Penn State Professor Arrested For Rant On Plane Speaks To WPHT
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Penn State University professor Karen Bettez Halnon was arrested earlier this week after smoking and going on a rant while on an American Airlines flight from Nicaragua to Miami.
She cited the "United States declaring war on Venezuela" as what inspired the incident.
Halnon told Talk Radio 1210 WPHT midday host Dom Giordano that with Venezuela being called a "national security threat" she had to find a medium to voice her displeasure in and due to elimination of most public forums by privatization, she did not have many options.
"You utilize the techniques that are available to you to get attention to a message. The message is that the United States has expanded its military global domination to Venezuela now."
While she understood the risk that she was taking by her actions and the possible consequences that may follow, Halnon feels that her act of civil disobedience was "entirely necessary."
"The FBI and the TSA tortured me when I got off that plane. They chained me. They tied me up, I asked to go to the bathroom repeatedly, they would not let me go to the bathroom. They made me soil myself completely and then they laughed at me...Torture is not democracy."
One of the consequences of her actions abroad and on the airplane, she feels is biological warfare. She feels that just like the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whom she is under the belief that the United States gave him cancer via a rogue agent, she is a victim of biological warfare and she feels the CIA behind it.
"How would I have a parasite when I was on a plane since November 28th? I was perfectly healthy in the proletarian paradise but I was arguing with someone on the plane, I fell asleep for a few hours and somehow I have a parasite. I lose my hearing in my ear for two months and that parasite still has not gone away. Whatever it is, my doctor cannot find it...I had some kind of insect come out of my ear eventually. The things that the CIA does are bizarre."
The associate professor of sociology at Penn State Abington stands by what she did, saying that "the United States are committing acts of terrorism every single day of the week. I am using my voice. If people are afraid of a voice, that is a barometer of where we are."
