Amateur (Rapper) who raps on terror fired as baggage screener

[truthpusher]

http://www.wacotrib.com/hp/content/gen/ap/TX_Airport_Terror_Rapper.html

Amateur who raps on terror fired as baggage screener
--------------------------
By PAM EASTON
Associated Press Writer
--------------------------
HOUSTON — When Bassam Khalaf raps, he's the Arabic Assassin. His obscenity-laced CD, "Terror Alert," includes rhymes about flying a plane into a building and descriptions of himself as a "crazy, suicidal Arabic ... equipped with bombs."

Until two weeks ago, Khalaf also worked as a baggage screener at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

"I've been screening your bags for the past six months, and you don't even know it," said Khalaf, who also said Thursday that he is not really a terrorist and that his rhymes are exaggerations meant to gain publicity.

Andrea McCauley, a spokeswoman for the regional Transportation Security Administration office in Dallas, said the agency checks criminal records before hiring screeners, but it does not investigate what people do in their spare time.

(snip)

Khalaf, 21, was hired on Jan. 16 and fired July 7, according to his termination letter from the TSA.

"Your authorship of songs which applaud the efforts of the terrorists on September 11th, encourage and warn of future acts of terrorism by you, discuss at length and in grave and alarming detail various criminal acts you intend to commit, state your belief that the U.S. government should be overthrown, and finally warn that others will die on September 11, 2005, are all in violation of every aspect of this directive," TSA's Deputy Federal Security Director at the airport, Hector Vela, wrote in the letter firing Khalaf.

complete story: http://www.wacotrib.com/hp/content/gen/ap/TX_Airport_Terror_Rapper.html

[ender]

1. certain people should joke about certain things.

what a friggin idiot.

[ScamUSA.Com]

2. interesting... this has serious repercussions if

companies start holding artists accountable for their art!

(but what a dumbass)

[derby378]

3. It's just anotha homicide, dog

Yo. Check it. Don't be hatin'.

[dxdem]

4. Yeah...

I'm all for first amendment speech...but...uh...duh?

[bhunt70]

5. I think he was wrongly fired.

He has a case. While what he says could be wildy unacceptable I think he has the right to rap about whatever he wants. When businesses start prying into private lives and taking action against the employees (when there really is no correlation) then we have problems.

What if he was a lifelong democrat who got fired for posting on DU but worked for a republican owned comapny?

[IA_Seth]

6. Well...

If the life long democrat was talking about blowing up the republican owned company and saying people were going to die...I would say his ass would be rightly fired for that too.

[bhunt70]

10. yes but I see a difference in a discussion board and a fictional song.

[sweetheart]

7. there's freedom of speech for ya

Nazis can't tolerate dissent... and the noose tightens.

[sui generis]

8. well fuck the TSA

for being pretentious and stupid and saying w-a-y more than they needed to in that letter (that's a whole 'nother essay), but Khalaf is a complete idiot too.

To Mr. Khalaf, look where you live. If you don't like it, think how much worse it would be if everyone strapped a goddamn bomb to their ass every time they got pissed off at the system and killed a bunch of innocent people. It changes nothing in the countries where it happens, except to make your people hungrier and angrier, and any "wrong" you think that western culture has done to the middle east pales in comparison to what you do to yourselves in the middle east.

It's not funny, it's not art, it's not a constructive way to 'get attention' and it's just plain stupid in this day and age. You have a responsibility to your fellow humans, whatever your religious and political beliefs.

How can you expect an emergency room doctor to dig a steering wheel out of your chest after a car accident when you would be just as happy to blow him up because you had a political disagreement? How can you expect a stranger to pull you out of a burning house or protect you from crime or give you shelter in a storm or honor your culture and your individuality if you strike at the very people with whom you live? In America we don't check your cultural heritage card before we decide whether you are worth saving or caring about. We don't check to see whether crime against an individual here should be prosecuted or not based on their culture of origin. We don't check your political and religious card when you come into the emergency room with a heart attack or kidney stones or a knife in your back.

What kind of world is it that you want to live in? Whatever it is, America is too big and too different for you to ever make it a place where flying airplanes into buildings is an acceptable form of political discourse.

Having powerful enemies does not make you important, and there are better ways to become "important" than making powerful enemies.

[bhunt70]

9. sorry I don't agree

Truthfully if we stand behind the works of art like Mapplethorpe, Piss Christ and the photography of Sally Mann then I can't really take issue with what this guy is saying.

