Posted on 07/19/2004 10:15:47 AM PDT by jimbo123
Last Tuesday morning, WomensWallStreet.com (WWS) published my first-person account of a recent Northwest Airlines flight that I took from Detroit to Los Angeles called Terror in the Skies, Again? A heads up about this article went out in our Daily Cents email -- our subscriber newsletter which primarily features financial tips and information for women.
On Wednesday morning, the WWS page views were unusually high, something like 10 times the normal amount. Apparently our readers had been emailing the article to their friends, family and colleagues and everyone was reading it.
By Thursday morning, that number had again multiplied ten-fold. It felt like the shampoo commercial from my youth: they told two friends, then they told two friends, then they told two friends. We sat in the WWS offices reading through your emails, taking stock of what you had to say. As the afternoon went on, the number of people reading the article continued to increase and the telephone was ringing off the hook.
And then a powerful thing happened. The mainstream media started calling.
The following statement was made by Daniel Drezner, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, on his website danieldrezner.com:
I received a mass email linking to this disturbing first-person account by Annie Jacobsen... I can say that the e-mail sent to me and other bloggers was cc-ed to movers and shakers in the mediaspere -- Bill Keller, David Ignatius, George Will, Anne Applebaum, and Nicholas D. Kristoff. So they're certainly aware of the story... I'd like to see real journalists dig deeper into this.
Dig they did. NBC was the first major news outlet to contact WomensWallStreet. The producer I spoke with on the telephone said the FBI had confirmed that 14 Syrians were on the flight, they confirmed the details about what happened upon landing in Los Angeles, and they said that the accounts from the flight attendants regarding what happened during the flight matched the accounts given by me and my husband to the FBI after we landed.
Then I spoke with a producer from ABC. She explained that she could not get Dave Adams, Head of Public Affairs of the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM), on the phone. So she asked me some of the questions that she had wanted to ask him: Where exactly did this band of 14 musicians play? What was the name of the band? Who booked the band and what kind of music did they play? Did anyone follow up and actually witness these 14 men performing at their desert casino gig? I had none of the answers, even though I had asked Adams these exact questions myself when we spoke last week. The ABC producer also asked me other questions which had crossed my mind after hanging up with Adams. Did I know anything about their return flight on JetBlue? Did the men go back to Syria? Did I believe FAM's story?
(Excerpt) Read more at womenswallstreet.com ...
They did not mention any other media outlets. They're talking now with terrorism experts who start off by saying "but nothing happened". Get your heads out of the sand! Nothing happened in June, July & August of 2001 either.
Oh, brother, this ex-FBI guy calls the Jacobsens "two people who didn't understand security," or words to that effect.
Even if it *was* a false alarm, that gives way too much credit to the TSA and is waaaay too patronizing.
The couple is supposed to be on Good Morning America tomorrow morning.
The Jacobsens will be on again at the end of the show.
I won't fly any airline but El Al.
If you go to Michelle Malkin's blog, she has a link up today to *another* scary airplane story by another blogger...
These 14 Arab men were behaving in a threatening manner. No non-Arab on that flight was acting is a threatening manner. Wake up FBI CIA TSA Bush administration!
So they passed thru security. Flying out of Detroit with the large Muslim population, I wonder about a plant from the ground. I would not want to be flying thru Wayne or Metro any time soon.
I too found Pete Williams' completely lacking on this story.
No follow up on any of the statements made other than to suggest that the Syrians were screened pre-boarding and that he (Williams) didn't find anyone who believes this was a dry run.
Translation: No one who knows anything would talk to me.
Sounds like the government bureaucrats are trying hard to undercut what the Jacobsens are saying...Why is it always this way?!
For once, I'd just like the truth, unvarnished.
BTW, a FReeper posted over the weekend (Burbank Karl) and said he talked to a contact at LAX security and they confirmed the basic story and discouraged him from trying to find out more. Hmmm.
Right you are Solson..........gotta get politicans and judges to have b&%*s enough to stand for what's right and cut these scum suckers off at the knees.........and a more informed electorate. Thanks for the reply.
Are you listening to the security guy from Northwest? He's shooting down the Jacobsens story. As if he's got the whole thing figured out. Enlighten me pal as to how you know exactly how terrorists act in every situation.
Amen NavySEAL.........I hope W has learned a lesson. You cannot be fair and nice to Demonrats.....they have NO desire to get along and W isn't going to be able to have a "new tone" of "Rodney Kingness". He needs to clean out all the so-called old heads at every agency and put people in who have his best interest at heart.
Where are the usual ambulance chasers, the professionally outraged cultural sensitivity hall monitors and lawyers of CAIR et al to screech about discrimination? Maybe they can't find these band members either?
Joe just said he was on a flight with suspicious activity a year ago, again someone in the rest room, said they were flying up the Hudson river by ground zero too. Maybe that's why he's covering this too.
I don't understand the posts that complain that the liberal media will use this article to attack President Bush's airline security program. Who gives a rat's patootie if this happens. The airline security that we have is run by a Demopuke, Norman Mineta, who's afraid that Americans will put Arabs into internment camps. Get real, everyone. We're on the road to another 9-11 if the government doesn't begin dealing with reality, not political correctness.
Can you provide a link?
Then we read accounts where grandmothers and children are searched, but Middle Eastern men are allowed to breeze right thru the security lines because the airlines don't want Norman Mineta giving them another million dollar fine for racial profiling. Makes ya sick!
Me either. Helloooo airlines and national security- if you want to protect us, find out what El Al does and copy it. To hell with political correctness.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.