Imams Removed From US Airways Flight Drop Passengers From Lawsuit
MINNEAPOLIS — The six Muslim leaders who were removed from a US Airways flight last fall after passengers thought they were acting suspiciously will not include those passengers in their lawsuit against the airline and police, an attorney for the imams said Wednesday.
A motion to amend the complaint to include the names of airline employees and police officers was entered Tuesday in U.S. District Court, attorney Frederick Goetz said.”We’ve identified the people we think are responsible,” he said. No passengers were named.The imams, who were handcuffed and questioned, say the airline discriminated against them and violated their civil rights during the November incident at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
A passenger raised concerns about the imams through a note passed to a flight attendant. Witnesses also said the imams made anti-American comments about the war in Iraq.
The imams have said three of the men said their evening prayers in the airport terminal before boarding the plane, and that they entered the plane separately, except for one member who is blind and needed a guide. The men did not sit together. The original decision to include passengers in the lawsuit led to concerns that people would be reluctant to report suspicious behavior for fear they would be sued. But last week, lawmakers in the U.S. Congress reached a deal on a homeland security bill to include language that would give immunity from lawsuits to people who report suspicious behavior. The bill was crafted in response to the imams’ case. An attorney for the imams has said the lawsuit’s intent was not to go after passengers who raise valid security concerns.
Goetz said the amended complaint had “absolutely nothing to do” with the action in Congress.
They dropped the suit because they didn’t stand a snowballs’ chance in hell. These 9/11 immitators knew damned well what they were doing and what the result would be. It’s another version of playing the race card. Blame the ensuing tension on ‘discrimination’ instead of deliberate, suspicious behavior. The hesitation of the airlines to profile is stupid to begin with. They’re not yet smart enough to figure out that it’s OK to yank Muslims out of the security check point and scrutinize them a bit closer than the other passengers. Frisking an 80-year old ‘white’ female in a wheelchair under the pretense of ‘randomness’ doesn’t pass the common sense test.
When I returned from a military assignment in Korea in December of 2001, an airport security Barney Fife decided to confiscate a once inch hem remover from my small uniform sewing kit. I know Soldiers are trained to be deadly, but I could only laugh at him. I said, “look, if I tried to assault someone with a tiny object like this, how far do you think I’d get?”
No matter, it was considered contraband.
There’s all kinds of nightmares recounted by passengers who were subjected to overzealous, brain dead airport security checkers. When innocuous property is taken from innocent passengers and real potential terrorists are given scant observation, the bad guys have already won.
I rarely fly anymore because I’m more concerned about the ridiculous security methods and the lack of sound judgement on the part of TSA employees. If they had applied the same stringent standards to the Muslim terrorists who posed as pilots and passengers as they do harmless travelers, 3000 people might still be alive.