New Terrorist Threats: Follow-up

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By Annie Jacobsen - Page 1



Last Tuesday morning, WomensWallStreet.com (WWS) published my first- person account of a recent Northwest Airlines flight that I took from Detroit to Los Angeles called "Terror in the Skies, Again?" A heads up about this article went out in our Daily Cents email -- our subscriber newsletter which primarily features financial tips and information for women.

On Wednesday morning, the WWS page views were unusually high, something like 10 times the normal amount. Apparently our readers had been emailing the article to their friends, family and colleagues and everyone was reading it.

By Thursday morning, that number had again multiplied ten-fold. It felt like the shampoo commercial from my youth: they told two friends, then they told two friends, then they told two friends. We sat in the WWS offices reading through your emails, taking stock of what you had to say. As the afternoon went on, the number of people reading the article continued to increase and the telephone was ringing off the hook.

And then a powerful thing happened. The mainstream media started calling.

The following statement was made by Daniel Drezner, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, on his website danieldrezner.com:

"I received a mass email linking to this disturbing first-person account by Annie Jacobsen... I can say that the e-mail sent to me and other bloggers was cc-ed to movers and shakers in the mediaspere -- Bill Keller, David Ignatius, George Will, Anne Applebaum, and Nicholas D. Kristoff. So they're certainly aware of the story... I'd like to see real journalists dig deeper into this."

​

Dig they did. NBC was the first major news outlet to contact WomensWallStreet. The producer I spoke with on the telephone said the FBI had confirmed that 14 Syrians were on the flight, they confirmed the details about what happened upon landing in Los Angeles, and they said that the accounts from the flight attendants regarding what happened during the flight matched the accounts given by me and my husband to the FBI after we landed.

Then I spoke with a producer from ABC. She explained that she could not get Dave Adams, Head of Public Affairs of the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM), on the phone. So she asked me some of the questions that she had wanted to ask him: Where exactly did this band of 14 musicians play? What was the name of the band? Who booked the band and what kind of music did they play? Did anyone follow up and actually witness these 14 men performing at their desert casino gig? I had none of the answers, even though I had asked Adams these exact questions myself when we spoke last week. The ABC producer also asked me other questions which had crossed my mind after hanging up with Adams. Did I know anything about their return flight on JetBlue? Did the men go back to Syria? Did I believe FAM's story?


And I now have another important question... Is there a link between my experience on flight #327 and the arrest of Ali Mohamed Almosaleh by customs agents at the Minneapolis Airport on July 7 (approximately one week after my flight)? Almosaleh was traveling from Damascus, Syria, to Minneapolis on KLM/Northwest Airlines. According to CNN.com, "Agents found Almosaleh to be carrying what they described as a suicide note and DVDs containing anti-American material."

It was initially reported by CNN.com that the man "is not known to the intelligence community, and that his name was not on any terrorist watch list." The following day, on TwinCities.com, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that Almosaleh "had something with him indicating a connection with at least one known terrorist." So, did a more thorough check of the man reveal this critical new information? Remember, according to Adams, FAM checked the 14 Syrian men on my flight against the terrorist watch lists. They found no match, so they let them go. I wonder what might have happened if the 14 Syrians on my flight had been looked into more thoroughly?

Since publishing the first article, I have received dozens of emails from people in the airline industry, including flight attendants, captains and pilots, some of whom I have also spoken with on the telephone. As of Sunday morning, to my knowledge, WWS had received no emails from anyone in the airline industry suggesting that the incident described in my first article did not happen. Here is what some of them are saying, all of it on the record.

 

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Page 2

Jeanne M. Elliott, Security Coordinator for the Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA), which represents the flight attendants of Northwest Airlines, said, "By the uneducated eye, and to those who don't walk in our shoes, it may have been perceived that we were doing nothing, when indeed we were putting the safety and security of those passengers as our first priority."

​

In a letter sent to WWS, she also states, "…the needs of this nation's flight attendants to adequately perform aviation security functions have been delayed and/or ignored." (Click here to read Elliot's letter in its entirety.)

