[rogers21774]

Sorry I don't have more details. I'm trying to find more info.

[Dane]

He was a twenty one year old Lebanese man on an expired student visa. He was arrested at the Pittsburgh airport.

[b4its2late]

And I also heard, he was a middleastern man....

[motexva]

Dumb plan . . . they're checking laptops especially thoroughly, or at least they're supposed to.

[patriot_wes]

"The man had an expired student visa."

Personally I think the FBI should begin by going into every college and checking "student visas". If you don't have it your out on the next jet back to where you came from. This includes professors also.

[Leroy S. Mort]

If he was gonna hide something, why not hide a real knife? Must be Homer Bin Laden........

[anniegetyourgun]

We've not seen these folks operate alone - where are his cohorts?

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

Perhaps he was given a mission to test security, and report back to someone. Perhaps he wasn't given any more information about a potential plan, so he couldn't rat out anyone.

Very odd, in any case. Don't these people know how much more difficult it will be to hijack a plane now? Unless their plan is to just kill people on airplanes, which will be pretty hard, as well.

[Glenn]

The story clearly says the box cutter was hidden in his PC case.

[Grig]

I'm guessing that his intent was not to hijack the plane, but to test the security measures to help find the best methods for the next attacks.

Remember how the hijackers took several flights trying different methods of getting into the cockpit?

I think its the same thing with these people trying to get a tour of a nuclear power plant, or water treatment plant. They are trying to find something that will work.

[peteram]

The man successfully passed through the airport security gates.
However, during a random check at the gate by security officials,
a box cutter was found in his computer case, police said.

Which means the x-ray operator did not see it. HELLO?!?!

[TomGuy]

Atta's note to future hijackers: When attempting to hide boxcutters for entry onto aircraft, we discovered that hiding them rectally is not one of our more brilliant ideas.

[cynicom]

Another kook American redneck rightwinger, posing as a foreigner, I suppose. (Caustic sarcasm)

[kapn kuek]

County police said they did not know why the man had the box cutter.

Why not? I say the County Police are not doing their job. If this is a war why don’t we act like we are in a war? A proper interrogation could determine why he had a hidden box cutter.

[Be Free]

Perhaps this was "caught" at the main security point, but the perp was allowed to pass to see if he'd meet up with accomplices?

Just a thought.

[gohabsgo]

Take this turd down to Ground Zero and ask them what should be done with him.

[Dustbunny]

We need to expel all who are not citizens and close our borders until this mess is cleared up. I don't care what their occupation is.

Use the National Guard, all of them if necessary, to guard our borders.

It is time to stop dragging our feet and get out there and kick butt.

[boycott]

How many people carry box cutters onto planes?

I believe the animal is just as guilty as those that attacked the WTC and the Pentagon. There should be no mercy. Let's get what information we can and them give him a slow and painful torturous death. This is after he's had a nice dinner of BBQ pork forced down his throat.

[cake_crumb]

uh huh...another man of Arab descent takes a trip to Detroit before heading EAST to Amsterdam and Lebanon...nothing suspicious there...no pattern forming....quit pickin' on Detroit...I'm just being paranoid and predjudiced...

[Grampa Dave]

I'm surprised that they found it.

This weekend I talked to two people who flew out of the Bay Area (SF, Ca) down to southern Ca. for meetings!

One was a young male from the SW with a Tex/Okie accent that could be spread with a butter knife. He is 6'3", blond, very fair skinned and very blue eyes. His carry on bag had all types of electronic gear, laptops, Palm Pilots, and other gear, as he flew down to make a sales presentation. The bag went through with a simple open and look through. However, the female so called security person, with a south of America accent must have been horny as she did basically a full body check twice on him, until he called over a supervisor. The whole process with the waiting in line took close to three hours. He decided to rent a car and drive back to the Bay area. His bag had a standard and a minature screwdriver set, and those were ignored.

The woman is a dark haired, olive complexion lady who is a Master English teacher. Her English is impeccable with zero accent! She had a male security person. He went through her carry own and took out her underwear several times. She joke yesterday that he was getting glassy eyed. He did one pat down, and when he tried another one, she called over the supervisor and lodged a complaint. He apologized and passed her on through. She has been flying that flight once a week for over 3 years. She was born in the states. She called up the air line HO when she got back to complain. She said that she was born in this country as 5th genderation American, had lived in the same home for over 25 years, taught in the same school system for 30 years, had impeccable English with no accent, and that their computers should be able to identify her as a regular. She said that several people went past security and could barely speak English while she was getting jacked around!

[Petronski]

I have a laptop--I won't say which--that is designed to be quickly opened to swap hard drives and batteries. It is also filled with metal pieces, long and short. It would take no trouble at all to wedge a simple boxcutter in there and still have a working laptop.

My point in all this is that soon laptops will face banishment from the passenger compartment of commercial airliners.