We have a terrorist Muslim sect that's at war with the U.S. A plane going from Taipei to Newark is stopped in Seattle because somebody called JFK airport to report a smallpoz contamination aboard.
Smallpox, itself, had been eradicated from natural sources so any contamination would have to be from terorists. Let's check the flight manifest. Any Arabs on the plane? Shouldn't be too tough to spot. Any whacked-out kids from commiecenter Marin County, CA on board? Not hard to check either.
Since we know the terrorists perfer to victimize American-based airlines, why should we be suspicious of a Taiwanese airline? And why would the anonymous tip come to JFK Customs when the flight wll be arriving in Newark?
Honestly, I smell a prank here. Probably someone who had a bad experience on EVA and wants to pay them back for their inconvenience.
You make good points and I agree it is almost certainly a hoax.
But, the above is not right. Back in 1995 they had planned to blow up 10 planes in a day, all of them going from Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Manilla. They set off a bomb on one Phipinio airline as a dry run. Before they did the big one, called bojinka, they started a fire at their Manilla apartment cooking up the explosives and were caught.
So there is precedent for them using or planning to use flights from the region.