Posted on 07/15/2004 6:19:30 AM PDT by Rutles4Ever
A WWS Exclusive Article
Note from the Editors: You are about to read an account of what happened during a domestic flight that one of our writers, Annie Jacobsen, took from Detroit to Los Angeles. The WWS Editorial Team debated long and hard about how to handle this information and ultimately we decided it was something that should be shared. What does it have to do with finances? Nothing, and everything. Here is Annie's story.
On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats.
On that Tuesday, our journey began uneventfully. Starting out that morning in Providence, Rhode Island, we went through security screening, flew to Detroit, and passed the time waiting for our connecting flight to Los Angeles by shopping at the airport stores and eating lunch at an airport diner. With no second security check required in Detroit we headed to our gate and waited for the pre-boarding announcement. Standing near us, also waiting to pre-board, was a group of six Middle Eastern men. They were carrying blue passports with Arabic writing. Two men wore tracksuits with Arabic writing across the back. Two carried musical instrument cases – thin, flat, 18" long. One wore a yellow T-shirt and held a McDonald's bag. And the sixth man had a bad leg -- he wore an orthopedic shoe and limped. When the pre-boarding announcement was made, we handed our tickets to the Northwest Airlines agent, and walked down the jetway with the group of men directly behind us.
My four-year-old son was determined to wheel his carry-on bag himself, so I turned to the men behind me and said, "You go ahead, this could be awhile." "No, you go ahead," one of the men replied. He smiled pleasantly and extended his arm for me to pass. He was young, maybe late 20's and had a goatee. I thanked him and we boarded the plan.
Once on the plane, we took our seats in coach (seats 17A, 17B and 17C). The man with the yellow shirt and the McDonald's bag sat across the aisle from us (in seat 17E). The pleasant man with the goatee sat a few rows back and across the aisle from us (in seat 21E). The rest of the men were seated throughout the plane, and several made their way to the back.
(Excerpt) Read more at womenswallstreet.com ...
"I wonder if anyone checked the desert casino as to why they needed to hire 14 Syrian musicians?"
EXCELLENT question.
And the official agencies seemed to have NO problem with Chief Moose coming out and announcing he was looking for 2 white guys in a white van.
Maybe it's just my being white, but that seems very close to 'profiling based on Caucasian race and gender.' Notice how there are few cries of racism and profiling when the 'person(s) of interest' happen to be Caucasian and male?
This was a PRACTICE RUN...just like the 15 did before 9/11...the made several practice flights to gauge the response of the "system"...
G
Why are enemy aliens getting visas at all?
Falafel shortage?
OK, this is a pretty scary story as told, but look at a couple of things:
- there is no way they could gain access to the cockpit
- if they intended to blow up the plane then 14 people to blow up a single airplane seems a bit excessive. Two or three could accomplish the task.
In most cases, the simplest explanation is the most correct.
That's a surprising statement coming from a "Conspiracy Guy"! That said, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who found myself rolling my eyes while reading.
If Tom Ridge does not, PERSONALLY, know the answer to your questions ... we are massively effed.
I bet he doesn't even know it happened.
I've been thinking of that very James Woods incident as I read this thread. However, I suspect the man mouthing the word "No" might have been the same one that carried his cell phone into the lav. He may have been checking for a "Go" signal. Perhaps it was a dry run, but in the sense that the participants thought it could be the real thing.
I find this very disturbing. I hope that the flight crew & air marshalls thoroughly checked the lavs during the flight to make sure nothing was being assembled, then left for the next person to add-on. Of course, it's possible that they were assembling something & then carrying it back to their seats.
As to profiling, I am reminded of something Walter Williams(?) once said. Paraphrasing:
I don't think it's unreasonable for anyone, white or black, to be apprehensive about a gang of young black men on a dark street. I'd be apprehensive about meeting a tiger. I know that not all tigers attack, and probably this one won't. But I know that some tigers attack and possibly this one might.
"Our FAM agents have to have an event to arrest somebody. Our agents aren't going to deploy until there is an actual event," Adams explained.
The "event" in this case could've been the plane exploding out of the sky, as these men could've gone uninterrupted about the business of assembling a bomb or weapons or whatever. Rest assured the "orthopedic" shoe wasn't checked at the security checkpoint in any way, including for explosives. We might offend someone that way.
MM
Right there, you're off by a whole lot. The Hispanic population in the last census was 13%.
That is allot of trips to the bathroom for a flight of only about 3 1/2 hours, and the 757-300, is a single-aisle airplane, and not real big, so you don't normally have that many people moving around the airplane like this and on a pretty short flight. I find this strange and disturbing.
bump for "must read" later !
On the positive side:
Air Marshall's were aboard and aware, and the passengers were wary.
My concern is that future plans may not call for hijacking, which can be defeated. The threat appears to be destruction.
Well, the good news is that the system works, the plane landed safely and the potential terrorists were rounded up.
It is time for marshall law
DRAMA QUEEN ALERT!!
Glad I'm not alone. I think the author was a victim of people acting suspicious for the sake of causing fear.
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