Korean War Vet on "No-Fly" List for Opposing Bush [Updated x3]

Think of America under George W. Bush as one great big Disney exhibit. We're all in the virtual Soviet Union of 1955 now.

At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years."

"I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said. "

The story here isn't only that Professor Walter F. Murphy, emeritus of Princeton University and veteran of the Korean War can't get on an airplane in his own country, although that's a big story in itself. The bigger story is what the American Airlines personnel said.

"Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said."

The TSA would of course deny that - they probably already have. But to have someone that close to the scene actually say that? That warrants a bit of investigating.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall and TPM are now on the story.

UPDATE II: This guy "debunks" the story. I don't quite buy it. Quite. He's obviously very knowledgeable on the subject, but, as I said above, the bigger story is what the airline personnel said. It flies straight in the face of this "debunking," and airline personnel surely know more than the average person about the TSA.

With everything we know about this administration and its willingness to inject politics into every facet of governmental machinery, debunking this story requires a lot more than one guy from Wired magazine saying, "It's totally like not true. Trust me." No disrespect to him, but Professor Murphy deserves more than that.

UPDATE III: Looks like the criticism in the comments of Ryan Singel at Wired's Threat Level blog has had some effect. He's changed the title to "Questioning Debunking the 'Professor On Watchlist for Free Speech' Story," with this update:

I've changed the title to reflect the fact that I can't prove that the professor isn't on the list for his political speech. I'm skeptical that's what happened but I'm trying to figure out exactly what did happen.

Also I changed the last sentence to read far left rather than left, so as to be more precise. I do think that Kafka is more germane than Orwell, but I wasn't trying to say that a huge percentage of the populace is crazy. A longer explanation can be found in the comment section.

The ACLU answers questions about the No-Fly list.