Posted 3:39 PM by Floyd

John Gilmore, who is on the board of civil liberties lobby EFF, was featured in Lawrence Lessig's blog two weeks ago. Gilmore pulled a stunt on a British Airways flight: He wore a button that said "I am not a terrorist." Before takeoff, a steward and the captain of the aircraft asked Gilmore to remove the button. Gilmore refused, and the plane was returned to the terminal and Gilmore was ejected.

This little act of civil disobedience hardly met with universal approval. Jeff Jarvis has called him paranoid and deluded, and today Richard Bennett added this nasty, dismissive swipe: "Gilmore wore the button in order to provoke a reaction, and then whined and cried like a little girl when he succeeded. His is not the behavior of a serious, rational person."

At the time, there was quite a debate in Lessig's blog comments. I posted my own comment, and then forgot about the whole matter.

Today Lessig posted Gilmore's response to his critics. This was a long, somewhat hysterical screed. For example:

...

Let me also say in my defense that I seldom fly these days, so I am not used to life in a gulag. I had zero expectation that my refusal to doff a button would result in the captain returning the plane to the gate. But even if I did fly often, my response would be the same: to constantly push back against the rules that turn a free people into the slaves of a totalitarian regime. I push back using the rights granted me by the constitutional structure of the country, plus my own intelligence and resources. Way too many of you readers are like the Poles who, under orders from swaggering bullies, built the brick wall around their own ghetto...

...

All this was of theoretical interest only until I hit the last few paragraphs:

Above, Floyd McWilliams posted a perfect example of what’s wrong with this debate:

Gilmore is insulted by being labeled a “suspected terrorist.” Okay, but then how would an airline figure out that he’s a peaceable fellow except by, well, identifying him? Did he expect to be labeled a low security risk because he wasn’t swarthy?

No. I expected to be treated as peaceable because I had not breached the peace. I expected to be treated as innocent because I was not guilty of any crime.

You can see my response here. Let's just say I was not amused.