Abstract

Loose Cannon

The author argues that it is hypocritical for U.S. officials to treat Nathaniel Heatwole, who committed serious security violations, with leniency, while meting out harsh punishments to Muslim terrorism suspects. He's an intriguing moral bellwether, Nathaniel Heatwole. Heatwole is that nice young college student who tossed his life away by planting bleach, matches, box cutters and fake explosives on planes, resulting in delays and renewed passenger jitters, as law enforcement initiated searches of airplanes throughout, the United States.Heatwole declared himself engaged in a mission of "civil disobedience with the aim of improving public safety for the air-traveling public." It was an interesting claim, if a familiar one in the annals of crime: It may look like I was joyriding in that little red Corvette, but really I was just testing the security. Think of it as a public service. You passed--now unhand me. Heatwole's rationale was hacker justice run amok, or worse, a genuinely risky sort of Russian roulette. (What if the wrong person had found those knives and those matches before the FAA did?) His deed certainly bears no resemblance to civil disobedience within the tradition of passive resistance. It was an act of aggressive vigilantism. I do marvel that he has been handled with such comparative leniency in an era when others, whose alleged misdemeanors did not result in anything like the havoc and disruption of Heatwole's crimes, have disappeared into military brigs, perhaps for the rest of their lives.