Friday, July 20, 2007

Report Suspicious Activity? No Way.

Here's a piece of news guaranteed to have steam shooting out of your ears:

Democrats are trying to pull a provision from a homeland security bill that will protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leadership aides.

Rep. Pete King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, sponsored the bill after a group of Muslim imams filed a lawsuit against U.S. Airways and unknown or "John Doe" passengers after they were removed for suspicious behavior aboard Flight 300 from Minneapolis to Phoenix on Nov. 20 before their removal.

"Democrats are trying to find any technical excuse to keep immunity out of the language of the bill to protect citizens, who in good faith, report suspicious activity to police or law enforcement," Mr. King said in an interview last night.

"This is a slap in the face of good citizens who do their patriotic duty and come forward, and it caves in to radical Islamists," Mr. King said. "I don't see how you can have a homeland security bill without protecting people who come forward to report suspicious activity," Mr. King said.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, initially opposed the legislation for fear it would lead to racial profiling.

Why would they do this? Why would they not want to immunize people from lawsuit who witness suspicious behavior that turns out to be benign? How can the government on one hand urge citizens to be vigilant and report suspicious behavior and on the other tell us that if we're wrong we can lose everything we own in a lawsuit?

It's hard to take Rep. Thompson's racial profiling excuse seriously so what's the real reason? Are the Democrats that beholden to the trial lawyers? Are they in the back pocket of CAIR (Council for American-Islamic Relations)? Whatever the answer it's astonishing that Americans would continue to vote for these people.

RLC