Is it tasteless, ill thought out etc, sure. There's a lot of stuff like that but it's not a terminable offense.

He's rapping, he has a target crowd that wants to hear that kind of thing. People do sensationalist bullshit all the time to get attention, it doesn't make it right but it is his right.

He also has a right to a private life that is kept seperate from his professional life. Ice-T and the song "cop killer" caught a lot of flack back when it came out, now he plays a cop on TV. Seperation of Art and Reality.

[sui generis]

11. we can't yell bomb in an airport

or have a drug or alcohol habit and fly a plane.

There is precedent for evaluating what you do in your private life for certain professions. I don't agree with firing the guy for this or doing it as publicly as they did -- that's why I titled my reply that way, nor do I care for the reasons the TSA gave, but I also believe that we have a moral obligation to make a constructive statement about the acts this person is describing. I am very judgemental about glorifying violence as a political statement.

I personally don't care for the "target" crowd that thinks that what this guy has to say is acceptable any more than whatsisname reggae rapping about killing gays, or anyone condoning violence through art. If his target crowd thinks it's cool enough to hear, someone might think it's cool enough to do.

Nonetheless, I know we need to allow people their voice and their expression, except when you yell bomb at an airport or otherwise incite people to violence, but my voice also says that if you're glorifying violence I have something to say about it before it escalates from fantasy to reality.

[hughee99]

16. There's a difference between being a cop

and playing one on tv. I think if this guy were to play a baggage screener on tv, I'd have no issues with him keeping that job. This persons job at the airport is to help to ensure the safety of air travel, and after 9/11, particularly against terrorists. Would someone who appears to sympathize with the terrorists be a security risk? Yes, his rapping has a target crowd who want to hear that kind of thing. Is it reasonable to assume that he associates with some of his target crowd? So what you have is someone who appears to have sympathy for terrorists, and presumably (though I don't know for sure) associates with others who also do. All of that is fine, were he not in a position to aid them. IMHO, while he has every right to his "art", I can certainly understand why he would be considered a security risk.

[bhunt70]

17. I just think it's more of a free speech issue.

I listened to one of his mp3's... eh whatever. He's an american citizen and should be protected under the law for his free speech rights. No, you can't scream fire in a movie theater or talk about bombs in an airport but the reasoning behind that is apparent. Paniced people hurt each other. In this case no one who is having this guy screen their baggage knows he is the "arabic assassin". Talk to the guy, tell him you think it is unbecoming of someone working in an airport to do something like this yes, but I don't see where it constitutes a security risk to anyone.

[hughee99]

19. I see it as putting some in a position...

where they (seemingly, at least) advocate one thing publicly while they are professionally in charge of preventing that same thing. Can anyone see potential issues with Limbaugh or Hannity working for a democratic campaign, an active member of the KKK working security for the NAACP, or the head of NAMBLA running a daycare? These people are all publicly expressing their opinions (as the rapper is) without necessarily breaking any laws.

[bhunt70]

20. sorry, I just don't see the similarities between the circumstances.

On one side you have people that are truly idealogically opposed to each other ie kkk/naacp, nambla running daycare, or limbaugh working for hillary clinton. I just find it totally different that someone expresses themselves through art (like it or not) but suffers a consequence of it at a job in which they may do very well (I have no idea of his performance).

If this guy had been in the taliban before hand then yeah I could understand it, but as it is he's a small time small budget wannabe and I can't figure out what legal reasoning they would have for firing him on something like that.

I read another thread in general discussion talking about a DU poster here who was fired from a christian media selling show because he posted here...I don't see the difference. If both people were able to complete their job and didn't disrupt the workplace then it seems wrong to be penalized for what you say in the hours outside your workplace.

[hughee99]

22. I consider them ideologically opposed to each other...

one groups purpose is to protect the safety of air travel, the other group is trying to make it unsafe.

Just because someone is a spokesman for NAMBLA (sympathizes with child molesters) doesn't mean NECESSARILY that they would molest children, or even that the would be a bad daycare worker. Just because limbaugh has made millions from propping up repukes and their jackass ideas (sympathizes with repukes) doesn't mean NECESSARILY that he would not be a good campaign worker, but there's some reason to distrust either of them in those positions.

It doesn't really matter whether this guy has a small time budget or not. If his albums were more popular, would that change your opinion? To me it doesn't really matter how successful he is as a rapper, because the point is what he's publicly saying, not how many people are listening. If he was the guy who made sure that non-bank customers didn't use the bank parking lot, I'd support your free speech position, but I think that security organizations need to be more discerning then the average employer, because there is more at stake. This isn't a "disruptive workplace" issue, because the big concern isn't that his coworkers will have an issue with him. The concern is that he will not do his job properly, and in airport security, that is a big issue.

