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American Morning

Are Airlines Violating Civil Liberties Because of Worries of Terrorism?

Aired June 05, 2002 - 09:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: So are the airlines violating civil liberties because of worries of terrorism? Joining us now from Washington, Jonah Goldberg, Editor of the "National Review Online," and Hussein Ibish, with the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Good to see you both of you, welcome.

All right. Jonah, I want to start with you this morning. Are we talking about illegal discrimination here or defensible tactics during a war on terror?

JONAH GOLDBERG, EDITOR, "NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE": Well, I don't think it's illegal discrimination. That's obviously what these court cases are going to decide. But earlier you posed the question: Is this discrimination or is this security, as if only can be one or the other, and I think it's actually both.

I have no doubt that these people were treated unfairly and inconvenienced unfairly. The question is, you know, is that unreasonable in the current context? Lots of people are inconvenienced everyday. Five hundred thousand people fly every day. Women, who are almost never terrorists, are inconvenienced every day. Everybody is inconvenienced. Sure it's unfair, but in this context, you don't have a constitutional right not to be treated unfairly in this context because everybody is treated unfairly.

Is it disproportionate to these guys? Probably, but no system is perfect. And if that system has to be perfect to be fair, then we're never going to have a fair system.

ZAHN: Hussein, what kind of balance do you think needs to be struck between security and freedom? Where would you draw the line?

HUSSEIN, IBISH, AMERICAN-ARAB ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE: Well, I think the important thing to understand about these cases -- and, by the way, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee that I represent is a co-plaintiff in three of the cases. The reason why we brought these cases is that they're not cases about security. These men were not actually considered to be security risks. They were not subjected to any furthering questioning or any further searches. It's just that other passengers were uncomfortable with them because of the way they looked, and they were ejected from the plane.

I think that what lies behind this is the fact that there aren't any guidelines for pilots and crews to deal with this kind of situation. Since October, we've been urging the Department of Transportation to work with the airlines, the Pilots Union, and groups like us to try to create guidelines and safeguards and have some training for crews. Or, at least to give them some written guidelines so that they would know how to deal with a situation like this.

What we've ended up with is a situation where, frankly, simple discrimination has resulted in people being unlawfully removed from airplanes before they take off. And even the government has admitted that this is, as they said, quote, "not only immoral, but illegal." And I think that we will find that in these suits.

ZAHN: I would want to share with both of you now a piece -- an op-ed piece written by a self-described liberal, Nicholas Kristof (ph). And he wrote, "Civil libertarians are dishonest in refusing to acknowledge the trade-off between public security and individual freedom. Young Arab men are more likely to ram planes into nuclear power plants than are little old ladies. And as such, they should be more vigorously searched -- though with no less courtesy."

"As risks change, we who care about civil liberties need to realign balances between security and freedom." Now, Hussein, I know you said your cases that you are a co-plaintiff in are basically not about security, they're about racial profiling. But what about this point that Mr. Kristof (ph) raises?

IBISH: Well, I think he raises an important question, which is, you know, how do we create a reasonable balance where there is a set of defined risks and where there are, in fact, all kinds of other risks floating around? I'd like to remind the viewers that since September 11th we've had the Anthrax murders, the mail-bomb bombings, the JDL leadership in California in jail for a bomb plot, the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, and other...

ZAHN: Right.

IBISH: ... incidents where racial profiling wouldn't have been helpful. So, you know, obviously you have to take all factors into consideration. And we want to be reasonable here. We want to work -- in cases like this, we want to work with the Pilots Union, with the airlines, with the government, to come up with some sort of system, some sort of structure that would provide crews with guidance with backup, with some sort of idea of what is and isn't reasonable. And would provide also passengers with some sort of recourse.

I think we all agree we need security.

ZAHN: Let's let Jonah weigh in on that. Jonah, your thoughts on that. I know you say that maybe Arabs are disproportionately affected by some of the screening that goes on at airports, but Lord knows we are all effected by this. What kind of formula would you create here?

GOLDBERG: Well, I mean, I have no problem with guidelines. I somehow doubt that all these airlines have zero guidelines on this. And I would also dispute something about this individual case. The case that you had in the setup piece, three people were pulled off of that plane on New Year's Eve, when there were numerous terrorist warnings that day.

I mean, there is a context for what happened on that day. And these men were -- who obviously were not terrorists, we know after the fact, were -- there was activity going on between them according to news reports I've seen.

IBISH: Only two of them.

GOLDBERG: Only two of them, but at the same time, this is not a perfect system.

IBISH: The activity was they were having a conversation.

GOLDBERG: Yeah, well, on New Year's Eve. Look, I understand. It's unreasonable after the fact. But all sorts of things are unreasonable after the fact. Airlines reach -- you know (UNINTELLIGIBLE) airline security people reaching into my mom's blouse to search her is unreasonable too.

IBISH: Yeah, I understand.

GOLDBERG: And the point is, is that...

IBISH: There is a line. The line is that the law allows for heavy security searches for everyone. And, in fact, you can create reasonable profiles that are not racially based, but include all kinds of different factors and that's reasonable. The problem is the law doesn't allow for people to be denied service and thrown off of airplanes after they've been cleared by security because a passenger is worried about the brown skinned man.

GOLDBERG: Well, the law does allow pilots to have the discretion to fly who and when and what they want in these circumstances.

IBISH: No, that's not right. I think that pilot's authority is properly broad and needs to remain broad. But it doesn't extend to arbitrarily racial discrimination. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 trumps pilots' authority, in my view.

GOLDBERG: You stipulate that it's arbitrary discrimination, I do not.

IBISH: Yes.

GOLDBERG: And that's one of the reasons why you're bringing this to court. If this were obviously racial discrimination pure and simple, then this wouldn't be brought to court because everyone would agree on it.

IBISH: Well, we think we will be able to show that.

GOLDBERG: OK. Well then that may be the case. But my point is that, look, it is very easy to sort of -- to pick a handful of cases, and it's no coincidence that three of these -- well, two of these cases came on the same plane on New Year's Eve. And the idea that somehow this fellow was inconvenienced so radically that he missed a flight on New Year's Eve. I've missed flights on holidays. Lots of people have missed flights on holidays.

The idea is to put this in a certain context and understand...

IBISH: Yes, but you haven't been thrown off of an airplane because you're a white Jewish-American male. I mean, this man, Mr. Dasrath (ph) is from Guyana.

GOLDBERG: Right.

IBISH: The other two men, one is a Filipino, the other one is an Indian. I mean, you're talking about basically anyone of color suddenly becoming a suspect because another passenger just looks at them and says the brown-skinned men are making me nervous.

ZAHN: Hang on. Jonah, you get the final word here. Is that OK be flagged simply because of your ethnicity?

GOLDBERG: I think it's OK to be scrutinized simply because of your ethnicity. But that doesn't mean that if you don't find anything else or any other reason for reasonable suspicion that that should be the only factor. Hussein has said that we should consider all factors. And as far as we know right now, certainly all Muslims aren't terrorists. But so far, all the terrorists in this context are Muslims. And you have to take that into account, and that creates some unfair circumstances.

ZAHN: And we have to move along here, gentlemen. Thank you both for your perspectives this morning. Hussein Ibish, good to see you again. Jonah Goldberg, welcome back to you as well.

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