Airline agents conduct random-name interrogations yet deny their targeting when challenged

Evidence

We were flying and they called out my father’s name right before boarding the flight, and they were like, “Can passenger Zaid please come up to the front?” … So we all went up there and we’re just like, “Okay, what is the problem?” They’re like, “You guys are traveling together as a family?” They brought two guards that were standing there. It almost seemed like they were about to take him to the back and do some kind of extra questioning or whatever … and they were like, “This is random, sir.” My dad’s like, “I’m sorry, it’s not random.” And they’re like, “Yes, it is.” And my dad was getting upset, and we’re like, “Dad, calm down. Don’t make a scene,” but we would have that a lot for the first two to three years after 9/11. — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 187

Categorization

• XREF: The agents’ insistence on ‘random’ despite obvious targeting repeats the book’s central tension: surveillance that is denied even while it happens. Connects to the reader’s interest in the interior experience of being watched — the family pleading with the father not to ‘make a scene’ is visceral.
• SHARE: The exact exchange — ‘It’s random, sir.’ / ‘I’m sorry, it’s not random.’ — is a perfect anecdote for someone studying how state power gaslights its targets.