrorist category.”
Ah, so “we” are supporting them because . . . ?
America siding with ‘terrorists’ like al-Nusra? It’s not a conspiracy theory
“There are some moderate terrorists like FSA,”
Right. Not only are the FSA “moderate terrorists” — I just love it that you can use that label with apparent seriousness — they are also mostly invisible. Here’s an interesting take from Russia Insider — an independent site published by an American ex-pat who has lived there for a long time because he’s an investor in agricultural projects:
O Free Syrian Army, Where Art Thou? Nobody Seems to Know Who, Where FSA Is
Gen Herc, Thanks for the laugh. Almost as good as reading Mad Magazine! I’d like more on those moderately good terrorists. How can we tell them apart from really nasty terrorists? Does the FBI have a classification system worked out? Something like phrenology, maybe?
LMAO
This is a class war, not an anti-Muslim war. If they hated Muslims like they pretend to, they would have no dealings with Saudi Arabia or the other allied Gulf states.
It is always a class war. You Americans don’t like that fact. You all like to think you got a chance and that if you make it a class war then you are burning that bridge to the American Dream.
You all respect guys like Chomsky and Chris Hedges, two of America’s clearest and most candid thinkers, but (not very) deep down you just can’t bring yourself to join them.
But now they are laughing in your face as they frack your backyard and blow your taxes on building weapons to oppress you and quantum computers to monitor and analyse your every thought and deed.
One of my favourite films is Matewan. It’s a great film. No one would make that film today, it’s too direct, too plain-speaking. Too sincere. Might just stir someone to action.
There is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the lamb…
‘Matewan’ is a great film. I haven’t watched it in many years but it is definitely a fuck-yeah movie.
Erzurum is in Northeastern Turkey on the Black Sea coast. Not on the Syria border.
Yeah, but this article is the only one that comes up in Google News using that name, and it only says the _detention center_ for the family is there. Whereas many of the sources are — rightly or wrongly — repeating the “Turkey-Syrian border” claim for where they were detained. So we need data.
So are we comfortabke yet giving the FBI the power to summarily strip US Citizens of Constitutional rights merely by secretly entering their names onto a classified watch list?
Thank you GG and MH. I must document this.
Smears and fabrications of perfectly innocent individuals, especially Moslems, appear to be standard MO in blogs such as the one cited here, especially when there is a predetermined plan to severely violate the person’s rights.
In 2010, someone claimed on the internet, using my full name, that I was from the Middle East. That year marked the beginning of my severe torture under a mind control program.
I am a pure breed African who grew up in a South African village. So this was more than a lie that was apparently intended to justify the crime that would soon follow. That I had a Moslem last name through marriage to a law abiding Pakistani with a Ph.D., was offensive enough to the criminals.
It is the same thing that happened to Brandon Mayfield of Oregon, an attorney, who ended up being falsely accused of terrorism. His wife is Egyptian. And a Moslem. Today she is believed to be severely tortured.
A year earlier a close family friend received a call one evening. He interrupted the conversation with the person on the other end of the line by asking me if I could Google for him a certain eye medication.
Who was on the other end of the line, I asked. A nephew was his response. What was the name of the medication? He paused to speak with the nephew before spelling it out to me. I wrote down the name as he spelled it out to me.
By now, all my computers had been rootkited and totally useless. The only way to Google this was by going to the library the following day.
It so happened that I have a collection of medical books among which are a Merk Reference and a Merk Manual ( I am not a doctor).
I took out the reference, which in essence is a compendium of every chemical and drug product Merk has ever produced. I looked up the name of the eye medicine and almost passed out at what I found.
The ‘eye medicine’ had no commercial, industrial or pharmaceutical value except in use in what, had I googled the thing, could have made 911 news seem like a bedtime story.
I was beyond myself with anger. I told the close friend what this thing really was and what it was used for and that it could only be used in illegal and criminal activities which I have no intention of being associated with. Furthermore, I emphasized, no doctor worth his licence could ever prescribe this.
He had not spoken to this ‘ nephew’ in more than a decade. He has not spoken to him since.
Two days later, the paper on which I had written down the name of the eye medicine’ with my own hand, disappeared. It has been missing to this day. I have no doubt that the FISA court was shown this piece of paper with MY HANDWRITING on it, and signed off on anything that the torturers asked.
