Sinn Fein Leader Held at DCA -- on Terror Watch List

First Ted Kennedy, then a 1-year old baby: our super-effective Terror Watch List hasn't exactly been great at snagging terrorists.  But it's hit a new low: last night, the leader of Ireland's Sinn Fein, Gerry Adams, was detained and searched at Reagan National Aiport because his name appeared on the terror watch list:

Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA-allied Sinn Fein party in Northern Ireland, was detained at a Washington airport after attending a St. Patrick's Day event at the White House, according to a congressman.

More below...

Congressman Brian Higgins, a New York Democrat who had invited Adams to speak at the Buffalo Irish Center, told the audience Friday night that Adams did not make it to Buffalo in time because he was detained at Reagan National Airport. [...]

"When I spoke with his assistant a little while ago, their luggage was still being, let's just say, inspected," Higgins told a crowd of several hundred people.

How does it end up that a world leader who met with the president is detained for suspected terrorism just hours later?  Higgins said that Adams should not have been on the list, and he's right.  It's pretty much embarassing that this even happened.

Time and time again, the terror watch list has been misused and completely ineffective.  Now that we're not just detaining our own leaders, but those of foreign countries, it's time that we reevalute it.  

•  I think

  Gerry farted at the reception and King George was not amused.

  by madbernie on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 07:05:26 AM PDT

•  Local Buffalo coverage

  Here is a link to an article from the Buffalo News:

  During his visit to the United States, Adams has criticized the administration for refusing to grant Sinn Fein a permit to conduct fund raising, the only political party from Northern Ireland facing such a ban. Sinn Fein is allowed to raise money from supporters, but not at events that Adams attends, and the ban forced the party to return about $100,000 collected at a breakfast in Washington on Thursday.

  At that event, Adams criticized President Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland.

  (snip)

  Adams was among the political leaders Bush invited to the White House for traditional St. Patrick's Day festivities. This is the second time authorities have stopped Adams from visiting Buffalo. He was scheduled to come in 1985 when the city hosted a convention of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, but visa issues prohibited his departure from Northern Ireland.

  The attendees at the Buffalo gathering were quite upset when Brian Higgins broke the news to them that Adams would not be attending. (I saw this on the local news.) The Buffalo article also goes on to say that Adams wouldn’t be making the trip to Buffalo at this time, but that he does plan on visiting sometime in the future.  (Also, as a side note, Brian Higgins is a democrat who won by a very narrow margin during the last election cycle.)

  by Ellicatt on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 08:17:14 AM PDT

  •  Lets try that

    link again!

    by Ellicatt on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 08:18:59 AM PDT

•  Why is that a new low?

  The IRA (or at least the "Real IRA"[unsure exactly what that is])  is considered a terrorist organization by the United States Department of State, and has been since well before September 11. Sinn Fein is, as you said, a political party which has strong ties to the IRA. How can you even compare holding a guy who actually has ties to a terrorist organization to holding a 1-year old baby, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, or U.S. Representative Don Young, much less call it a "new low?"

  Frankly, holding the leader of Sinn Fein means the TSA is actually doing their job for once.

  by DemocraticLuntz on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 08:26:44 AM PDT

  •  FWIW

    The "real" IRA isn a splinter group that doesn't want peace. If you knew anything about Irish and British history, you would be chewing on your foot rather than make a statement that the TSA employee are doing their job by detaining Adams.

    by Irish Patti on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 08:30:02 AM PDT

    •  That's what I figured, but I still think that

      that's still an infinitely bigger link than any links between Iraq and Al Qaeda (at least before the Iraq War, since the war itself created links), and I'm still not convinced it's anywhere near as much of a screwup as the other three I've listed (whatever Adams's personal opinions are of any fringe IRA groups, I would be surprised if he hasn't at least met someone involved in one of them).

      by DemocraticLuntz on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 09:34:12 AM PDT

      •  So by your logic

        Anyone with any degree of knowledge of a maybe someone involoved with something is a terrorist. With the idea of 6 degrees of separation, we should all just get on a boat to Gitmo.

        by Irish Patti on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 10:09:04 AM PDT

      •  And I know someone who knows someone...

        who knows someone...and that's why he should be on the list?

