Student air passenger handcuffed to echoes of 9/11 fears

Philly.com ^ | September 11, 2009 | by Dave Davies, Philadelphia Daily News

[Cindy]

Note: Photo included.

SNIPPET: "That's the way Nick George, a senior at Pomona College, in California, sees what happened to him at the Philadelphia airport two Saturdays ago.

George, of Wyncote, Montgomery County, was about to catch a Southwest flight back to school when stereo speakers in his backpack caught the eye of screeners at the metal detector.

When they looked though his bag, George said, they found his Arabic/English flash cards, and escorted him to a side screening area.

He figures it didn't help that his passport had stamps from Jordan, where he'd studied a semester, and Egypt and Sudan, where he'd gone backpacking.

And among his 200 flash cards were words like "terrorist" and "explosion." He was learning to translate the Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera."

SNIPPET: "Lt. Louis Liberati said, just as Davis did, that TSA personnel initially selected George because of something in his behavior.

But Liberati said that it was the stuff that the TSA found in George's backpack and wallet that really aroused their suspicion: the Arabic flash cards with troubling words, a card that had George's name and Arabic script, and the longer hair in George's driver's license and passport photos than his current clean-cut appearance.

That's "an indicator sometimes that somebody may have gone through a radicalization," Liberati explained.

Liberati said nothing about "escalating behavior." Liberati said police checked with the FBI, and the feds decided that they wanted to come and interview George."

[HiTech RedNeck]

The kid looks like a probe. Out of 200 words a tourist might be likely to need in an Arabic speaking land, we are to believe that one is “terrorist” and the other is “explosion”? I wouldn’t think that even the word rank on Al-Jazeera, which covers news about such things happening in the Middle East, would put these two in the top 1000.

Maybe TSA should have kept quieter about it, though. Anyone who’s been associated with him for nefarious purposes now knows they have the eye and they have skedaddled.

[sionnsar]

Maybe TSA should have kept quieter about it, though. Anyone who’s been associated with him for nefarious purposes now knows they have the eye and they have skedaddled.

If he'd been (a willing) part of it they'd know already.

[Moe Tzadik]

Especially considering he’s half-Jewish.

Incorrect for several reasons.

1. He's Muslim by his own mouth and every account. The FBI said he converted to Islam as a youth and left the United States around 1998.

2. By his own words in his June video: "Let me here tell you something about myself and my biography, in which there is a benefit and a lesson," Gadahn said. "Your speaker has Jews in his ancestry, the last of whom was his grandfather."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/american-al-qaeda-adam-gadahn-talks-about-jewish-southern-california-roots-in-new-video.html

FYI, Judaism is matrilineal not patrilineal, therefore what his father's father was is irrelevant.

3. Al-Qaeda wouldn't have any Jews as spokesmen (exceptions: NYT, CNN, Reuters, Haaretz, et al).

4. There is no such thing as "half-Jewish" or "half-Muslim." "Before Adam's birth [Adam's father] became a self-styled religious Christian. He and his wife Jennifer changed their name to Gadahn, after the Biblical warrior Gideon."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Yahiye_Gadahn

[Cindy]

UPDATE:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/weep-not-for-nick-george.html

#

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/11/local/la-me-arabic12-2010feb12

“Arabic-language flashcards don’t fly with TSA”
A Pomona College student from Philadelphia was jailed after airport security workers found study cards, including the words ‘bomb’ and ‘terrorism.’ He’s suing.”
February 11, 2010|By Larry Gordon

SNIPPET: “George said his interest in Arab culture began when he saw “Lawrence of Arabia” as a child. “The more I studied it, the more I was fascinated it by it,” he said. He plans to take the State Department exam to become a foreign service officer.

Last year, George spent a semester in Jordan, where he studied Arabic, and then traveled to Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. He said his passport, with stamps from those countries, and a book in his possession that was critical of U.S. foreign policy, may also have raised suspicions at the airport.

Professors describe George as an excellent student in science and Arabic.”

[Cindy]

Note: Video included.

Feb 15, 2010 8:45 am US/Eastern

“Student Flier Sues FBI, TSA Over Arabic Notes
Pennsylvania Student Nicholas George Sues Police, FBI, TSA Over Airport Detention Allegedly Instigated Over English-Arabic Flash Cards”
PHILADELPHIA (CBS)

SNIPPET: “George, a senior at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., missed his Aug. 29 flight back to school—although he said his checked luggage made it onboard.

“If I had been a terrorist, I would have been the luckiest terrorist around, because my bag would have blown up and I would have been sitting in a jail cell,” George told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from school Wednesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed several suits over what it sees as aggressive or misguided airport security measures. One involved an architect denied boarding for wearing a T-shirt that said, in Arabic and English, “We Will Not Be Silent.” Another involved a political fundraiser allegedly grilled by TSA agents after carrying a metal box of cash through security.”

[Cindy]

URL for post no. 25:

http://cbs4.com/national/student.sues.fbi.2.1495453.html

[happinesswithoutpeace]

light for mam