​

Gary Boettcher, Member, Board of Directors, Allied Pilots Association, said, "Folks, I am a Captain with a major airline. I was very involved with the Arming Pilots effort. Your reprint of this airborne event is not a singular nor isolated experience. The terrorists are probing us all the time."


During a later phone conversation I had with Boettcher, he told me that based on his experience, it was his opinion that I was likely on a dry run. He said he's had many of these experiences and so have many of his fellow captains. They've been trying to speak out about this but so far their words have been falling on deaf ears.

According to Mark Bogosian, B-757/767 pilot for American Airlines, "The incident you wrote about, and incidents like it, occur more than you like to think. It is a â€ËÅ"dirty little secret' that all of us, as crew members, have known about for quite some time."

Rand K. Peck, captain for a major U.S. airline, sent the following email: "I just finished reading Annie Jacobsen's article, TERROR IN THE SKIES, AGAIN? I only wish that it had been written by a reporter from The Washington Post or The New York Times. My response would have been one of shock as to how insensitive of them to dare write such a piece. After all, citizens or not, don't these people have rights too?

But the piece was in The [Wall Street] Journal, a publication that I admire and read daily. I'm deeply bothered by the inconsistencies that I observe at TSA. I've observed matronly looking grandmothers, practically disrobed at security check points and five-year-old blonde boys turned inside out, while Middle Eastern males sail through undetained.

We have little to fear from grandmothers and little boys. But Middle Eastern males are protected, not by our Constitution, but from our current popular policy of political correctness and a desire to offend no one at any cost, regardless of how many airplanes and bodies litter the landscape. This is my personal opinion, formed by my experiences and observations."

​

This brings us to the heart of the matter -- political correctness. Political correctness has become a major road block for airline safety. From what I've now learned from the many emails and phone calls that I have had with airline industry personnel, it is political correctness that will eventually cause us to stand there wondering, "How did we let 9/11 happen again?"

During a follow-up phone conversation, one flight attendant told me that it is her airline's policy not to refer to people as "Middle Eastern men." In addition, many emails have come in calling me a racist for referring to 14 men with Syrian passports as Middle Eastern men. For the record, the Middle East is a geographical region called just that: The Middle East. If you refer to people who come from countries in this region (including Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq) as "Middle Easterners," you are being geographically correct. We call people Americans and Canadians and English and French. I call my relatives who live in Norway Norwegians. So really, what is the hang up?

The fact that I quoted Ann Coulter seems to have many people up in arms. I want to be clear -- there is no political agenda here. I quoted Ann Coulter for the information she had, not for who she is. Read the quote again and pretend Joe or Jane Doe wrote it. She states the facts. The facts she states are that 10 days after 9/11, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta sternly reminded airlines that it was illegal to discriminate against passengers based on their race, color, national or ethnic origin or religion.


Perhaps the title of Michael Smerconish's new book sums it up: "Flying Blind. How Political Correctness Continues to Compromise Airline Safety Post 9/11." On June 24, Smerconish testified before the U.S. Senate about the role political correctness plays in protecting airline security in a post-9/11 world. Click here to read his full testimony.

I keep thinking back to a photograph I saw in the Los Angeles Times called "Falling" by Pulitzer Prize winning AP photographer Richard Drew. It's a photograph of a man, his body is stretched out, one knee at a right angle, as if he's lying on a couch, watching television in the living room, relaxing and enjoying life. But he's not. It's a photograph of a man falling from one of the top floors of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. This man jumped to his death, most likely because it seemed a less painful way to die than being engulfed in flames.

This picture is haunting. For a long time I kept it in my office. I still think about this picture and I wonder about this man --- his daily life, what he did for work, what he did for play, what his thoughts were about the world. I think about this person. I think about the meaning of "dry run." And then I think about what it means to be politically correct. And I keep coming up blank.

 

[sgu]

Very Scary indeed

This stuff is scary...Thank goodness for people like Anne Jacobsen and the WSJ for publishing important information!

 

[Resume Writer]

I am confused about something. Does Women's Wall Street have any connection to the Wall Street Journal? From what I read on their home page, it is a subsidiary of Women's Wall Street, Inc. Can anyone clarify this for me?

Not to say that the article is any less of a journalistic piece if there is no affiliation, but I think people are assuming there is a connection.