Had I googled the ‘eye medicine’ I have no doubt that the ‘heroes’ that would have ‘prevented’ a disaster, thereby ‘protecting the homeland’, would have received medals of honor while I would be languishing in some dark dungeon, being tortured with weaponized nanodevices beyond anyone’s eyes in a diabolical mind control torture operation. And the world would never have known of the following:
http://freedomfchs.lefora.com/topic/7442322/nanodevices-in-sensory-overload-mind-control-torture
I can only guess, but some unusual classes of drugs are used for dilating the iris to examine the interior of the eye. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mydriasis . Wikipedia mentions anticholinergics like atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine – though none of these are used any more, they’re too long acting and shorter-lived relatives exist. There’s tropicamide, an antimuscarinic, and phenylephrine. Some of these things are usable for opposing the effects of nerve gas for much the same reasons they’re useful in eye exams, and they are also potentially abusable as drugs. (Until recently, governments were not so insane as to ban them – now that they have done so, I think their abuse is increasing. And unlike other drugs, these things seriously _derange_ what people do – there are reports of stuff like people drinking from gas pumps.
I have no idea how you could outdo 9/11 with the stuff, though. Not unless you had a boatload of it, anyway, and some really clever idea.
” I can only guess, but some unusual classes of drugs are used for dilating the iris to examine the interior of the eye. ”
I am sure that’s all true.
But since Merck manufactured the chemical and had declared in the entry under its name that it had NO PHARMACOLOGICAL VALUE, that rules it out as anything that anyone could use for therapeutic purposes on any organ system at in the human body, eyes and all.
But your point is well taken.
I’m getting same and similar but my post here was deleted as they always do….wonder if this reply to your post will?
deleted, back and then deleted again…..which makes even less sense, how bizarre
Hmmm… Pajama Media, where have I heard that name before?
Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine: The Perils of Coming Out Conservative
By Roger L Simon; founder of Pajamas Media (AKA PJ Media)
For me the two breathtaking points are:
One – Even after the massive media exposure of the first time this guy couldn’t travel due to his being on enemies list, …he’s still on it, years later.
And two – that Obama would suggest the watch lists, as a basis for restricting guns. I’m among the 95 percent of the world that thinks the US is nuts to hand out guns like candy. But to base gun restrictions on secret lists, is as illogical as anything Trump has espoused.
I absolutely agree. Actually, I think the conservatives sense something even more elementary: since the list is completely unaccountable, there is no reason why the administration couldn’t put EVERYONE on the list. They could issue those “one-time waivers” to most of the population for purposes of air travel only. If you had a “legitimate reason” to carry a gun, you could make your case to get taken off the list, or at least, to get a one-time waiver for your gun. The effect, of course, would be a federal gun ban.
That may seem like an abuse, but many, many people have gone to jail in Chicago over an equally transparent maneuver to require registration for firearms… then simply never, ever process the paperwork.
Off-topic, maybe, but youse all needs ta know:
Nominations Open for Eighth Annual “Izzy Award” for Independent Media
Almost forgot: Glenn and Jeremy have each won an Izzy and both were inducted, last year, as the first members of the I.F. Stone Hall of Fame.
Via twitter:
and
I expect CAIR will now come out in support of Mr. Trump, as he has promised to ban all foreign substances from entering the US.
I’m willing to bet that whatever Trump uses to support that flying wedge he calls “hair” is a substance foreign in nature. I’m also willing to bet that his extremely well-preserved wife – a “substance” once foreign in nature – might object to him limiting her own cosmetic “foreign substances”. And there’s only so much couture one can buy if one limits oneself to NY.
The willingness of people to treat the most bogus threats as real is itself a leading enabler of terrorism. Anyone with a handful of flour can shut down anything from relative safety (provided they don’t do something dumb like mail from the box outside their house).
Meanwhile, I anticipate it will be like the evacuations of Democratic members of Congress… a bonanza of opportunities to rifle through belongings and confidential data in order to help ‘protect’ people.
I just hope they don’t let themselves be shanghaied into Cipro. That stuff is nasty, will snap your tendons and leave you crippled.
I just hope they don’t let themselves be shanghaied into Cipro. That stuff is nasty, will snap your tendons and leave you crippled.
I understand the place you’re coming from here – don’t let fear override common sense – and that’s a good thought to hold onto, especially nowadays. But the side effects of Cipro are no better or worse than many antibiotics and are far more likely to occur in those who have to take them long term. When taken for very short courses, such as would be applied for possible Anthrax exposure, while they should be weighed carefully against the probability that exposure was likely, are not nearly as dire as the diseases they protect against if exposure was somewhat or very likely.
