John Gilmore: I was ejected from a plane for wearing "Suspected Terrorist" button

After the whole interaction was over, I offered to tell her, just for
her own information, what the button means and why I wear it. She was
curious. I told her that it refers to all of us, everyone, being
suspected of being terrorists, being searched without cause, being
queued in lines and pens, forced to take our shoes off, to identify
ourselves, to drink our own breast milk, to submit to indignities.
Everyone is a suspected terrorist in today's America, including all
the innocent people, and that's wrong. That's what it means. The
terrorists have won if we turn our country into an authoritarian
theocracy "to defeat terrorism". I suggested that British Airways had
demonstrated that trend brilliantly today. She understood but wasn't
sympathetic -- like most of the people whose individual actions are
turning the country into a police state.

Annie asked why she, Annie, was not allowed to fly. She wasn't
wearing or carrying any objectionable buttons. Carol said it's
because of her association with me. I couldn't have put it better
myself -- guilt by association. I asked whether Annie would have been
able to fly if she had checked in separately, and got no answer.
(Indeed it was I who pointed out to the crew that Annie and I were
traveling together, since we were seated about ten rows apart due to
the full flight. I was afraid that they'd take me off the plane
without her even knowing.)

Annie later told me that the stewardess who had gone to fetch her said
that she thought the button was something that the security people had
made me wear to warn the flight crew that I was a suspected
terrorist(!). Now that would be really secure.

I spoke with the passengers around me before being removed from the
plane, and none of them seemed to have any problem with sitting next
to me for 10 hours going to London. None of them had even noticed the
button before the crew pointed it out, and none of them objected to it
after seeing it. It was just the crew that had problems, as far as I
could tell.