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.”
Sure, but as long as Norman Minetta is Secretary of Transportation, political correctness trumps safety and security.
with El Al, you essentially have to prove who you are, provide enough information for your background to be checked, and why you are flying. that color coded system that we recently scrapped (mistakenly in my opinion) was a good first step towards that. it would have immediately provided a large degree of differentiation between those who could fly with just the "normal" security screen, and those that needed more. But the PC police and the ACLU (many freepers were against it also on privacy grounds) killed it.
If they're searching everyone, I don't see how that's politically correct.
You put 14 arabs on my flight with music cases and I'm outta there. Abdul the floutist or Mohammed the tuba player can be as offended as he wants. Better safe than sorry. It only took 19 of their kind to kill thousands of us.
I was on the Verrazano bridge looking over into lower manhattan when the second plane hit (1st tower already burning). its very different when you see it live.
That's true.
They can't search everyone -- that's why we have profiling.
true. how do we convice Norm Mineta to get El Al consultation? and how do we purge our court system of liberal judges and sheeple juries who will grant discrimination judgements for every incident where someone is denied boarding.
more info...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/25/wfly25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/25/ixworld.html
And it's *really* different when you're 4 short blocks away, with tiny glass shards coming down on you.
Exactly how did the air marshalls "investigate". They could not see what was going on in the bathroom. For all they knew, these guys were building a bomb in the bathroom. What were they waiting for- the big boom?
Then they need to do it right and not halfassed pulling aside Sikhs instead Saudis.
Don't know :(
its more the background check.
the general rule would be that if we can't establish affirmatively who you are - you don't fly. so for example, its not enough to say "he wasn't on the terror watch list". if some syrian musician shows up, and there is no way to determine who they are, even if they aren't on a watch list - they don't fly.
this is why many freeper privacy advocates don't like the idea.
yes, I have read your many posts on this.
Hmmm well for a lot of jobs you have to submit to a background check. I guess I'd have to be for BCs in the airlines and I guess I'd have to take a bus. The era of privacy is pretty much over isn't it?
Now suppression of hard, sad and tough truth does at times serve general public goods. Such suppression though is to be extememly well-considered and I am doubtful that current federal agencies -- with a few rare exceptions -- are any more capable of that fine and extraordianry level of discretion and consideration to make such judgements.
And such methods -- truth filtering, PC-ism, political filtering -- all are deviant from fully-informing the public. Very risky. And they backfire greatly -- mightily -- when the truth does come out -- causing a public dissing of government and order. Encouraging cycnism.
And such methods do worse by engendering in officialdom and the potent official forces applied a general disregard for and poo-poohing of fact-finding the public itself of itself performs.
Truth is freedom -- only truth is unownable by one party or another, by one agency or another, by one line of officialdom or another.
If we want to skies to be safe, to be flying in all the glory and beauty of flying again -- we had best get back to the Truth. To trusting in the reaction of a fully informed public and recreating all fact-finding process to put the public back square in the middle of it.
Air Marshalls should at best, be adjuncts to the public safety on board an airliner. Not the sole agents of that safety. Public and crews should be involved -- and ready to be involved.
That's the clear lesson of Flights 63 and Flight 93. The passengers and flight crew are the best line agents of security.
It is their judgement and reactions that deserve respect, deserve leeway in making some occasioned rude action.
Thanks, this is a great article; I hope Mineta reads it..and perhaps President Bush.
Who knows what else they did. They were on that plane too and were concerned. They acted with apparently good observation and perception skills, because they recognized both the odd behavior, and the behavior of the nervous couple. They also acted with good judgment because it appears the actual situation called for restraint. You guys all act like these Syrians got away with something, but that isn't in the facts. They went and played a gig. Turns out, they might just be musicians! You can think they didn't give a damn and did nothing, but that is a stupid and jaded point of view. Their lives are at stake too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.