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Comment by sethbannon | Hacker News Reader

How often does this happen and not get blogged about? If you want to help stop this from happening again, I suggest donating to the ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-give

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This post was unbelievably painful to write.

I didn't want to relive the experience - I wanted to forget about it, but a friend of mine convinced me that I needed to let people know that these things happen, for that exact reason. That's why I wrote it.

I immigrated to the U.S., but I grew up here, it's my home, I love this country (perhaps even more than some people that were born here), and I consider myself an American.

So, from a fellow American, thank you for having the courage to set aside your emotions and write about this experience. People need to hear about these incidents. Your post won't change the political system, but it changed, ever so slightly, the consciousness of thousands of people that read it. It counts for something, and it's important!

Thank you.

Just wanted to let you know that as a fellow Indian, I find your experiences extremely traumatic. However, you did the right thing to raise awareness about the issue. I've written strongly worded mails to JetBlue (CEO and their CS Director). Commercial airlines cannot continue being dicks and ignore tons of complaints without affecting their profitability. I'm sure a personal apology from them will be forthcoming (with perhaps a refund for the extra payment).

As someone whose family was interned in camps not long ago, I appreciate you sharing this. We should not forget what atrocities we are capable of.

There is an episode of Crossing Jordan I saw recently that is similar to what you experienced.

What triggered the government to hold the guy in the show was that he actually traveled to India for a week, you were merely trying to fly across the country.

Thanks for sharing your experience, nothing will ever change unless enough of these stories come out.

The ACLU has abandoned any pretense of actually being concerned about civil liberties in favor of being a generic left-wing advocacy organization. For example, just recently they were perfectly happy to throw out a commitment against double jeopardy in order to stoke some standard left-wing racial grievances[1].

I used to think if you donated to both the ACLU and the NRA you could cover all your civil liberties pretty well, but I don't think the amount of good coming out of the ACLU is worth it anymore. At least the EFF is still pretty good, even if airports are a bit out of their domain.

[1] http://www.volokh.com/2013/07/18/correction-re-the-aclu-and-...

Have you actually looked at ACLU's policies, legal actions it's taking, or talked to anyone who works for/with the ACLU, especially at the state or local level? They are absolutely defending our civil liberties.

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