Kathy

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

Thank God for Annie Jacobsen (womenswallstreet.com)? How about a thank you to Jayson Blair, former writer for the New York Times? He gave us a lot of credible information.

When I first heard about Annie's article, I read about it, and then read her article, and her follow up. I was skeptical at first, and then got even more so the more I read.

A flight attendent is going to know how many Federal Air Marshals are on her flight and where they are sitting? She would, as Annie says, risk her career to tell a passenger. She would tell this passenger, a perfect stranger, security information? How did she know that this person was an innocent passenger, and not a highjacker???

All this crap supposedly happened and the captain didn't divert? No one was thrown in jail? There were no big articles/coverage about this in LA?

What I found out today just confirmed (and deepened) my suspicions.


Today, I was in our recurrent security class with our Director of Security. He said he had read about this also, and said he didn't believe it. He confirmed my idea, that if their are FAMs on board the flight crew doesn't know who they all are, not to mention where they are sitting. Another pilot in class, who is on furlough from NWA said the same thing.

Our Director of Security also said that the flight crews are trained specifically NOT to discuss any information they know with passengers. They are told that they don't know who the highjackers could be, so they would not release any security information they knew to passengers-they could be potentially giving away valuable security information to a highjacker.

Additionally, he stated that if all of the problems that Annie Jacobsen described had indeed occured on the flight, why hadn't the Captain diverted to the nearest suitable airport? Instead, he flew all the way across the country, right into the heart of a major city? Why didn't he land in a small airport out in the middle of nowhere?

The bottome line? I think this is a NYTimes' type situation. Annie Jacobsen needed an interesting story, so she embellished it to "improve" it. I think the website needs to do an investigation to find out what actually happened and what the writer made up.

Cliff

DTW

 

[thruthemurk]

I would hope that any real airline pilots out there will remember that this forum is open to many non- airline types and could be a source of info to the wrong people. Please do not answer this or any other post regarding security procedures.


Thanks

 

[Indapool]

Don't worry..your government is here to protect you.

How are they doing so far??

As for me I plan on becoming VERY friendly with any "Middle Eastern Man" I see while on the job. Go out of my way to get up close and personal..look them straight in the eye..say "hello, how are you? Where ya going today? blah..blah...blah..." Make d@mn sure they know I know they are there. Raise thier discomfort level a notch or three.

The Goverment may not have the SACK to profile anyone..I don't have that problem. I would hope that any crewmember does the same.
LET THEM KNOW YOU ARE THERE.

P.S. Don't like my opinoin? Think 9/11 isn't enough justification? GO F@CK YOURSELF.

 

[farmboy]

indapool..............great post....keep up the good work..i'm doing the same thing...i worked for the tsa for 8 months after i was furloughed in late 2001...trust me, they (tsa) have NO clue as to what is REALLY going on...they are NOT getting the job done, and they never will, we all know it....thanks for doing your part, i will continue to do mine, if only ALL us could get on board and do the same....

 

[P3 Tweek]

To all aboard;
`UAL78' has deleted `storminpilot's' similar thread that had discussed Annie Jacobsen's recent articles concerning NWA 327. Undoubtedly for good reason. Be careful about mentioning confidential procedures in dealing with potential threats.
In my opinion, for what it is worth which may not be much, the real problem we have is the PC BS we have to endure from the fat bureaucrats in DC. Mineta should be ashamed of himself by fining several airlines in the 1-2M$ for exceeding racial guideline quotas during passenger security checks. Where the crap is common sense?
Tweek
PS. Indapool; Right on bro.! Up close and personal - that works for me also! Semper Fi!

"indapool..............great post....keep up the good work..i'm doing the same thing...i worked for the tsa for 8 months after i was furloughed in late 2001...trust me, they (tsa) have NO clue as to what is REALLY going on...they are NOT getting the job done, and they never will, we all know it....thanks for doing your part, i will continue to do mine, if only ALL us could get on board and do the same...."

farmboy;
TSA can't do their job properly because they are PC hamstrung by the fools in DC that are deathly afraid of the leftist NYU lawyers working for the ACLU. I do believe they could do an excellent job vs. just OK if they had effective leadership. Thanks for your service at TSA!!!!!