[Kraklen]

13. What the fuck are you talking about?!

"any "wrong" you think that western culture has done to the middle east pales in comparison to what you do to yourselves in the middle east."

First, the guy is an American, just as much as you are. Secondly, Iraq is a mess and it's entirely the fault of the United States. We've been bombing the shit out of it for the last fifeteen years and the thirty years before that it was a mess because we installed a guy named Saddam Hussein, and a hundred years before that it was a mess due to horrible Western colonial policies. What the fuck is this business is of putting "wrong" in quotation marks?

"It's not funny, it's not art, it's not a constructive way to 'get attention' and it's just plain stupid in this day and age. You have a responsibility to your fellow humans, whatever your religious and political beliefs."

It is funny. It is art. And in America, he's got a right to do it. So if you don't love America then you are certainly free to leave.

"In America we don't check your cultural heritage card before we decide whether you are worth saving or caring about. We don't check to see whether crime against an individual here should be prosecuted or not based on their culture of origin. We don't check your political and religious card when you come into the emergency room with a heart attack or kidney stones or a knife in your back."

Actually, we do do that here in America, and you jsut did.

"What kind of world is it that you want to live in?"

What kind of world do you want to live in? A world where everybody's white, christian, and only sings about puppy dogs and Jesus?

"Having powerful enemies does not make you important, and there are better ways to become "important" than making powerful enemies."

The only enemies this guy has made are petty racist unamerican pricks. There's nothing powerful about them.

[sui generis]

14. well you certainly seem a bit outraged at my free speech

you even invited me to leave the country. Not a very DU thing to do. Have we spoken before? This is your clue: if you want to joke about blowing people up by flying airplanes into buildings while working for the organization that is supposed to help keep motherfuckers from flying airplanes into buildings then I have a problem with you.

Feel free to leave the country yourself, let me send you an embossed invitation - if that is the way you really feel.

Don't, DO NOT, bleed at me about being white or christian, puppy dogs, and jesus because the shit you are implying is truly profoundly personally offensive to me.

You may now pause to remove your dainty size eight smurf boots from your mouth. I know Iraq is a mess. I didn't make it that way, and I sure as hell don't condone our policies there now or in the past. Remember what side I'm on and spare me your artificial misdirected misguided outrage sung with half a brain on the downside of a bad meth hangover or whatever the hell it is you did to fuck up your perception of the world so thoroughly.

If you want to attack someone, please direct it somewhere that matters - not at your fellow DU'ers. I have lots of other things to say if you want to step outside, but the main thing I want to say in public is that you completely mischaracterized me in your reply, and it is uncalled for. I meant every word I said in that post. You don't have a leg to stand on in your reply.

You and I don't deserve to be airplane bombed no matter what evil this administration does in Iraq, so consider what you think you're going to say in reply this time.

And please don't ever call me a christian unless you want to really piss me off.

[Kraklen]

15. It's not your free speech I'm outraged at.

But I'm not about to fire you.

[sui generis]

18. okay, apology from sui

I am an acid tongued hot head and sometimes type before I think. but Kraklen, I do disagree that we should be able to shout fire in a crowded theatre -- especially if you're the usher.

I understand art and expression but if I were a rap artist who thought this was a cool thing to do, I would have to be prepared to be fired by people who don't want to even remotely risk that I might be serious, or might attract someone who could play on my weaknesses.

Similarly, advertising that you work for the TSA and have access to secured areas means that somebody creative and evil has some very useful information should they decide to pull out the stops and really do some damage.

I hate that there have to be steps made onto this slippery slope but I also think that we have to be able to say what constitutes a risk situation based on many factors in peoples' lives. Again, I am against drug testing as a condition of employment for everyone, EXCEPT people whose careers involve looking out for the safety of others. Similarly I would have to be concerned about their affiliations, stated public opinions, and other criteria that I would use (in addition to their work, since most people are the same person at work as they are at home) to determine their suitability for a particular job.

Hope that's a more level headed reply -

-sui

[Dead_Parrot]

12. Fired for the wrong reason...

He shouldn't have been fired for writing rap songs. He should have been fired for being a dumbass. What the hell did he think would happen?

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

21. Show Ali G sum Respek ! I watch his show on HBO as often as possible!

Does you think that a baggage checker shouldn't do music?