Air Canada as Censor: Words you can’t say in Gate 27
Christie Blatchford had a bit of a run in with the security state last week. In her article in Saturdays Globe Blatchford recounts the excitement that began with a discussion of ongoing terrorism trials in Canada:
… I told Rosie about some evidence at the Khawaja trial, particularly the testimony of a key witness, himself a convicted al-Qaeda operative, about the loose connections between the Khawaja group and others who had succeeded – one was a London Tube bomber, and two unnamed others were described as completed a mission in Israel, presumably a suicide bombing.
It was at that point that the Air Canada clerk at Gate 27 approached me.
“Excuse me,” he said, “you can’t say those words. Those words are illegal.”
“What words?” I asked, bewildered, given that by then I’d said probably 2,000 words.
“Suicide bombing,” he whispered.
She insisted that, although the state has criminalized making jokes or threats in an airport, it is not illegal to recount public evidence or discuss one’s work. Eventually, she is confronted by security who agreed with her. The earlier clerk was unswayed:
When we boarded a little later, I asked for the ninny’s name. He refused and hissed, “If you make a scene, I’ll call the pilot and you won’t be flying tonight.”
I was so very tempted to tell him to go ahead, but I knew he probably would do it and I wanted badly to get home, so held my tongue. I was quietly praising myself for my steely calm when another passenger remarked, “I didn’t know you were an anarchist, Christie.”
None of this makes Canada safer. Nor does it make Ms. Blatchford an anarchist, which she is certainly not.
As Cory Doctorow writes, “If terrorists are a danger… then the only way to be safe is to talk about real threats and real countermeasures, to question the security around us and shut down the systems that don’t work.”
What benefit to Canada is gained by demarcating zones of where certain phrases are not to be uttered?
We are not well-served.
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The truth in a nutshell, or what I won’t read on vacation - Christie Blatchford
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