 

[Resume Writer]

Hi!

Thank God for Annie Jacobsen (womenswallstreet.com)? How about a thank you to Jayson Blair, former writer for the New York Times? He gave us a lot of credible information.

When I first heard about Annie's article, I read about it, and then read her article, and her follow up. I was skeptical at first, and then got even more so the more I read.

A flight attendent is going to know how many Federal Air Marshals are on her flight and where they are sitting? She would, as Annie says, risk her career to tell a passenger. She would tell this passenger, a perfect stranger, security information? How did she know that this person was an innocent passenger, and not a highjacker???

All this crap supposedly happened and the captain didn't divert? No one was thrown in jail? There were no big articles/coverage about this in LA?

What I found out today just confirmed (and deepened) my suspicions.


Today, I was in our recurrent security class with our Director of Security. He said he had read about this also, and said he didn't believe it. He confirmed my idea, that if their are FAMs on board the flight crew doesn't know who they all are, not to mention where they are sitting. Another pilot in class, who is on furlough from NWA said the same thing.

Our Director of Security also said that the flight crews are trained specifically NOT to discuss any information they know with passengers. They are told that they don't know who the highjackers could be, so they would not release any security information they knew to passengers-they could be potentially giving away valuable security information to a highjacker.

Additionally, he stated that if all of the problems that Annie Jacobsen described had indeed occured on the flight, why hadn't the Captain diverted to the nearest suitable airport? Instead, he flew all the way across the country, right into the heart of a major city? Why didn't he land in a small airport out in the middle of nowhere?

The bottome line? I think this is a NYTimes' type situation. Annie Jacobsen needed an interesting story, so she embellished it to "improve" it. I think the website needs to do an investigation to find out what actually happened and what the writer made up.

Cliff

DTW

Cliff,

Your Director of Security is not correct in some of his information. (I deleted the sensitive information that SaabCaptain mentioned)

As far as human nature goes, who knows what the FA was thinking telling a passenger any information. She did not approach the passenger, the passenger approached her. I do not believe that she disclosed the location of the FAM's onboard.

As for the Captain who did not divert, who knows why he/she made that decision. Only he/she knows the answer to that question and what directives their company provided to them.

As far as the author goes, and your thoughts that she embellished the story, I cannot comment on her journalist ethics. However, if by writing this story, she has brought awareness to the government that this situation needs to be dealt with and garnered public outrage to bring this situation to light, then as a former crew member, I applaud her.

Further, as a published journalist, I always take my fact finding and information dissemination seriously. I seriously doubt that her publication would want to lose credibility. Not to say that it does not happen, as we have seen incorrect reporting done before. However, this woman is a financial website journalist, with nothing to gain by sharing this story with her readers, except awareness of a constant problem.

These are just my opinions and of course I cannot get into the mind of the author.

Kathy

 

[saabcaptain]

Today, I was in our recurrent security class with our Director of Security. He said he had read about this also, and said he didn't believe it. He confirmed my idea, that if their are FAMs on board the flight crew doesn't know who they all are, not to mention where they are sitting. Another pilot in class, who is on furlough from NWA said the same thing.

Our Director of Security also said that the flight crews are trained specifically NOT to discuss any information they know with passengers. They are told that they don't know who the highjackers could be, so they would not release any security information they knew to passengers-they could be potentially giving away valuable security information to a highjacker.

some of your above statements are accurate, some sadly are not. but one thing is true, specific security procedures should never be discussed on this board.

please, everyone why are we discussing what pilots know about FAMs, what flight attendants know, etc.? this is a public forum!

 

[ATRCAPT]

more of the same...

Indapool hit the nail on the head. The bleeding-heart liberal fools in this country will be our undoing. Profiling is unfortunate, but neccessary. People keep crying "violation of cilvil right", but I'm pretty sure every inocent person who died on 9/11 had their civil rights violated! What about every humans right to stay alive!?! If our government isn't going to put out the effort to keep our airplane secure then it is up to us!!!

 

[ATRCAPT]

Excuse the mispelling above, I was on a rant!

