Muslims on a Plane

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Who hasn’t at one time or another discussed airport security while waiting to take off? How about the size of one of those jet engines? How about the safest place to sit on a plane? Pre-9/11 I discussed all three. I’d never been thrown off a plane for discussing them. Are such discussions prohibitively suspicious post-9/11?

Well, apparently it depends on who you are. On January 1, nine American citizens of the Muslim faith were removed from an AirTran flight after fellow passengers overheard “suspicious remarks”, i.e., the subjects in the previous paragraph. Kashif Irfan, 34, is an anesthesiologist. His brother Atif Irfan, 29, is a lawyer. Both were born in Detroit and live in Alexandria, VA with their families. They were traveling with their wives, Kashif Irfan's sister-in-law, a friend and Kashif Irfan's three sons, ages 7, 4 and 2. All six adults were in traditional Muslim garb – the men wearing beards and the women in headscarves. Beards and headscarves and Muslims, oh my!

The pilot ultimately decided not to fly relying heavily on the 2 on-board air marshals who reported the suspicious discussions by these American Muslims to airport security. The 104 passengers were ordered off the plane, their persons and baggage re-screened – minus, of course, the 9 American Muslims with beards and headscarves.

AirTran’s side of the story:

AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson agreed that the incident amounted to a misunderstanding. But he defended AirTran's handling of the incident, which he said strictly followed federal rules. And he denied any wrongdoing on the airline's part. “At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane, and other people heard them," Hutcheson said. "Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."

“It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance.” Oh really! So that did make the difference between these 9 Americans and, let’s say, 9 Americans in the common garb of the Orthodox Jewish Hasidic, Hindu, Buddhist or Eastern Orthodox faiths. How about Sikh’s and their turbans? Were Mr. Irfan and party subjected to blatant religious and ethnic discrimination? I think so, but it doesn’t matter. As legislation and paranoia continue to work for the Feds and at least some airlines, huge chunks of the Constitution are crumbling into the abyss of executive prerogative. [Federal agencies are under the executive branch.]

AirTran apologized, refunded the cost of the 9 tickets and today agreed to compensate them for their tickets on US Airways and fly them no charge to Washington, DC. After the completion of the security investigation, AirTran told Mr. Irfan and party that they were now welcome to fly AirTran. So, AirTran screens American Muslims on a case-by-case basis. Not surprisingly, Mr. Irfan and party found a future flight on TransAir to be unlikely. What may well be likely is a trip to a lawyer chomping on the bit for juicy lawsuit against AirTran.

The post-9/11 shredding of the Constitution harkens back to 1942 when the US government incarcerated more than 120,000 of its own citizens, mostly Americans of Japanese descent. The 1942 incarceration was based on the dual criteria of being of Japanese heritage and having homes and businesses on the US West Coast. Even today’s most security-minded of politicians and pundits agree that incarceration of Americans in concentration camps based solely on race/ethnicity was among the great travesties of American justice despite post-Pearl Harbor security concerns. As an added footnote to ethnic religious criteria, white Americans of German heritage on the US East Coast were not incarcerated.

We have stood by mute as Constitutional rights were unilaterally adjusted, pared down and/or shredded by the executive branch in the name of national security since 9/11. [See any recent, objective article on or interview with Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney.]

I have faith that the Obama administration will work to reverse the desecration of the Constitution by the outgoing administration. Let us all not forget what we are protecting by being security conscious – our freedom to live under the basic guarantees of rights in the United States Constitution. Speak up with security concerns. Also speak up when your and others’ constitutionally protected rights are trampled in the name of those same security concerns for it is those very rights sought to be kept secure.

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