I took a short course of Cipro – one pill, one time – after a co-worker I’d been in close proximity to died of meningococcal septicemia. We saw, up close and personal, what that septicemia did to him (did you know that a person who dies from it can have their head swollen til it’s the size of a watermelon? Neither did I). In any case, the highly infective nature of Neisseria meningitidis and the rapidity with which it kills were factors that landed in favor of the antibiotic. :-s
http://www.drugs.com/sfx/ciprofloxacin-side-effects.html
I think we need to take our common sense approach to dealing with fear mongering for political and reasons of hegemony and apply the same common sense elsewhere.
Ugggh. That was NOT an enviable choice to have to make. I’m glad you’re alright!
I had a situation where a doctor actually prescribed a long course of the stuff over an ingrown toenail (in part because I was resisting her trying to get me to have an X-ray over it; she was insisting it was osteomyelitis even though it was just a long-term gripe. I am very, very glad I don’t take stuff without researching it first! A podiatrist cleared it right up, and called her to complain, but I got frightened into the X-ray anyway, so desperate was I to avoid that drug. Her whole hospital went bankrupt a couple months later, after trying to double bill me for each and every expense, and I guess they had to do what they had to do.
Oh, and did I mention what I was first going to her for was a gout attack that already had my Achilles tendon in a tremendous amount of pain?
Though I wrapped it in layers of tape and dire warnings, I still have that bottle of pills sitting around … just in case. In case of WHAT, I hope I never have to figure out.
I had a situation where a doctor actually prescribed a long course of the stuff over an ingrown toenail (in part because I was resisting her trying to get me to have an X-ray over it; she was insisting it was osteomyelitis even though it was just a long-term gripe.
Yeah, the combination of physicians who don’t listen to what their patients are asking/telling them or who prescribe antibiotics of any kind unnecessarily/indiscriminately with big pharma’s and/or the medical establishment’s indiscretions (admittedly an inadequate way to refer to them) leaves people in really bad straights when trying to evaluate what might be good for them or, at very least, most helpful.
I’m glad that you investigate medicines under consideration for being prescribed for you and encourage everyone to do so. Being informed is important. The more educated we are the better we can be involved in our own care and the decisions entailed, which are often freighted with balancing options that have bad consequences but must be decided on nonetheless. :-s
Spokesman: Substance at Muslim group’s office not harmful
Thanks Doug. It’s good to know they were able to resolve that fairly quickly. The chance that it would be something like anthrax or something like that were vanishingly small as it’s not an organism that is either easily handled or weaponized. Still, it’s sad that we live in a climate such that we have to take such things seriously.
Thank you for getting this matter public, Glenn. This guy, if he makes it back to the U.S., needs to (1) find the meanest, nastiest defamation attorney he can find and (2) contact the ACLU and ask about joining their ongoing no-fly litigation (see, e.g., Fed. R. of Civ. Proc. 18-20).
https://www.aclu.org/cases/latif-et-al-v-holder-et-al-aclu-challenge-government-no-fly-list
By due process I suppose the authors mean a trial. But trials are an outmoded eighteenth century concept which are inherently fallible due to human error. Watch lists are created by computers that scan a person’s movements, social network, and communications. They can be updated in real time – someone can be added to list for being in a grumpy mood after a poor night’s sleep, but then be taken off it again the next day. So ultimately it will be recognized that electronic lists do in fact constitute due process, and then everyone can just relax and let computers go about their job of ruling the world.
Now Duce, I’ve previously reminded there’s due process and there’s due-due process.
What would classical ‘due process’ look like? Well in the US justice system that means a plea bargain deal, not a trial. The government would offer a person on the no fly list the option of pleading guilty and remaining on the list, or instead be incarcerated indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay. Most people would probably choose to remain on the list. So due process wouldn’t change the outcome.
However, the lawyers making the plea bargain deals would have billable time, so I agree there would be some upside.
“But even more importantly, it’s reflective of the rotting media and political climate that now festers, in which unproven, due process-free accusations against Muslims, unaccompanied by any evidence, are instantly equated with proven guilt.”
