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.”
oops-sorry bad post. Its all running together..sorry but it's worth reading.
Wow. That's incredibly racist and closed-minded.
And I agree completely.
Wrong. They didn't say his personal motive wasn't terror, they said they couldn't tie him with a group that had a name. No "link to organized terror" means just that. It doesn't mean the guy isn't a lone wacko with the same mission. You, and many on this site unfortunately for us, misinterpret what they ~say~ and do, and twist it into this pervasive mistrust and disrespect of all that are actually fighting this fight. I swear you all think the feds who work for Bush are all on the side of the terrorists and want to see them succeed. YOU rob our side of confidence in our own administration when you attack everything they try to do as incompetent. DU does that too... pokes fun at security measures, and whose side are they on? The fact is, despite the imperfection of man, our guys have had more success since 9-11 than the terrorists have.
I truly don't think the government would want to admit this because it might hurt President Bush's re-election chances.
Wrong on that line too. Bush can handle terrorist threats. His popularity depends on the American populace not forgetting that the threat still exists, and that only Bush has proven to be quite competent and steadfast in the aftermath of one.
The time for political correctness is over, if we wish to survive.
I fear another terrorist attack might hurt President Bush because he will get blamed. I appreicate what has been done, but don't believe it is enough to prevent future terrorist attacks. Our borders are wide open. I have flown recently. I do not believe are security measures are sufficient.
OK - fine. Whenever anyone tries to tell you that really good people are in fact on our side, just keep moving the bar for success and keep being afraid. How does that help?
Right. Nothing to see here. Move along.
It's just an ISOLATED INCIDENT.
I have flown recently- a nerve racking experience. Do you know that in many airports, they don't check all the baggage? They do random checks. They search in a pc way-old ladies and kids. This is documented. I have no doubt that we have good people out there. I don't believe, they are being allowed to do their jobs because of pc politics. Airport security needs to be tightened up, and we need to stop illegal immigrants from crossing our borders. Did you see the post (sorry about running it all together) above this one? They caught 53 mid-eastern men coming across the border. Now, don't you think this is dangerous?
I haven't read into that other story, and I probably won't try to learn about it tonight.
I've flown recently too, and many FReeper friends recently flew out here from all over for my wedding. All reported professionalism on all counts. People find what they are looking for.
BTW... We are probably spending the effort on suitcases that suitcases deserve. I am not seeing a lot of glory in an attack that went that route.
Congratulations on your wedding. I hope you will be very happy. I left my first husband years ago (teenage marriage)and have been happily married for 16 years to a wonderful man. Don't listen when people tell you...that the joy and passion dissapates with the passage of time. My husband and I are more in love than we were on our wedding day-enjoy! LOL
Thank you!
Good night...enjoyed the discussion.
Missing the point again... It doesn't matter whether or not he has chosen to personally investigate this particular story.
The point is that when someone says, "I'll wait for the media to investigate it", he's being childlike and naive. Naive in believing that the media *will* necessarily try to dig to the bottom of this story at all, or if they do that they will do so competently. And childlike in the attitude of "I'm helpless to investigate it myself, I have to wait helplessly for the 'grownups' to do it and handfeed me the results".
And it's especially an expression of helplessness to state, "Obviously, I can't go out and investigate this. Neither can you. That is what the media does." Horse manure. I've investigated scores of stories from the comfort of my chair using an amazing but apparently little-known invention called the "telephone", and gotten far more detail and "the rest of the story" than ever appeared in newspapers or on TV.
You'd never believe until you actually try it how far you can get with just a telephone, and following leads. And 98% of the time, that's all the professional "reporters" do to chase down *their* stories anyway.
