Posted on 07/24/2004 4:05:17 PM PDT by HostileTerritory
Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, “overreacted,” to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS.
The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service.
Jacobsen, a self-described freelance writer, has published two stories about her experience at womenswallstreet.com, a business advice web site designed for women.
“The lady was overreacting,” said the source. “A flight attendant was told to tell the passenger to calm down; that there were air marshals on the plane.”
The middle eastern men were identified by federal agents as a group of touring musicians travelling to a concert date at a casino, said Air Marshals spokesman Dave Adams.
Jacobsen wrote she became alarmed when the men made frequent trips to the lavatory, repeatedly opened and closed the overhead luggage compartments, and appeared to be signaling each other.
“Initially it was brought to [the air marshals] attention by a passenger,” Adams said, adding the agents had been watching the men and chose to stay undercover.
Jacobsen and her husband had a number of conversations with the flight attendants and gestured towards the men several times, the source said.
“In concert with the flight crew, the decision was made to keep [the men] under surveillance since no terrorist or criminal acts were being perpetrated aboard the aircraft; they didn’t interfere with the flight crew,” Adams said.
The air marshals did, however, check the bathrooms after the middle-eastern men had spent time inside, Adams said.
FBI agents met the plane when it landed in Los Angeles and the men were questioned, and Los Angeles field office spokeswoman Cathy Viray said it’s significant the alarm on the flight came from a passenger.
“We have to take all calls seriously, but the passenger was worried, not the flight crew or the federal air marshals,” she said. “The complaint did not stem from the flight crew.”
Several people were questioned, she said, but no one was detained.
Jacobsen’s husband Kevin told KFI NEWS he approached a man he thought was an air marshal after the flight had landed.
“You made me nervous,” Kevin said the air marshal told him.
“I was freaking out,” Kevin replied.
“We don’t freak out in situations like this,” the air marshal responded.
Federal agents later verified the musicians’ story.
“We followed up with the casino,” Adams said. A supervisor verified they were playing a concert. A second federal law enforcement source said the concert itself was monitored by an agent.
“We also went to the hotel, determined they had checked into the hotel,” Adams said. Each of the men were checked through a series of databases and watch-lists with negative results, he said.
The source said the air marshals on the flight were partially concerned Jacobsen’s actions could have been an effort by terrorists or attackers to create a disturbance on the plane to force the agents to identify themselves.
Air marshals’ only tactical advantage on a flight is their anonymity, the source said, and Jacobsen could have put the entire flight in danger.
“They have to be very cognizant of their surroundings,” spokesman Adams confirmed, “to make sure it isn’t a ruse to try and pull them out of their cover.”
A couple behind her was scared and praying. Heavens knows that no one ever prays on an airplane!
The man got up to use a restroom. God help us all, his bladder is fully loaded!
The men congregated and talked. About their neice's wedding!
A man coldly stared blankly. He must either be homicidal or distracted by music he was listening to!
I already said I would NOT be your mom.
You are simply showing your ass on this thread. Get an education and come back later.
Racial profiling may someday help me save my life.
All good questions, and there are no easy answers. I suppose you have to decide if you want to risk being hauled off to jail and being convicted for assaulting someone on a plane for no good reason, or if you may be stopping a devastating terrorist attack.
And I'll ask you (as I just asked someone else), how do you tell the difference between "some ME guy" and some Hindu from India?
It's a judgment call and, like I said, one with no easy answers. My only solution is that I won't fly any airline other than El-Al, until the others stop with the politically correct horse crap and start aggressively profiling and investigating each passenger before they ever board the planes.
there has to be some uniform standards of behavior when traveling on a plane. you can't have a security system that searches white grandmothers, while allowing 15 bathroom trips to wash for prayers by Muslims, and allows them to use the lavatory to eat "outlawed" food, all in the name of politically correct "tolerance". it just won't work.
Thank you, Agent Adams, for another lame CYA coverup of government incompetence.
Adams forgot to mention that these "musicians" were traveling with EXPIRED visas.
