One week after Green Party USA activist Nancy Oden was barred from boarding a November 1 flight at the Bangor International Airport, debate over what really happened rages on. The veteran political activist from Jonesboro, Maine, says she was "flagged" for extra security checks because of her public opposition to the war in Afghanistan and was not permitted to board an American Airlines jetliner bound for Chicago, where she planned to attend a Green Party USA convention. "I walked away thinking, ‘This is it. They’re picking on people known to be nonviolent but who are political dissidents,’ " she told the Phoenix last Tuesday. "I have spent much of my life speaking out against authority. What else could I think?"

Airport officials, however, offer a very different account. In a November 3 article, American Airlines spokesperson Kurt Iverson told the Bangor Daily News, "She was uncooperative during the screening process" and refused to stand still while the staff tried to wave a metal-detecting wand over her. "If they can’t submit to screening," he said, "federal regulations require that they not be allowed to board the plane."

Sounds like a he-said-she-said mess, right? Let’s consider the facts. First, we know that since the September 11 terrorist attacks, security has been tightened at all the nation’s airports, including Bangor International, where armed National Guardsmen monitor boarding gates and passenger lists are checked against a terrorist-watch list compiled by the FBI. Second, we know that new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations call for increased passenger screening, either at random or based on a certain "profile." Third, we know that Oden was singled out for extra security, although authorities attribute that to how she’d bought her ticket — via the online service Priceline.com — not to her 30 years of political activism.

Finally, we know that Oden had a run-in with airport security. At one point, as two women wearing rubber gloves poked through her bags, Oden reached for one of them. A National Guardsman grabbed her by the wrist. "He said to me, ‘Get your hands off! Don’t you know what happened on September 11?’ " she recalls. Oden says she jerked her arm away as the guardsman "started spouting off this pro-war stuff." She continues, "I told him that I didn’t need to hear a lecture about our country’s war."

The comment may have pushed the guardsman’s buttons. Yet Oden denies failing to cooperate with the search. To hear her tell it, she anticipated the heightened security and kept a calm demeanor throughout. She says things were peculiar even before she got to the security searching area. When she approached the American ticket counter, she says she stated her name and then pulled out her itinerary and ID. The official didn’t bother to look at her ID. He simply handed her a boarding pass with a big S on it. "I asked what the S was for," she recalls, "and he said it was for ‘search.’ He said, ‘You’re flagged to be searched.’ "

That Oden was granted a boarding pass in the first place raises an interesting question: would someone on the FBI terrorist-watch list be issued a boarding pass? We may never know the answer. When asked, FAA spokesperson Hank Price replied, "We cannot comment on our screening procedures for national-security reasons."

Too bad. That detail happens to be the one piece of information that might settle the debate over what happened. Since Oden went public with her story November 3, she’s been the subject of endless speculation among political activists and civil libertarians alike. One camp argues that a known dissident could easily become caught up in a government sweep. The other dismisses her as a publicity hound and, in the words of one, "a run-of-the-mill kook."

Oden doesn’t seem especially bothered by her critics. "I’ve been an outspoken activist for 30 years," she explains. "I know tension." She hopes people will look beyond the smear campaign and see the bottom line: after a law-abiding citizen was searched and cleared, she was still prohibited from boarding her flight. "This is about civil liberties," Oden says. "I don’t think we should kill democracy in order to save it."

Issue Date: November 8 - 15, 2001

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