Like, for example, the scores of ‘Muslims’ incinerated, filled with lead, sodomized with a blade, buried at sea, etc. worldwide who never get a trail for their alleged crimes yet are assumed guilty by even the most alternative of media outlets.
Erzurum is nowhere near the Syria border, by the way.
Love from Turkey.
Did I fail to mention that I appreciate the piece? Truly.
I like how the “no fly list” is the new flavor of the day as a means to further erode civil rights. It’s now being used to help circumvent the second amendment as if being on the “list” denies the right to purchase a gun. Who or how is one placed on the list? I reckon due process is gone now in a complete surrender to fear. So if one flies overseas and ends up on the list one gets screwed, no questions, no process, just screwed. I just wish the average Joe could really see what’s going on, but no, it’s just allowed to happen. Congress is part of the problem too, as they too have bought into the pervading fear promulgated by nonstop media attention of terrorism. Of which are winning the war, for now.
Congress is part of the problem too, as they too have bought into the pervading fear promulgated by nonstop media attention of terrorism. Of which are winning the war, for now.
Well, that depends on the criteria one uses to evaluate the “war”‘s progress. If you read what these groups say about their intentions – starting with bin Laden and pretty much working yourway down the list – they all want to see us lose our civil liberties, expend our fiscal resources and live in existential fear of our lives. For all intents and purposes and based on that, I’d say that they’re the ones winning. Them and the military/corporate beast we insist on feeding in order to be blinkered enough to think we’re winning this battle in any kind of way. :-s
It doesn’t just happen to Muslims.
No. In fact, the folks at FL/TI are very aware of that – especially Greenwald, David Miranda, Laura Poitras and Scahill, if not others – all of whom have had direct experience with it in one way or another.
Having acknowledged that, it seems a bit churlish to not also acknowledge that Muslims are suffering more than their fair share and have considerably less reliable resources for dealing with the experience.
We have a close friend who is Turkish. His mother has been ill for quite some time and that entails him having to make regular trips between the US and Turkey to help care for her. He spent years as a NATO pilot, as did his brother, but that didn’t stop him from being detained and questioned. And it was made clear to him at the last such incident that it would only get worse if he continued to try to travel to help his mother.
We are a disgusting nation of authoritarian shits who insist on wasting time looking inn all the wrong places for trouble. It’s who we are and we really should accept it and decide which side of the shitpile we choose to be on because it’s not going to end until we all start standing up to it wherever and whenever we see it happening.
It would be nice if it were that simple. You, as a nation of people, are rapidly moving towards becoming the citizens of the most draconian and authoritarian nation to have ever existed on Earth.
Your President just told you in his speech that he can do whatever he likes as he is exceptional, he can go whever he likes, he has enough allies now to enforce his will by proxy, he expects to pass tha baton on smoothly to the next incumbant and that he wants Congress to obey him and that he wants you all to give up your weapons peacefully.
Standing up to someone from the everyday public when they are racist or obnoxious or bigotted or fascist won’t make one iota of difference. You’ve got to do it en masse in Washington, NY, Chicago, LA, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, Seattle, Detroit, and in every city and town or you will be crushed.
You already have 25% of the world’s prison population and another 5million people on parole. You have the worst killings by police rate in the world. You have no equality of justice. You are all being spied upon and the digital records of everything you do is being stored if not there, then now by the British until the NSA can fire it all up legitimately again. You have no realistic enemies overseas yet you spend more on your military than the rest of the world combined.
When I was a kid my mum used to buy me those Join-the -Dots picture books to keep me entertained whilst she worked. I do it now as an adult with what I see in the world around me, but the pictures aren’t nice any more.
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said here.
Standing up to someone from the everyday public when they are racist or obnoxious or bigotted or fascist won’t make one iota of difference. You’ve got to do it en masse in Washington, NY, Chicago, LA, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, Seattle, Detroit, and in every city and town or you will be crushed.
My actual statement was,
It’s who we are and we really should accept it and decide which side of the shitpile we choose to be on because it’s not going to end until we all start standing up to it wherever and whenever we see it happening.
Nothing in it could or should be construed as necessarily advocating individual confrontations over mass ones. I believe both will be necessary.
I have a few questions for the authors:
So why wasn’t the guy removed entirely from the No-Fly list in 2012?
Why is inclusion on the no fly list grounds for detention and deportation from Turkey? Presumably he had already arrived somehow in Turkey when he was detained.