For an example, one time after a liberal-slanted article in a California newspaper about the demise of a gun-control bill gave an online jackass an excuse to go off on a rant about the evil Republicans and NRA who were allegedly responsible for torpedoing the bill through underhanded means, I decided to dig for the real story. Before the day was out I had managed to talk to the top NRA lobbyist in California for over an hour, the staff person who worked on the bill for the California Senator who sponsored it, the press secretary of the Speaker of the Assembly of the California legislature, the chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee which had voted down the bill, and the records clerk who had the vote histories of the bill. From them I received enough information to cover multiple sheets of paper with complete details of every aspect of the bill, its history, the two votes on it, and the political jockeying concerning the committee makeup, its chairmanship changes, and the causes and consequences of the recent change in Speakership (since the article had implied that the Speaker had "juggled" things in an underhanded manner to get the bill defeated as a result of NRA "threats"). Via fax I received copies of the bill itself, press releases concernings the lobbying for/against it, lists of committee memberships, the details of who all voted for/against it on what dates, and a copy of the slanted newspaper article itself (since I originally did not have access to it). All this was in the days before very much was available on the internet.
The really hilarious part is that the so-called "reporter" who wrote the liberal-slanted article had stated in his article, and I quote, "No one but the two participants knows what was said at the meeting, and neither of them returned calls from the Weekly." Funny, everyone returned *my* calls in less than an hour, LOL!
I had all the information I needed to verify or debunk every single line in the article, and/or identify exactly when it was being technically truthful but propagandistically misleading (which it did quite often). I shredded it in such detail that several forum members stated it was the most thorough rebuttal they'd ever seen. I wrote a fuller and much more detailed account of the actual events than ever appeared in any media source.
Here's a small excerpt of my account -- all the information it contains was learned through a few phone calls, I had previously known nothing of the bill or California politics:
David claims that the chairmanship switches were due to the "sneakiness" of "the gun lobby" (David, if you *mean* the NRA, *say* the NRA -- there are at least eight national "gun lobbies", and lord knows how many state "gun lobbies" in California, and the alleged actions of one should not be used to implicate the others). Instead, the real story is that the new Speaker of the Assembly, Doris Allen, was juggling the chairs of *several* committees. She had only recently assumed that office (she took Willy Brown's place), and was trying to fill about twelve committee seats, which was a problem because she had only about two people on whose support she could fully depend. The shuffling of the chairmanship of the Public Safety committee (the committee which was mulling over the "Saturday night special" bill) was simply a part of that overall rearrangement. Contrary to your implication that one committee chair was bumped so as to bring back the previous pro-gun chairman (Paula Boland), what actually happened was that as a result of the political Republican in-fighting involved in consolidating Ms. Allen's position as Speaker, she "fired" Paula Boland as the chair of the Public Safety committee, with the intent of finding someone to fill the chair before the committee met again. However, when the Public Safety committee reconvened again (it only meets once a week), no replacement had been found yet, since Ms. Allen had her hands full trying to fill other, more critical committee chairs (the budget was a major concern). As a stopgap, Ms. Allen told Paula Boland to continue as the chair of the Public Safety committee for one more meeting, during which there was, among other things, the vote to which you refer. Why was the reappointment for "four hours"? Because that's how long the weekly committee meeting lasts. Even more unfortunate for your premise, at the next meeting Ms. Boland stepped down as chair (becoming a regular member of the committee) and another member of the committee (Setencich) assumed the chair, resulting in no net change, since *both* had voted against the bill -- even if Ms. Boland hadn't been held over as chair, there would have been no difference in the outcome.And that's just a single example of what a non-media person can accomplish through his own investigation if he has even a little personal initiative.As for your claim that "they" (presumably "the gun lobby") had anything to do with manipulating the chairmanship in order to "kill" the bill, let me point out that this was the *second* vote on the bill. It had *already* been defeated in the same committee earlier, with the *old* committee makeup. Either way you lose, David -- chair changes or no chair changes, the bill was toast. As if that's not enough, Mr. Helsley informs me that at least one of the committee members who voted for the bill to pass out of committee had stated that he was doing so for party reasons, but that if there was a danger of the bill actually getting out of committee, he would have voted against it. The bill was DOA no matter what, and no "cheating" of any sort was necessary.
Also, due to an unrelated change in Assembly rules which had taken effect between the two votes, the committee had nine members at the time of the second vote, instead of the eight that had voted on the bill previously. However, the bill still would have failed the second time around even without the addition of the ninth member.
[...] And speaking of the bill not measuring up, your main complaint seems to be the allegation that the evil "gun lobby" killed a good bill that had the support of "the people" (play rousing patriotic music here). However, you've failed to mention that the Attorney General, the California State Sheriffs Association, the California District Attorneys Association, and the 40,000-member Law Enforcement Alliance of America all refused to support the bill. The Attorney General actively worked to defeat the bill. A representative of one of California's major law enforcement agencies privately stated that SB 933 was "a stupid bill". A representative for Sheriff Glenn Craig originally supported the bill in a press conference. However, when Mr. Helsley spoke with Mr. Craig's representative, it was discovered that Sheriff Craig only had eight pages of the twelve page bill. When Craig's office saw what was on the other four pages, support withered. Why? Because they had noticed what so many other of the involved parties had noticed: as Los Gatos Police Chief Larry Todd admitted, the bill was so broad that it would ban many handguns used by law enforcement, including such mainstays as the Smith & Wesson snub-nosed revolver and the AMT "Backup". The irony, of course, is that the alleged purpose of a "Saturday night special" ban is to ban handguns that are supposedly so cheaply made that they are unsafe (and often, less nobly, to keep safe but inexpensive handguns out of the hands of the poor, who are considered the "wrong sort of people"). Yet, SB 933 would have banned many firearms so well-made and reliable that they have been officially adopted by many police departments! "Saturday night specials" are supposedly cheap handguns, but this bill to ban "Saturday night specials" would have banned the Semmerling LM-4, which costs $1750.00! Even the bill's author admitted that the bill might be overly broad. Furthermore, unlike "serious" bills of this nature, SB 933 contained *no* provisions for funding the oversight of its enforcement, nor did it provide a plan for its implementation, despite the law enforcement nightmare that would have ensued in trying to determine whether a given handgun was legal or not -- like the "assault weapon" ban, it suffers from some fuzzy definitions, easily skirted "features" tests, and the difficulty of determining the date of manufacture of the firearms in question, since those manufactured before a certain date are "grandfathered" and therefore legal. It was a bad bill.
[...] You're obviously referring to Antonio Villaraigosa (say that three times fast), who was the vice chair. Unfortunately for your claim, he was not "next in line" for the chair, since a previous deal worked out between Willie Brown and Doris Allen had resulted in an agreement that the chairs of half of the committees would be chosen by Mr. Brown, and would be Democrats, and the chairs for the other half of the committees would be chosen by Ms. Allen, and would be Republicans. The Public Safety committee in question was under Ms. Allen's jurisdiction, and was to have a Republican chair. Mr. Villaraigosa was a Democrat, and thus wasn't eligible. But wait, you say, maybe *that* was the deal by which the fatal maneuver was carried out. Well, perhaps, but only if they were psychic -- the deal which divided up the committees was struck *last January*.
It sure does when he has told me that I'm childish for looking to the media to investigate. If I'm childish and need couseling for not investigating myself, then why hasn't he figured this all out?
I'm seeing a little game of thread ganging (or you are one idiot posting under several names). So you are the all knowing pro and I'm the child...so tell me...what are the facts in this case?
Yawn. In one post you go on about how bad the press is at collecting facts...then you tell me that Jacobsen got every little detail correct because she is a writer. Which is it?
No I didn't.
then you tell me that Jacobsen got every little detail correct because she is a writer.
No I didn't.
Which is it?
Choice #3: You really need to work on your reading comprehension.
False dichotomy -- you have failed to realize that several people can find your posts flawed enough to comment upon.
As for being an "idiot", tests have indicated that my IQ is roughly 150 points above that required to be be an "idiot", thanks for asking. How about yourself?
You have to be trying hard to miss so much. Done.
Probably so (regarding getting pulled aside). Now, then, how's his tan? That'll get their attention too.
CJ's just trolling ths thread, looking for an argument. That's why the posts start out stoopid and go downhill from there.
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