andrewducker | More on Gilmor's ejection from a BA flight

Lawrence Lessig has a response from John Gilmore to the various email's on the subject of his removal from a plane for wearing a "Suspected Terrorist" badge.

I flew to London on Virgin Atlantic two days after the BA incident. I am happy to report that I wore the button, and that neither their passengers, cabin stewards, nor pilots were hysterical. I wore the button in London. I crossed the Channel where the crew gave the shorted possible glance at my passport. I wore it yesterday in Paris.

The button is not a joke. It’s a serious statement which one may agree or disagree with. The point that people seem to be missing is that a “suspected terrorist” is not the same as a “terrorist”. Yet, that’s exactly the conflation that has occurred: treat every citizen like a suspect, and every suspect like a terrorist.

In London and Paris the newspapers are taking Guantanamo seriously — because their own citizens are imprisoned there without trials. The corrupt US government was careful to remove the one US citizen they found — but the citizens of other sovereign countries, even those of very close war allies, are in prison. Without trial and without lawyers, and with intent to try them in front of judges sworn to take orders from the President. I have no doubt that American citizens, such as myself, would be treated in the same way if the public and the courts would let our fascist leader get away with it.

On the BA flight, in my carry-on bag, I had brought the current issue of Reason magazine, which has a cover story with my picture and the label “Suspected Terrorist”. (It didn’t even occur to me to censor my reading material on the flight; I must need political retraining. I hadn’t read most of the issue, including Declan’s piece in it, plus I wanted to show it to Europeans I met on my vacation.) During the British Airways incident I never removed the magazine from my bag, but supposing I had done so, and merely sat in my seat and read it, would that have been grounds to remove me from the flight (button or no button)?

There's more, and I pretty much agree with him all the way.