If I had to guess, the US government is probably ticked off this guy got out of the country by traveling through Mexico, when he was denied travel back home to Qatar. The ISIS smear is a convenient method of keeping any pesky congress members from going near the guy again.
Sounds like I can add Pajamas media to the list of propaganda sources that can be ignored.
It sounds like PJ media may have done real damage to this guy, and he could show real, quantifiable damages in a defamation (libel) action. Perhaps they shouldn’t be ignored in this regard.
So why wasn’t the guy removed entirely from the No-Fly list in 2012?
From everything I’ve read – which is by no means all-inclusive so I welcome corrections – it appears the process for seeking remedy is excruciatingly difficult, especially for those with little access to assistance.
http://mashable.com/2014/10/14/no-fly-list-unconstitutional/
In fact, until I found that article just now, the only instances I could recall of anyone being removed were those of actual Congresscritters, like Ted Kennedy, who was only on a “watch” list and not the no-fly list proper. Just look at the trouble he had with that:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/12/09/fact-check-ted-kennedy-and-no-fly-list-myth/77030278/
The litigation is ongoing. See, e.g.,
https://www.aclu.org/cases/latif-et-al-v-holder-et-al-aclu-challenge-government-no-fly-list
I absolutely agree with the criticism here (and by Republicans) of the “no-fly list”. Even when people on it are guilty, it is essential for our morale that we see the evidence and the legal process. Even if that has a negative impact on intelligence gathering, the negative impact of not having rule of law is worse.
However, in this case I’m reading http://www.koco.com/news/oklahoman-family-detained-at-turkeysyria-border/36662090 where KOCO says that they independently confirmed he and his family were held for the lack of a visa. And at least their headline (I wish their text was clearer) says they were held at the Turkey-Syria border.
Whatever else, I gotta ask — who the hell takes their family into SYRIA? That’s not Qatar, and I doubt it’s a big air hub nowadays … and a lot worse things could happen than getting smeared in the press! Of course, we have this weird situation where the U.S. isn’t supposedly at war with Syria, it just bombs the country freely and with complete disregard for its formal government, but in any sane world … taking your kids onto enemy territory as a lark doesn’t sound right.
My feeling is that you have to show he wasn’t actually in Syria to get anything but negative progress out of this.
The no-fly lists are one aspect of the methods of
behavior modification which are being used to reduce peoples
ideas of what is acceptable in the
corporate-owned society.
It is a “win-win” for the fake USA corporate “government.”
#1. It appears to be another example of government invasiveness
and indifference to its own machine-like malfunctioning and
abusiveness of people (in the name of “security”)
when, in fact,
it is a result of the corporate takeover of government which
#2. continues to grow largely because people want to escape
big government and its abusiveness
which leads to
#3. people wanting to hoard more wealth and demand
fewer restrictions on their lives stemming from
safeguards related to human rights and equal justice,
while reducing acceptable beliefs and behaviors to
shopping and compliance in the name of “security”,
just as the corporate elite have been wanting.
As far as this being about muslims, it is noteworthy that
these kinds of offensive programs have never been a problem
in the lives of the wealthiest muslims.
You grip on money determines your rights in the corporate world.
This continues the same theme as in the MSM story. Trump equals money. Yellow Journalism equals money. Sorry to your Intercept but we are reminded that now all of us are journalist. Anybody with a blog can say anything they want without checking their sources, sensationalism for the sake of profits, and plain old conspiracy theories touted as truth. We the people need to remember to be skeptical concerning anything reported by MSM.
Extraordinary, almost unbelievable, except it’s the precise truth.
I believe the America of my childhood is dying, if not already dead.
We are all to blame; we were content to sit on our obese butts, and allow a nefarious bunch of self-serving elites take over.
It’s almost too late.
The only hope I see is if Sanders becomes President, presuming he is not just another charlatan.
If the democrats nominated a predator like Rahm Emanuel
(in a suit or a skirt)
Sanders has stated he would support their candidate.
He also conveniently avoids speaking on foreign policy, except
on the rare occasions like when he has encouraged Saudi Arabia
to do more bombing.
“The only hope I see is if Sanders becomes President, presuming he is not just another charlatan.”
Bernie Sanders: Silent partner of American militarism
Among candidates that will have ballot access in at least a majority of states, the only hope would be the Green Party’s Jill Stein. Barring a miraculous surge in voter courage and rationality, we’re doomed. People are just too easily herded into one of the two football teams- I mean two current ruling political parties.