Musicians, eh? The marshals should have made them take out their instruments and play a few tunes for the passengers to determine their musical abilities.
Perhaps, Islamacists wish to blow up a plane precisely to kill Americans on the plane and not for any other reason. Certainly, this was the intention of the shoe bomber. Consider the intifada tactics of the Palastinians... Terrorists wish to well...create terror. If a plane is blown out of the sky by terrorists, it will certainly frighten people (to say the least) and cause the general public to consider that perhaps we can not stop terrorists. This would certainly affect our morale and our economy..people will stop flying.
The woman's life was on the line.
The lady ~feared~ her life might be on the line, but it turns out it wasn't. Uncertainty.
She had a duty to do something BECAUSE the air marshalls were doing NOTHING. That is in fact what they did. Nothing.
That's BS. The weren't doing nothing, they were watching and investigating. All these guys ~did~ was go to the bathroom and gesture to each other.... as they were friends and traveling together, that by itself isn't actionable, unless you want to just start frisking everyone who moves.... No, they acted smart, they watched, they checked out the bathroom, the alerted the flight attendent, made arrangements for some feds to meet this plane when it landed and a judgment call to ~not~ start shooting them out of the blue. Thank goodness for that. They even followed the guys to see if there story checked out.... and it did. What they did turns out to be the exact right thing.
But is was because the passengers and stewardess took a far more active and pro-active role -- were functioning adults -- on Flight 63 -- the the 2nd shoebomber was stopped.
There was no shoe bomber here. There wasn't anyone doing anything near as incriminating as trying to light his shoe on fire. We had guys gesturing to each other and going to the bathroom.
You give them magical powers -- that their nothing was magically something.
BS. I said that how the passengers in a really small tube in the sky are going to react to a situation is something they ~have~ to figure out and deal with in their work.
I totally agree. And that's why I won't fly any airline other than El-Al -- until the others start profiling as aggressively and intelligently as El-Al does.
That would not satisfy some. El Al searches everyone don't they? Some people think they should never be searched as long as they're white, and if they are, there are howls of injustice.
Ain't it so! I do believe that Minetta was so stressed by 911 that he reiterated the order to check no more than 2 middle eastern males per flight or be in trouble for racial profiling. With people like him in control of security at the airports, I just don't fly. After having the 93 towers bombing, the Cole, Lockerbie, TWA 800, various embassies bombed, and other incidents, the people in charge never did get the picture---there are people who hate us collectively and want to do us grievous harm.
Hey Democrats--it has nothing to do with the Bush Administrations' policy. They were hating us and harming us long before Bush became President.
vaudine
The government still doesn't even come CLOSE to getting it. It's like the notion of a dry run never even occurred to them. Or the fact that the next set of air terrorists will almost CERTAINLY have backgrounds and covers that "check out."
Dunno about you, but I saw on 9/11 just how capable the government is of protecting us from things like this. Even now, the mindset is still purely reactionary.
Shaking head.
MM
you can tune into an episode of COPS any night, and see police tactics 100x more aggressive then what these air marshalls are seemingly able to do - all in the name of catching someone for buying $10 worth of drugs, or in some cases for traffic offenses.
I agree with the rest of your post - I haven't flown since 9-11 and have no plans to do so.
Good advice.
I have flown since 9-11 abd not had one problem. Not flying is your choice, but I won't let terrorists prevent me from enjoying my life.
El-Al also does a thorough background investigation on each passenger before they even get to the plane. They also look for the person (terrorist), while we tend to look for the weapon.
I think some cross training/consultation wit El Al is in order.
I haven't had any reason to fly, but I'd still choose to avoid our airlines until they stop doing the PC nonsense you described above. It's insulting and stupid.
When you know that terrorists may build bombs in the bathroom...and you see 14 Arabs get up and go to the bathroom one by one..of course you will be frightened. In a post 9-11 world, you would be a fool not to be frightened. Also, we do not know if these men were testing security; perhaps being musicians is their cover. I hope it was not a test because, the air marshalls failed miserably.
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