Where have we come to?
February 15, 2008 5:59 PM   Subscribe

Homeland Security run amok. American Samoa's delegate to the U.S. Congress is calling for an investigation into the death of a baby at Honolulu International Airport.

""Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Guess we forgot that part.
posted by HuronBob (37 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: single link axe grindy news filter - this is really not a good post for metafilter. -- jessamyn



 
.
posted by HuronBob at 6:01 PM on February 15, 2008


I can just see the Homeland Security asking, "Why are all these Samoans sending us messages that just say 'Ufa!'?"
posted by mullingitover at 6:06 PM on February 15, 2008


Links a bit light on details there.

Not that I can really imagine why detaining a 14 year old baby on it's way to emergancy heart surgery would ever be a good idea.
posted by Artw at 6:07 PM on February 15, 2008


The linked article is only 6 sentences.
posted by benightedly_heedful at 6:07 PM on February 15, 2008


After the numerous cockups with TSA and DHS. After Katrina. After this. How the fuck does Michael Chertoff still have a job?
posted by birdherder at 6:09 PM on February 15, 2008


"Not that I can really imagine why detaining a 14 year old baby on it's way to emergancy heart surgery would ever be a good idea."

Much less a 14 day old baby.
posted by bz at 6:09 PM on February 15, 2008


Er, yeah, whoops.
posted by Artw at 6:10 PM on February 15, 2008


Totally best of the web.
posted by Bugbread at 6:11 PM on February 15, 2008


A little more info here http://starbulletin.com/2008/02/13/news/story02.html
posted by HuronBob at 6:15 PM on February 15, 2008


flagged, because linking to a six sentence MSNBC article is bullshit.
posted by Justinian at 6:16 PM on February 15, 2008 [2 favorites]


Yeah, but the baby still died huh Justinian?
posted by Max Power at 6:18 PM on February 15, 2008


more here...sorry for the lack of links in the original post, I was a bit outraged..and reacted as such.
posted by HuronBob at 6:20 PM on February 15, 2008


... and our country has reached a new low.
posted by Mach5 at 6:25 PM on February 15, 2008


Well, the baby was detained only 30 minutes, which is small compared to the trans-Pacific flight, but what DHS did is still bullshit as far as I'm concerned.
posted by crapmatic at 6:28 PM on February 15, 2008


I'm against this.
posted by mazola at 6:28 PM on February 15, 2008 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: Babies dying in aiports don't cause us outrage, but links to news stories that are 6 sentences long do (even if a longer story is posted in an earlier comment).
posted by about_time at 6:36 PM on February 15, 2008 [2 favorites]


Yeah, that's what I'm against.
posted by mazola at 6:37 PM on February 15, 2008


Patients that are critically sick and flying internationally on commercial planes should have some kind of special escort waiting for them to help them with customs and immigration. The editorializing in this post is unbelievable. How the fuck are well-intentioned people supposed to prepare for a "I JUST GOT OFF A PLANE AND MY BABY'S GONNA DIE IN TWENTY MINUTES IF WE DON'T GET IT TO A HOSPITAL" type of scenario if there is a mix-up at immigration? Oh wait, let's blame America.

Flagged.
posted by phaedon at 6:37 PM on February 15, 2008 [1 favorite]




Of course, that is identical to the link in the OP. Yay for the Advertiser no longer using its own reporters. :/
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:39 PM on February 15, 2008


Barack Obama's America would have fixed this, right after he changed the baby's diaper and rocked it to sleep.
posted by aswego at 6:40 PM on February 15, 2008


Wow. It really surprises me that people have forgotten how to think. Everything turns into a 'by the book' situation instead of looking at it case by case. Anyone with common sense in this situation would have looked at a 14 day old with a very serious heart condition and said, "Hey, we shouldn't detain these people."
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 6:40 PM on February 15, 2008


Well, when you have martinets carrying out the official policy against Terror you have to accept a few casualties. It's Terror, after all: doesn't it seem justified to carry on a war against this?

Oh, bugger it. No amount of irony, or arch commentary, or snide asides, can add to what has already been expressed impotently on MetaFilter. I'm a Canadian, and if I were an American I wonder whether I'd have the courage to stand up against what is happening there. I'm not, so I choose not to wonder.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 6:40 PM on February 15, 2008


I'm a Canadian, and if I were an American I wonder whether I'd have the courage to stand up against what is happening there. I'm not, so I choose not to wonder.

