A Case of Mistaken Priorities

Via Gmail (God I love it), I received a link to a CNN news story involving a man who was arrested for breaching airport security to give his girlfriend a kiss.

Yes, CNN is employing the principle of infotainment in making this a significant story, but the details of the incident reflect a more pressing concern I’ve noticed in American society. That is, that our justice system has no common sense.

First of all, upon the man (Haisong Jiang, 28) ducking under the ropes to kiss his girlfriend goodbye, the terminal he had passed through had to be shut down for hours, and thousands of passengers had to be rescreened. It delayed several flights.

Jiang breaching security

Now, I know the airport was just following protocol, and I know, I know there are inherent flaws in American airline security. Every stand up comedian in the world knows that. But couldn’t the security personnel who witnessed Jiang ducking under the rope have simply deduced that Jiang was doing the duty of every good boyfriend, and simply kissing his girlfriend goodbye before going on a flight? Was he endangering anyone, really? Could they not have simply rescreened Jiang and not thousands of bystanders? I mean, honestly, if there is a breach such as this, that doesn’t mean that the terminal must be shut down. And what logic is followed by rescreening everyone that had already passed through? It’s one guy!

If that’s not humiliating enough, Jiang was later arrested, and although his conviction was minor, he is required to pay nearly 700 dollars in fines and do 100 hours of community service. The article notes that Jiang is finishing his Phd at Rutgers (Wow what a threat to society), and from my own experience of being in college (albeit for a far shorter time, for a far less significant degree and at a far less important school) I know that 700 dollars is quite a bit to swallow.

Basically his life sucks right now. Really, really hard. Should he have known not to mess with U.S airline security? Of course, but he’s Chinese, so there perhaps was a slight language/culture barrier at work.

But here’s the part that is the most off base, and shows the greatest deviation from common sense. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey (Where the incident occurred), is trying to pass a bill that would increase the penalty for an intentional breach of security to a 10,000 dollar fine and up to 10 years in prison, in reaction to this ‘incident’. Lautenberg stated to Jiang before Jiang was identified that “You’ve committed what essentially is a crime.” Soo even you, Fred R. Lautenberg, can’t definitively say there was a crime committed? And you want to substantially increase the penalties for it, knowing full well the man meant no harm?

Another part of the bill includes mandating the use of more security cameras in airports. I have a feeling that security cameras are plentiful and where they need to be in U.S airports, and requiring additional cameras sounds frivolous and costly. But you know everyone is going to vote for any measure that says that, because “That’s just the cost of freedom.” And, “You can’t put a price on our nation’s security.” Securing freedom has now surpassed our nation’s children as the one thing you can never vote against without being labeled a commie traitor.

There is a bias on the part of CNN, of course, as the article notes how Jiang is “doing research on a cure for glaucoma, cataracts and other eye diseases.” It also throws in how Jiang would like to, as part of his community service, work, “at a hospital, soup kitchen, medical clinic, something like that.” CNN is obviously trying to play up Jiang’s good character and innocent intentions.

But the moral of the story is how, in the interests of “ensuring our liberty,” the United States will gladly throw away common sense and human decency. And what can you say against that, without being labeled as not caring about our nation’s safety? 9/11 really fucked up our culture; thanks a lot Bin Laden.