Still, it’s better to rage against the dying of the light than to simply let it take you sooner.
The evidence-absent labeling of innocents on the watch-list or the no-fly list has been notorious for some years. It equates roughly to the shooting of young, unarmed blacks by law officers who are deluded by their power to be judge, jury, and executioner.
Thank you, Glenn, for casting light on this issue. Most people are not aware of the pernicious, and arbitrary, USA “no fly list” — which is exported around the world as though its claims were proven. They are not. And the first that anyone on that list knows about it is when they turn up at an airport and are denied permission to board. Why? Sorry can’t tell you. Does that make any sense whatsoever? Surely, there HAS to be a valid reason? And, if it was an error, there must be some simple way of redressing it?
The process is chaotic and utterly indefensible. Anti-war activists got placed on that list, as did Senator Edward Kennedy, as well as civil rights attorneys and journalists. Some people were denied permission to fly merely because their name was the same, or similar, to a name on the list. It took Rahinah Ibrahim, a Malaysian academic, many years to get herself off the list (“human error” by the FBI). A US citizen, working abroad and denied permission to leave because his name was on the no-fly-list, ended up in jail because he’d thereby overstayed his visa!
As for Saadiq Long, there is thus far no proof that he is guilty of any crime. The precept of “innocent until proved guilty” seems to have disappeared from the American lexicon.
Whatever happened to libel for such false smears? I would expect to see these so-called media in court answering charges. Of course, since Mr Long is temporarily otherwise engaged, and perhaps not being in the USA. lacks access to the courts, maybe some of his relatives who are still in the USA could file suit on their own behalf on a ‘tarred with the same brush’ argument. I don’t know but it would seem there are some steps that could be taken to attempt to rectify this situation and if successful, enough money damages to put one or more of these execrable outfits out of business.
They should all owe Saadiq Long and his family (whichever members were specifically identified by name–if any) money or other equitable relief.
They libeled Mr. Long and his family members by stating, as fact, that he was a member of a legally proscribed terrorist organization. And by inference that he had been arrested for his membership in same. The first statement is clear actionable defamation. The latter would be tougher. Mr. Long isn’t a public figure, or politician, or inserting himself into a public issue in such a way as to make him a public figure.
I hope he and his family members sue PJ media and as part of any award force them to make a very public retraction on their site, but force them to take out major ad space in every paper that regurgitated any part of that story, reprinting the retraction, and apologizing for the defamation.
As a matter of principle, he should only ask for $1 in damages and let the rest of the relief he seeks be a very public retraction and apology. Damages are hardest thing to prove in a defamation action anyway so why not take the high road unless he know can find no work teaching English which I doubt is the case.
Great read, thanks for highlighting this total and utter fabrication and character assassination of an innocent American Muslim who has served the US in the armed forces.
This incident is also completely typical of the so-called right-wing media. (there was another yesterday of their behavior… the umpteenth Benghazi smoking gun email, which turned out as usual to be nothing new)
One of the sites publishes a story with highly dubious assertions or conclusions, and it is immediately circulated without question by other right-wing sites.
This story had numerous absolutely glaring red flags in it. Not least that no consular official would go on the record saying he’d been arrested. That’s just plain weird. And this fact alone pointed to something else being afoot.
Thanks to your work, we now see it traces back to Saadiq’s long-standing problems with the No-fly List. Which quite evidently they have no problems with until they worry about it potentially infringing on rights they hold dear. When it’s other people, they don’t care.
But fully in keeping with right-wing media behavior, none will apologize for their errors and laziness. They will instead pretend that your reporting never happened.
Copyediting:
“…first writing an article…”—>”…first to write an article…”
“…are instated equated…”—>”…are instead equated…”
Now it is “…instatly equated…” Instantly equated?
“That’s life as an American Muslim in the War on Terror.”
Not only his situation, but the situation of many others, all of whom have unjustifiably been harassed in one way or another by government agencies simply because of their religious choice, is more than unfair – it is criminal.
The fact that you recognize this absurdity is a credit to your credibility.
The grotesque fact that some continue to want to sweep under the rug is that 42% of republican voters cheer Trump and 48% of Americans are willing to vote for him in a general election.
That broad blanket conclusion is an overstatement, and strains credulity. His case is obviously not indicative of the experiences of MOST American Muslims. If you don’t see that, you’re a very biased observer…
Dave:
Well, perhaps not in the details . . .
