What happens next is pretty simple: the flight attendant tells you the subject is inappropriate during flight and asks that you not discuss that particular issue until the plane lands.

The next move is up to you: continue your conversation, or continue to be passengers on that flight. (You may only choose one.)

An innocent conversation that just happens to use the word “terrorist”, the hypothetical you posited, seems to have a very reasonable resolution: when called on it you say, “Oops! Please pardon my carelessness,” and the situation goes back to normal.

If, on the other hand, you argue, “You’re violating my free speech!” then defiantly resume your conversation, well, they have a phrase to describe lawless behavior on aircraft from otherwise law-abiding citizens: Air Rage. They also have a rule for dealing with it: get the wacko off the plane as quickly as possible, before that person really loses it, or worse the hysteria starts to spread.

Who can say why otherwise mild-mannered married people sexually assault flight staff and other passengers? Who can say why normally fearless people get spooked and start shouting things like, “We’re all going to die?” Who can say why a 19-year-old with no history of violent behavior suddenly charges the cockpit and fights to the death when other passengers try to stop him? Who can say why a disgruntled passenger demands to display the word “Terrorist” on his lapel during flight? Nobody really knows why, but airline flights seem to bring out the worst in some people.

Some people will do really strange things on airplanes, things they would never do on the ground. That’s one of the reasons there are special rules of conduct for airline passengers, and that is why flight crews must strictly enforce those rules. The other reason for those underappreciated rules is that a disturbance which escalates to the point it involves the pilot threatens the safety of everyone aboard.

In any event, I don’t believe the doctrine would allow the captain to throw off all Green Party members–“They opposed the war against Iraq, so they’re dangerous terrorist sympathizers. Off they go!”–or those wearing Kansas City Bomber jerseys (the roller derby team Racquel Welch played for in a movie, I believe.) Further, I’ve seen people fly wearing some interesting items since the Trade Center bombing–for instance, a gentleman in a “No Limits” recording jacket, which shows a couple of armed men riding around town in an APC–without trouble.

I’ve heard about two sorts of boarding troubles:

1) Random outrages. The woman forced to drink her own breast milk. The screeners who make people abandon their babies during searches. (Yes, I’m a recent father–why do you ask?) The elderly Marine–I believe a Medal of Honor recipient–who had to abandon a harmless memento.

2) Political denials. People who wear the wrong button, carry the wrong book, or belong to the wrong organization.

What these two classes have in common is that neither is a threat to safety. Sorry, but a little old lady in her seventies from a peace group is not going to pull a knife on a stewardess, even after she’s been denied boarding numerous times for thinking bad thoughts in 1987. (The mother made to drink her own breast milk might well punch the person who made her do it–but would you really blame her? Even if she were to feed a screener a dirty diaper, would she have done so had she not been provoked? Isn’t “drink your own breast milk” fighting words?)

What’s remarkable about this is that the TSA is cutting back on the air marshall program and on screeners, at the same time they claim there is an increased terrorist threat. I mean, you can’t put marshalls on a threatened flight because you can’t pay for their motel?

Normally, I’d dismiss this as political posturing for an increased budget, but this time, it looks like an MBA has been elected as President and, with an analysis in his hand against glory, has decided that true security is too costly to achieve.

What does a manager do in such a case? Does he Churchill up and spend what is necessary? Or does he cut his losses and put a program in place which, once it fails, he can claim was good enough and failed because, well, shit happens?

Mark my words–the next major terrorist act involving an American airplane will be proven to have been enabled by this sort of cost-cutting.

In the meantime, the airlines can continue their silly games of “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button–And What Does It Say?”. The federal government can continue giving them rope with that hand, while they reel in TSA and DHS on the budget leash. Someone, eventually, will pay.

I agree that your example of a conversation starter would probably be inappropriate (although…What if the speaker were an ATF agent and the listener were from the FBI? I suppose the pilot would still be within the law to throw them off).

I was thinking more along the lines of:

“I think the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Agency inflate the terrorist threat and put us through intrusive search procedures as a matter of domestic American politics. It’s a police state tactic to rob us of our civil rights.”

What, I wonder, is appropriate for someone who says such a thing? Prison? The mental hospital? Merely exiled to CarVille? Or citizenhood?

I’m not so sure if you’re not allowed to talk about bombs and terror aboard airlines whether earnestness is relevant.

Saying something serious like, “I used to think Mercury bombs were the way to go, but the Anarachist’s Cookbook raised some very important issues … if the AC thinks they’re too volatile, it’s probably time to look into different materials,” I imagine would get you thrown off the plane.

I’m not a lawyer, but I’m quite sure there’s a “don’t act stupid on airplanes” law … and I suspect it’s on the books precisely because people tend to do just that.

A guy wearing a “Suspected Terrorist” button.

A guy who turns to you and says, “Let’s have a serious theoretical discussion of terrorism and civil liberties.”

Would the second guy be thrown off the plane? Sent off to the pokey?

You say:

“I would guess these two:

‘According to the TSA, YOU are a suspected terrorist.’

‘We are all, passengers and crew alike, suspected terrorists.’

� on the grounds that one is not allowed to joke about terrorism on airline flights.”

But where’s the joke? That’s straight political commentary, made in exactly the place–an airport and an airplane–where the people most affected by the law congregate. Is a time, place, and manner restriction completely whacking that opportunity a reasonable one?

http://apll.freeyellow.com/security1.html

at the very bottom is the comment:

‘The FAA has no policy regulating “specific types of reading material,”‘