 

[Sleepyhead]

Even if you believe the Jacobson story was not factual, it is not the only story out there. Read this one:

By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published July 22, 2004

Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack.
At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called "stereotypical" behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane.
"No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack," an air marshal said.
Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods.
"It's happening, and it's a sad state of affairs," a pilot said.
A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.
The Northwest flight involved 14 Syrian men and the American Airlines flight involved six men of Middle Eastern descent.
"I've never been in a situation where I have felt that afraid," said Annie Jacobsen, a business and finance feature writer for the online magazine Women's Wall Street who was aboard the Northwest flight.
The men were seated throughout the plane pretending to be strangers. Once airborne, they began congregating in groups of two or three, stood nearly the entire flight, and consecutively filed in and out of bathrooms at different intervals, raising concern among passengers and flight attendants, Mrs. Jacobsen said.
One man took a McDonald's bag into the bathroom, then passed it off to another passenger upon returning to his seat. When the pilot announced the plane was cleared for landing and to fasten seat belts, seven men jumped up in unison and went to different bathrooms.
Her account was confirmed by David Adams, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), who said officers were on board and checked the bathrooms several times during the flight, but nothing was found.
"The FAMS never broke their cover, but monitored" the activity, Mr. Adams said. "Given the facts, they had no legal basis to take an enforcement action. But there was enough of a suspicious nature for the FAMS, passengers and crew to take notice."
A January FBI memo says suicide terrorists are plotting to hijack trans-Atlantic planes by smuggling "ready-to-build" bomb kits past airport security, and later assembling the explosives in aircraft bathrooms.
On many overseas flights, airlines have issued rules prohibiting loitering near the lavatory.
"After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together and eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified," Mrs. Jacobsen said.
"One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves ... one of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down."
In an interview yesterday with The Washington Times, Mrs. Jacobsen said she was surprised to learn afterward that flight attendants are not trained to handle terrorist attacks or the situation that happened on her flight.
"I absolutely empathize with the flight attendants. They are acting with no clear protocol," she said.
Other passengers were distraught and one woman was even crying as the events unfolded.
The plane was met by officials from the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Federal Air Marshal Service and Transportation Security Administration. The Syrians, who were traveling on one-way tickets, were taken into custody.
The men, who were not on terrorist watch lists, were released, although their information and fingerprints were added to a database. The group had been hired as musicians to play at a casino, and the booking, hotel accommodations and return flight to New York from Long Beach, Calif., also checked out, Mr. Adams said.
"We don't know if it was a dry run, that's why we are working together with intelligence and investigative agencies to help protect the homeland," he said.
Mrs. Jacobsen, however, is skeptical the 14 passengers were innocent musicians.
"If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?" she asked in the article.
The pilot confirmed Mrs. Jacobsen's experience was "terribly alike" what flight attendants reported on the San Juan flight.
He said there is "widespread knowledge" among crew members these probes are taking place.
A Middle Eastern passenger attempted to videotape out the window as the plane taxied on takeoff and, when told by a flight attendant it was not permitted, "gave her a mean look and stopped taping," said a written report of the San Juan incident by a flight attendant.
The group of six men sat near one another, pretended to be strangers, but after careful observation from flight attendants, it was apparent "all six knew each other," the report said.
"They were very careful when we were in their area to seem separate and pretended to be sleeping, but when we were out of the twilight area, they were watching and communicating," the report said.
The men made several trips to the bathroom and congregated in that area, and were told at least twice by a flight attendant to return to their seats. The suspicious behavior was relayed to airline officials in midflight and additional background checks were conducted.
A second pilot said that, on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period.
The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side.
The second pilot said terrorists are "absolutely" testing security.
"There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines," the second pilot said.
Dawn Deeks, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said there is no "central clearinghouse" for them to learn of suspicious incidents, and flight crews are not told how issues are resolved.
She said a flight attendant reported that a passenger was using a telephoto lens to take sequential photos of the cockpit door.
The passenger was stopped, and the incident, which happened two months ago, was reported to officials. But when the attendant checked back last week on the outcome, she was told her report had been lost.
Recent incidents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport have also alarmed flight crews. Earlier this month, a passenger from Syria was taken into custody while carrying anti-American materials and a note suggesting he intended to commit a public suicide.
A third pilot reported watching a man of Middle Eastern descent at the same airport using binoculars to get airplane tail numbers and writing the numbers in a notebook to correspond with flight numbers.
"It's a probe. They are probing us," said a second air marshal, who confirmed that Middle Eastern men try to flush out marshals by rushing the cockpit and stopping suddenly.

