"I think, that for the sake of our national security and our very own lives, we all need to be individual sleuths, and report suspicious things. I think we should all have the phone number of the local FBI office and non-emergency police programmed into our cellphones, and call them immediately, when witnessing something strange."
I agree. I regret not calling the police right then and there - they could have been very quickly since there are usually a good number of police in the area. I assumed that the B&N security would take care of the situation but I should have known better that they wouldn't bother calling the police. You know, I guess part of it is I didn't want to feel like an idiot for calling the police over what might have been be a trifle. The other part is that I didn't want to freak my friends out. Well, I won't make that mistake again. Several years ago in Arizona I saw several guys on top of a building with a couple rifles. I immediately called the police and within 10 minutes there were SWAT everywhere. They pounced on those dudes so quick, I am sure they s**t their pants. :-) Turns out they were film students at a local city college or something like that and the guns were fake. Heh! Well, in spite of that the police said I definitely did the right thing. I'm sure those kids got an experience they will never forget too! :-)
If this was anything, they may still be able to trace the guy.
Your posting your experience, may make you and others more quick to call things in, if there is anything strange going on. People who tell you what you should have done are talking after the fact, and hindsight is always 20-20.
One of Rumsfeld's favorite saying is what Herman Kahn said: "Hire paranoids: they may have a high false alarm rate, but they discover all the plots".
I think that is the mode, in which we all need to be operating, which is a change -- most people just ignored things, but we can't afford to do that anymore.
BTW -- did you see this news item?
Hundreds evacuated, 20 in hospital after Australian airport chemical leak
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1530&ncid=731&e=1&u=/afp/20050221/wl_asia_afp/australiaairairport
Some 20 people were hospitalised and hundreds evacuated from a terminal at Melbourne's airport after unidentified chemical fumes spread through the area, emergency officials said.
Ambulance services spokesman James Howe said 20 people had been taken to hospital suffering vomiting, nausea and breathing difficulties and more were being treated at the airport following the incident, which occurred around 7:30 am, a peak travel time.
He said firefighters and hazardous materials crews had been at the airport for more than an hour and had been unable to identify the source or nature of the chemical making people sick.
"We're taking it very seriously, because of the unknown element of it," he said.
Those taken ill were not in a life-threatening situation but were being taken to hospital for tests and observation "because of the unknown substance and we don't know what the long-term effects could be," he said.