Reality check

Lee Rankin needs to give his head a shake. He’s the lawyer representing an Asian man who put on the disguise of an old man and boarded an Air Canada flight in Hong Kong.

Rankin says Canadian officials are “playing dirty” with the Asian guy by publicizing his case. He’s especially concerned that the CNN cable news outlet in the USA obtained a copy of the pictures.

So, let me get this straight. A guy gets on a plane in Hong Kong coming to Canada. He’s wearing an elaborate disguise and has a fake boarding pass. No one knows his intentions. Any chance he might be wearing potentially exploding shoes or underwear? Might he have a weapon of some sort concealed somewhere? (If he got through security wearing a heavy silicone mask, who knows what else he might have on or in his body?) And this lawyer is worried about the guy’s privacy??? I think he gave up that right when he put on the mask.

Rankin, by the way, downplays the mask: “said that while the elaborate silicone mask the man donned before boarding Flight AC018 on Oct. 29 is unique, it's not much of a departure from the dyed hair, wigs, fake passports and other false means that thousands of people use to enter Canada illegally every year.” He went on to say that this guy is probably somehow connected to one of the Chinese gangs.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but shouldn’t we be focusing on the fact that this guy got on a commercial passenger plane wearing a disguise and carrying fake ID? I’ve flown a couple of times in the last few weeks and I certainly would not want to be thirty thousand feet in the air with someone who is clearly hiding something. The guy should be put back on a plane, without a disguise, and sent back to wherever he came from. I just hope it’s not my hard earned taxpayer dollars paying for Rankin’s rants.