Americans think Islam is ‘at odds’ with US values, see discrimination against Muslims
Try not to freak out over my using RT as a source. The studies are from the Public Religion Research Institute, which, I think you’ll find, is perfectly credible:
Doug –
thanks for starting to set the record straight. Here is a bit more for our “it is an overstatement friends” …
Countdown to Kristallnacht
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akbar-ahmed/donald-trump-kristallnacht-islamophobia_b_8762076.html?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000017
And, one more for the record…
From our friends at Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/08/muslims-us-islam-islamophobia-data-polls
It is no overstatement – it is a statement that makes you uncomfortable! Perhaps?
Even putting Shariah government totally out of our heads, there are obvious ways that Islam is incompatible. Polygamy is formally recognized in those countries, formally illegal in the U.S. Marrying and having sex with little girls is formally legal in Saudi Arabia and a few others. I think I recall reading the effort to ban that helped set off Yemen’s civil war. And of course on our side, we have our insistence (however timid some have gotten) on allowing blasphemies and other speech that a lot of Muslims really don’t seem to want to condemn the act of opposing by violence.
Of course, none of this means we should discriminate against the Muslims who live in America – they are people, after all, with minds of their own who may have come to put up with American ways (even some, as the anti-polygamy laws, which really are hard to defend). But it is good reason to avoid trying to gulp down a lot of new immigrants who come from a background very different than that of most Americans, when we have so many other options.
I’m too lazy to go into specifics on your insane claims, so just a couple of comments. Re the four wives bit. The U.S. certainly believes in serial marriage. So which is more unacceptable: Four wives at one time, if you can afford them, or a series of marriages, and maybe some more on the side? And marrying and sex with “little girls”? Suggest you study the age of consent in various U.S. states. And banning underage marriage a cause for war? What do you read? Pajamas Media?
“That’s life as an American Muslim in the War on Terror.”
His situation is obviously unfair and unjust, but your conclusion quoted above is quite an overstatement, and hurts your credibility immensely.
“credibility”
LOL
Class A botoxic Oxonian former Tory MP hack dares to pronounce on credibility when her own cred/debility has long, long, long been on the line — LOL.
Why is it “unfair” and “unjust”? What is your evidence? The American muslim community is threatened in myriad ways by the current hate climate in this country. We have been heaping destruction on foreign Muslims for at least 20 years and now the evil is abroad in this land.
Geez, I don’t know – maybe I READ THE ARTICLE before I commented.
Glenn:
Dave:
It sure doesn’t look like an overstatement from where I sit, Dave. I see hatred, intolerance and mistreatment of Muslims, at home and abroad, every day.
Here’s one of the latest reports from “my” “progressive” San Francisco Bay Area:
Prison worker’s East Bay clash with Muslims probed as hate crime
Much more at the source, with video.
I called one of our local Islamic centers, yesterday, to apologize for the hateful, inhumane and un-American behavior of so many of our fellow citizens and politicians. I’m going to do the same with the others nearby and I’m going to visit as many as I can, personally, to express solidarity face-to-face and contribute some bags/boxes of Halal groceries to their food drives.
Any way we we can reach out with kindness and understanding and perhaps reduce the effects of the viciousness, ignorance and hatred . . .
Really? You believe all American Muslims are subjected to the treatment described, regardless of their location, education, employment, and family status?
Seriously, it is an overstatement to make a statement like that, and most American Muslims are not subjected to this type of experience. Hyperbole like that tends to discredit the merits of the article as a whole.
How would a “Dave Ghosen” know what life is like these days for Muslim Americans ?
The reality is , that, even if most Muslim Americans are not experiencing the exact treatment this man has gone through…they are all potentially in the cross hairs of the terrified , paranoid, American security agencies.
All you have to do is turn on your TV and the orange faced progeny of Orangutans and his millions of rabid braying followers will inform you of the evils that Muslims present and how they should be treated.
I give up. If you can’t agree the statement and conclusion of “That’s life as an American Muslim in the War on Terror” is so broad as to be totally unbelievable, then there is no hope for agreement on anything.
And your assumption about what I would know or not know of my own experience is so simplistic, it is just not worth further response.
Enjoy your vanilla sky…
Dave:
Yeah, it probably would be, but since no one here has made such a statement.
Back to “Remedial Review of Logical Fallacies” with you.