Posted on 01/03/2002 1:10:30 AM PST by kattracks
An Arab-American Secret Service agent assigned to protect President Bush has hired an attorney after being kicked off a commercial flight on Christmas Day, officials said yesterday.
The agent, whose name is being withheld for security reasons, was questioned about his identity before being barred from the American Airlines flight.
Civil rights attorney Christy Lopez of the Washington law firm Relman & Associates has taken the case, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The council has filed a civil rights complaint alleging the pilot ordered the armed agent off the plane only because he was an Arab-American.
Bush said last week that he would be "madder than heck" if his bodyguard was booted from the flight because of his ethnicity.
The American-Islamic group announced yesterday that a passenger who was sitting next to the agent on American Airlines Flight 363 has come forward alleging the agent was "kicked off the plane because of his race."
Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin declined to comment.
American Airlines claims the pilot ordered the agent off the flight to Dallas-Fort Worth because his paperwork contained "inconsistencies."
Was that what it was? I seem to remember that he was on that particular flight because another commercial flight was cancelled?
What is perfectly clear is that he didn't follow procedure. Far as I know, he hadn't made any arrangements with the first commercial flight he was planning to be on to travel armed, and he sure as h*ll hadn't made any with the one he was on. That is a breach so bizarre for an SS agent that you have to wonder about the motivation for it, and I don't care if the critter is brown, white, yellow or blue.
And - if it was an assignment change made by his superiors, wouldn't thay have made the necessary arrangements with the airline, if they wanted him to travel armed? And what would be the point in him travelling armed when he wasn't protecting anyone, anyway?
This has so many questions attached to it that for you to come running, yelling "racism" is simply stupid :).
Ah. You have some inside dope from the SS which you would like to share, or what? Or is it just a claim from CAIR?
Lol. If you get a call from my tinfoil salesman, it's just a ruse to deploy some new mind-control antennas around your place. Ooops...
You didn't address any of the questions, of course. You're contributing to your own stereotyping, I'm afraid ;).
They did? Could you cite some proof of this, please? I have seen threads saying that the agent did not, in fact, arrange with the airline in advance to travel armed.
The head of the Secret Service should remove him from the detail and even from the service. It's supposed to be "secret" for a reason.
But that would be offset by the good feeling we'd all have that the airlines were being politically correct and not employing racial profiling. < /sarcasm >
That is not entirely true, and you know it. I do loathe the "Palestinians", more or less as a group. I also dislike the Islamics, as a group. Nothing to do with race, but strictly from the viewpoint of where terrorist acts are emanating from.
As for my cultural and religious background - different from yours, obviously :).
I'm more worried about who stays in the woodwork: The next terrorist who wants to hijack an American Airlines jet, needs only to present some forged documents - don't forget the firearm - and act like an SS agent.
It's a sad day when the Secret Service becomes PC. This is the Secret Service, the folks who get paid to get between the President and death if neccesary, for heaven's sake. Not for people who gets their feelings hurt and get a lawyer.
So, loyalty to King George II is more important than loyalty to your country?
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