        Fer crying out loud. Do you know anything about what's going on over there? The whole thing is appx. 5,000 miles in size. Adams lives and works in West Belfast. Sinn Fein headquarters has a cage and camera set up at the front door...something about it being targeted in the past.

        You can't walk a block without meeting someone who was physically touched by the Troubles. And the Real IRA's "most high profile member is Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, the sister of the late hunger striker Bobby Sands." (link) So...ummm...duh...no doubt he's met her at at least one demostration since Bobby's hunger strike.

        Several years ago, I had dinner with a friend and some of the folks she knew from work. At that dinner, I met Pat Finucane's brother.

        by kredwyn on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 10:41:56 AM PDT

  •  and Adams...

    is the head of a political party.

    The actual IRA, as opposed to the splintered faction, has been in decommissioning talks for quite some time. If you'd been paying attention, you'd know that they are already in the process of turning over their weapons.

    Given the progress that Adams and Hume (and Trimble) made back in 90s to get Northern Ireland this far, it's a low.

    by kredwyn on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 10:29:36 AM PDT

  •  Gerry Adams is an elected Member of Parliament

    As a young man, he was arrested for selling newspapers that expressed a point of view not sanctioned by the British.  He was subsequently rounded up in a "sweep" along with other community activists and charged with IRA membership.

    Since being elected president of Sinn Fein in 1983, he's made peace a priority, and was the only politician at the time willing to meet with IRA leaders and begin persuading them to seek peaceful solutions to their goals of a united Ireland.

    
    Meanwhile, pro-British loyalist violence continues, and no one asks the unionist politicians what they're going to do about it.

    by CoolOnion on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 05:29:25 AM PDT

•  In this era

  Anyone who believes tht imperialism be it American or British is wrong, bad and immoral, is a terrorist. Didn't you get the memo? All they want from you is your permanent complicance and for you never to think. Gerry Adams is a hero of mine. One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.

  by Irish Patti on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 08:27:01 AM PDT

  •  agree and disagree

    I support the right to self-defense; anyone with shred of knowledge about N.I. history will understand why the Provisional IRA was founded and where it drew its stength.

    That being said, Adams has a lot of unanswered questions about him, and how  people close to him, like D. Donaldson, ended up being British spies.

    by bigbay on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 09:42:48 AM PDT

•  Let me get this straight

  Adams can get into the WHITE HOUSE and get close to the president, but he's not allowed to fly.

  Even for these guys, that's pretty fucked up.

  by devtob on Sat Mar 18, 2006 at 09:06:50 AM PDT

•  In a related story, the GAO got past screeners

  Our homeland security dollars at work--screeners detain an elected Member of Parliamentm who was invited here by our government  after he'd already met with the President; meanwhile, the GAO got past screeners with bomb-making material:
  Bomb-making materials get through US airports

  Security screeners at 21 airports across the United States failed to detect bomb-making materials during recent tests by government agents, US officials said yesterday, citing a classified report.

  "The fact that government investigators were able to pass through TSA's (Transportation Security Administration) screening at 21 major airports with bomb-making material is frightening," representative Bennie Thompson, a Democratic member of the Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement...

  Probably, Gerry Adams was detained because the Bush Administration got wind of a speech Adams made on March 15 at St. John's University, talking about stuff like universal health care, making statements like this:

  “Over one billion people live on less that one dollar per day,” Adams said. “Eleven million children die from curable and preventable diseases that we have the cure to. They would only cost us maybe 40 to 50 cents.”

  Articles about Gerry Adams' St. John's speech:

  Maith thú (Well done)

  Activist for Irish peace visits STJ

  by CoolOnion on Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 05:50:07 AM PDT