 

[BoilerUP]

Even if you believe the Jacobson story was not factual, it is not the only story out there. Read this one:

By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published July 22, 2004
<snip>

A third pilot reported watching a man of Middle Eastern descent at the same airport using binoculars to get airplane tail numbers and writing the numbers in a notebook to correspond with flight numbers.

Now I'm no security specialist or anything, but this sounds supiciously like somebody just plane spotting. I don't know of any airlines what use the same aircraft on the same city pair, day-to-day, as is insinuated by this paragraph. And a man of "middle eastern descent" can be anybody with dark skin, from African to Indian. How many people can tell an Indian from a Pakastani? And if this pilot was suspicious of what was going on, why didn't he tell law enforcement or just ask the guy himself???

A few buddies and I got questioned by a MSP police officer last year when we were spotting on top of the parking garage. I had a camera with a 300mm lens and two guys had binocs and were writing down registration numbers. We told the cop what we were doing, and he let us be. Granted we were all white bread KY-IN-IL 19 year old male flight team nerds, but we weren't hassled at all. I've seen people do the same thing at IND. I have had friends get run off from near the cargo ramp at ORD who were spotting, though.

I write down registration numbers of the bizjets and t-props I see at some airports so I can look up the registration on landings.com (and shoot them a resume ). I ain't no terrorist. But if the stuff in these two articles are true (I had both of them forwarded to me by a UAL 777 CA), it is very scary. But it begs the question that has already been asked - WHY WASNT ANYTHING DONE?

Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see (or read).

 

[ferlo]

Well,

If I accidentally infer that an indian person is in reality pakistani, or vice versa. I guess I could somehow find a way to live with myself. It is astounding that some peoples sense of political correctness, outweighs their basic human instict for survival. Notice nobody did anything on that Northwest flight. They sat there and cried. WTF?

 

[BoilerUP]

You miss the point. The term "middle eastern men" is a catch-all that covers people of literally dozens of different countries and religions. If a pilot sees a "middle eastern man" writing down registration #s, one would think said pilot would use the challenge-verify identification technique taught to all of us who have had to endure cheezy SIDA videos, or at the very least notify law enforcement. This article gave no indication of that. In these instances, if true, the suspects should have been questioned and put on the No-Fly list.

I agree that we should call a spade a spade, and that profiling is an unfortunate but necessary part of the post-9/11 world. Midwestern white men didn't hijack and crash four airplanes that day, arabic speaking middle eastern men aged 18-30 did. That's who we (pilots, passengers, marshalls, FAs, etc) need to be looking at to strike us once more. Dam the ACLU and my apologizes to those good honest folks of that descent. We can't deny citizens their rights, but foreign nationals should be closely scrutinized.

I've been called alot of things, but never PC...

 

[AA717driver]

If/when we start profiling, expect Al-Qaida to start recruiting Chechen Muslims and California Nut-cases... TC

 

[Reelbigfish]

Seems like the air marshals and the flight crew were not worried, except about the reported being a hysterical threat herself! I think she just wanted to cook up a sensational story and sell her paper!

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/skyterror.asp

 

[UpNDownGuy]

We can't deny citizens their rights, but foreign nationals should be closely scrutinized.


You are absolutely right here Boilerup. There is a big difference between a US citizen of middle-eastern descent and a Syrian national. I have no idea why we are allowing visas to a country like Saudi Arabia, much less Syria.

I think if anyone is a US citizen, it SHOULD be illegal (and punished) to profile them. On the other hand, the only way a Syrian should be able to get into this country is naked, without luggage and only after a body-cavity search and 6 hour interogation. When they don't have to even bother with trying to disguise who they are and what they're planning, we have become WAY too PC...