I think a lot of people feel overwhelmed by our country's terrible and often embarrassing judgment and other's are just desensitized by it all.
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 6:44 PM on February 15, 2008


I think a lot of people feel overwhelmed by our country's terrible and often embarrassing judgment and other's are just desensitized by it all.

I think a lot of people are just desensitized and that explains our country's terrible and often embarrassing judgment.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:48 PM on February 15, 2008 [1 favorite]



I think a lot of people feel overwhelmed by our country's terrible and often embarrassing judgment and other's are just desensitized by it all.


I'm just waiting for you to tell me to vote Obama so we can avoid situations like this in the future.
posted by phaedon at 6:49 PM on February 15, 2008


"I think a lot of people feel overwhelmed by our country's terrible and often embarrassing judgment and other's are just desensitized by it all."

A good point, and perhaps why I linked this is such a crappy manner... It was a WTF moment... and then a "this needs to be known" instant..

the question is...now what do we do...? how do we respond to this...? I don't have the answer, other than to contact my Senators and Representatives and protest what we have become, and to stand on a steet corner with a sign once in a while, and continue to communicate that things are not right here....
posted by HuronBob at 6:51 PM on February 15, 2008 [1 favorite]


"I'm just waiting for you to tell me to vote Obama so we can avoid situations like this in the future."

There isn't a candidate in this race who has committed to correcting what we've become.. That's up to us. It doesn't matter who the next president is, if we aren't vocal about what we expect this country to be.
posted by HuronBob at 6:55 PM on February 15, 2008



I think a lot of people are just desensitized and that explains our country's terrible and often embarrassing judgment.


Good point.
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 6:55 PM on February 15, 2008


Flagged. Godawful outrage filter post.
posted by LarryC at 6:59 PM on February 15, 2008


"I think a lot of people feel overwhelmed by our country's terrible and often embarrassing judgment and other's are just desensitized by it all."

A good point, and perhaps why I linked this is such a crappy manner... It was a WTF moment... and then a "this needs to be known" instant..

the question is...now what do we do...? how do we respond to this...? I don't have the answer, other than to contact my Senators and Representatives and protest what we have become, and to stand on a steet corner with a sign once in a while, and continue to communicate that things are not right here....
posted by HuronBob at 6:59 PM on February 15, 2008


oops
posted by HuronBob at 7:00 PM on February 15, 2008


An infant that fragile never should have been on a commercial flight, ever. An air ambulance should have been transporting it the whole time. Blaming TSA is so fucking stupid. You might as well complain about the quality of your McNuggets. We get the system we deserve because we elect the leadership we think we need.
posted by docpops at 7:02 PM on February 15, 2008


I agree with you doccops, but that still doesn't really seem to make it right. It's not like the flight took too long or the service was shite. If the McNuggets are going to kill you than you have a right to complain.
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 7:06 PM on February 15, 2008


We get the system we deserve because we elect the leadership we think we need.

We don't get the system we deserve because the current administration was not in fact elected by a majority of the nation's citizens. And thanks to Diebold's (or whatever they call themselves now) handy-dandy electronic voting vote-fixing machines, we may never again elect the leadership we think we need. And blaming the TSA is not "fucking stupid". The border agents (who essentially have free reign in decisions at regarding detainment and such) are precisely to blame.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:15 PM on February 15, 2008 [3 favorites]


Paging panamax.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:19 PM on February 15, 2008


The linked article's light on details, but the other stories provided in the comments give important context.

They locked a mother, nurse and baby in a room and refused to let the nurse and baby leave despite a minor irregularity in the mother's paperwork (she had a US passport).

The problem here is rigid and inflexible thinking on the part of TSA personnel. That tells me that they've hired and promoted unintelligent people, who are seriously disconnected from the real mission of the organization, operating in a bureaucracy that is focused on CYA rather than doing their job.

We need a TSA that provides incentives for hiring better personnel instead of mall security guard rejects, evaluates performance based on customer satisfaction instead of harassment, and decentralizes authority so that managers can better adapt security procedures to local needs.

phaedon
I'm just waiting for you to tell me to vote Obama so we can avoid situations like this in the future.

That strawman you've got there is made of dead baby parts. That's not a great way to either score points, make a funny or be taken seriously.
posted by xthlc at 7:43 PM on February 15, 2008


« Older FreakAngels   |   Talk about Talk is Cheap Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments