Control of an aircraft comes control of the cockpit. Any plan to deal with terrorists that does not take this into account from the start is starting from a disadvantage. The bad guys can threaten to kill hostages, but flying into a target of choice will accomplish that anyway. The bad guys can threaten to blow up the aircraft, but again flying into the target makes that an empty threat. The more people between the terrorists and the cockpit, the less chance they will ever get to test the security of the cockpit door or any of the pilot's final defenses.
I went back and re-read the original Women's Wall Street article, in addition to the NRO update and have concluded this incident could hang together either way, musicians on the way to a gig, terrorist supporters casing security, terrorist operatives executing and then aborting an attack.
There's nothing damning in foreign travellers exchanging looks and nods on recognition in a country far from home. Even more likely if two seperate groups link up knowing that they are liable to be onstage together in the future. "I know who you are, I know we are going to be working together, but we haven't been introduced, so all you get is a look and a nod." It's a guy thing.
The McDonald's bag is easy to explain as well. "Abdul, here's twenty bucks, grab us a bag of burgers while I make sure the shuttle busses are going to meet us at LAX." With time to kill some of the food is eaten, the empty wrappers or styrofoam boxes are stuffed back in the bag, once on the plane, the bag holder, tired of his unwieldy baggage dumps the trash in the lav, realizes there's a burger or two left, and, on his way back to his seat, offers them to a buddy, who accepts.
If the musicians were drinking, maybe not standard behavior for Muslims but certainly standard behavior for musicians, then they would probably have been waiting anxiously for the seatbelt sign to be extinguished so they could make room for more beers. What other group besides musicians is liable to be drinking in the middle of the day onboard a DET-LAX flight?
Experienced flying drinkers know that it isn't unusual to sit on the tarmac at busy airports like LAX for a good while before being assigned a gate, and might well have made that last trip to the lav on the FA's descent announcement individually, without advance planning.
But here's the rub.
The flight was met by TSA, FBI, FAM and local police, who questioned the musicians extensively.
Somebody tipped them off. Somebody on the aircraft. Although it could have been a passenger with a cell phone, odds are it was the crew or had crew confirmation and here's why. Passenger calls in to report suspicious activity, authorities are going to take care of odds and ends but near the top of their priority list will be a talk with the captain on board. If he says the passenger is having paranoid vapors, there isn't going to be a phalanx of dark suits meeting the aircraft at LAX.
That means that the captain, at the very least, admitted to somebody on the ground, sometime during the flight, that the men's activities were questionable. It means that either the captain or else designated crew members, either cockpit or cabin crew, saw something that set off internal alarms, something that just wasn't right.
We already know that several passengers felt the same tingle, and I'm willing to make a decision based on that factor alone.
Something wasn't right on that flight.
Al Qaeda is well known to have begun using "scrubbed" support operatives in the US since 9/11. Clean passports, no arrest records, no terrorist affiliations, scrubbed. These people rent safehouses and vehicles, make introductions, carry important messages and cash from place to place, all legal activities but in support of possible future terrorist attacks.
Travelling musicians who don't have drug convictions would make excellent terrorist support personnel.
The catch is, support people don't know anything. They aren't ordered to "buy the tickets for the suicide bombers on the September 11th flight that will crash into the North Tower." They are told to buy tickets, period. (Yes, I know that support personnel didn't buy the 9/11 tickets, but that's not the point) What do you gain from taking support drones to Gitmo and breaking them? The name of their handler? Abu al Sudani from Khartoum? What good does a fake name in a distant city do you? I think you'd get a better return on your investment just putting them on a clandestine watch list, seeing who they hang out with, where they go, and what they do.
Not being hard core terrorists, it wouldn't surprise me if a support drone cracked during routine questioning, agreed to provide continuing information on his low level contacts within Al Qaeda.
So what, exactly, does Women's Wall Street want?
An admission from the FBI that the support drones are being followed 24/7?
President Bush announcing that we now have a low level plant inside Al Qaeda?
In sixty point headlines in the New York Times?
I'm not putting down WWS, but pointing up something common sense and experience tells me. If you pass information regarding a terrorist attack on to the authorities, you will only get feedback if your information turns out to be baseless. It's part of the deal. You only know you scored when the good guys go silent. Not very satisfying on a personal level, perhaps, but do you only turn in terrorists in hopes of receiving a medal? Of course not.
So where does all this bring us?
Right back to where we started.
Whether they are casing a plane, or actually executing an attack, control of an aircraft requires control of the cockpit. If you accost or harras the suspects in any way, you better hope they have bombs or box cutters or something that implicates them in concrete, or all the TSA bureaucracy is going to fall on you when you disembark. You will be viewed as being part of the problem of the whole air security package.
If you make an overt move, prior to the initiation of a terrorist attack, you become a high priority for the attackers.
But there's no law against talking to other passengers. there's no law against keeping a pair of burly guys flirting with the FAs by the forward galley and/or waiting for the lavs.
The front row seats are usually reserved for crew rest during the flight unless the aircraft is fully booked, but they rarely have time to sit down. "Really mean leg cramps" and a polite smile can get you the seat to stretch out for a good while if you ask right.
Just like a bar fight, the first few moves, in many cases the first move, is going to decide who goes home with the girl.
You can't wait till things turn ugly to decide how you are going to handle it. The bad guys don't. They train and they plan and they practice. Our advantage is that we have numbers on our side, and that we can, if we so choose, mitigate their main advantage, which is surprise. We can plan just as easily as they can. No harm in thinking, it isn't against the law.
You can haul out your queen in the first few moves and probably lay waste to some pawns and maybe a few major pieces, but grandmasters usually don't play that way and there's a reason for it. You need to know in advance what you are looking for, what it will take to ramp up to the next level, what the various levels of response should be, and at what level you will openly confront a problem.
Six "P's"...Prior Preparation Prevents Profoundly Poor Performance.
If I were the author of the article that set this off, I'd be annoyed at the lack of answers. Being a reader, I'm curious as to what it means. You have provided a pretty good theory of what it means.
One thing about your theory: Either there was no air marshall on board, or the tip off about these travelers came well before their activity on this flight.
They could at least acknowledge receipt of the message and thank the correspondent, and let them know if they're needed, they'll be interviewed (even an autoresponder could do that). I don't think that's asking too much, baseless or not.
As for rules of conduct on the plane, I'm guessing that there are already rules against excessive time spent not seated, against bringing anything except yourself and medications into the bathroom, etc. Every airline has a company policy that you're supposed to keep your seatbelt on at all times when you're seated.
And I'm also hoping that these things are being reviewed for tightening up by the carriers and the TSA
I don't know what you do when you want to rid yourself of trash on a plane. I don't make a special trip to the restroom to dispose of it; I give it to the flight attendant.