Are Terrorists Passing Messages Right Under Our Noses?

07/22/2004 | Greywolf

[GreyWolf]

I post this personal encounter to ascertain whether any other Freepers have had similar experiences or have heard of anyone observing such behavior as I describe below.

Last week, my wife and I were driving home from our place of employment in Central Maryland. We always take US 29 N to US 40 E to the outer suburbs of Baltimore. As we passed under the only enclosed footbridge on US 29 at Columbia, I noticed a female Asian or Middle Eastern person on the footbridge appearing to stare South at the traffic passing underneath her. She was not moving but ewas just kneeling there supposedly watching for something. It seemed out of place at the exact instant we passed under her but I quickly dismissed the encounter as merely curious.

As we continued north approximately 2-3 miles, we noticed a bicycle parked on the shoulder ahead. As we drew closer we saw an unmistakable ME type crouched down behind the guardrail also watching traffic approaching from the south. Now they have my attention! I made it a point to continue straight home and upon arrival called the Howard County non-emergency police number to report the observation. They seemed unusually interested asking for descriptions and whether I had seen any cameras or binoculars. After about 10-15 minutes of grilling they thanked me for the information and related that they were going to send a car to "check it out". I hung up feeling a little proud of myself for having done my civic duty and perhaps helping out in the WOT.

Today, exactly one week, almost to the minute, we were driving the same route. I did not notice the footbridge or whether anyone was stationed there but as we proceeded north about 1/2 mile beyond the bridge, the same ME male with the parked bicycle, this time was standing in the shoulder area of the highway except today he was signaling in a manner that I remember from my Navy days when the signalmen used to wig-wag converse with signalmen on other ships. I don't know who he was signaling. It could have been someone again on the footbridge or someone in a vehicle BUT HE WAS DEFINATELY SIGNALING someone.

Now my curiosity is peaked. I am a communications (and software) engineer working for a DoD contractor and I am aware that there are ears listening very closely to every corner of the rf spectrum. My question is this:

1. Are these people likely up to something underhanded and

2. Have they resorted to communicating via non-wired or non-transmitted means in order to avoid detection?

[kyguy]

I do not know why they were there. Neither do you. But quite frankly, I would much rather live in a country that is at risk for an attack than a country where I am interrogated by the police for doing nothing more than watching cars go by, or be arrested as a terrorist for wanting to hang a picture of a bridge in my living room.

Perhaps you're willing to live in a police state. I would rather have my essential liberties than a temporary and false sense of security.

[jwpjr]

"I have to believe that one of the biggest reasons for there not having been another attack since 9/11 is because of things reported by Americans like you and my bud"

I think you are very correct in this! My son is a deputy sheriff and worked in this county for 10 years before moving to a county in SW Florida where he could be assigned full time as a helicopter pilot. One of the cases he worked before he left here was a traffic homicide where a speeding teen struck and killed a mother who was pushing her baby in a carriage. The case did not come to trial for over a year and by that time he had left here and was living and working in the other county. When he came up for the trial he drove his marked sheriff's car from the distant county. He stayed at a hotel downtown and the day of the trial went to fuel his car at a gas station near the port. This is a big port, close to a million passengers a year pass through it. He gassed up his car and headed off to the trial. He learned later that day that less than half an hour after he got fuel the FBI had showed up at the distant county's sheriff's office asking if they knew a person in one of their marked cars was in the port area of our city! Someone had seen him in the marked car but not in uniform and recognized the car was from a county three hours south of here. They called the authorities and darned if they didn't get right on it and check it out. That's the sort of thing that has kept us safe from more attacks on our soil. It's a pain in the butt sometimes, but this sort of violence by millions of ordinary Americans could easily spell the difference between being safe and suffering more attacks.

[Boiler Plate]

KY,
Well before you go on about police states here, do think it is unfair of us to not be allowed to take firearms on to an airplane? I mean there is the 2nd ammendment and all.

Sure it is just an everyday occurance that two guys on consecutive bridges along a 12 lane (yes 12) highway are staring in the same direction in the same time frame as someone spots a person week after week doing the same thing on another busy Highway within 20 miles of each other. Oddly enough I had not this happen in 35 years of living here and it just so happens that all of the suspects are middle eastern. Nah, your right just let them go right on. Oh by the way did you read this?

Scouting jetliners for new attacks


By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack.

At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called "stereotypical" behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane.

"No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack," an air marshal said.
Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods.
"It's happening, and it's a sad state of affairs," a pilot said.
A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.
The Northwest flight involved 14 Syrian men and the American Airlines flight involved six men of Middle Eastern descent.
"I've never been in a situation where I have felt that afraid," said Annie Jacobsen, a business and finance feature writer for the online magazine Women's Wall Street who was aboard the Northwest flight.
The men were seated throughout the plane pretending to be strangers. Once airborne, they began congregating in groups of two or three, stood nearly the entire flight, and consecutively filed in and out of bathrooms at different intervals, raising concern among passengers and flight attendants, Mrs. Jacobsen said.
One man took a McDonald's bag into the bathroom, then passed it off to another passenger upon returning to his seat. When the pilot announced the plane was cleared for landing and to fasten seat belts, seven men jumped up in unison and went to different bathrooms.
Her account was confirmed by David Adams, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), who said officers were on board and checked the bathrooms several times during the flight, but nothing was found.


There you go, no harm done, it was all a coincidence. Sure.

Best Regards,
Boiler Plate

[Boiler Plate]

I do not know why they were there. Neither do you.

KY,
That is where you are wrong. They were up to something that was part of a crime. As the saying goes "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is problably a duck. It is also against most local ordanances to loiter on a overpass. They don't put up those nice fences for nothing. So if they are commiting a crime then the police have every right to arrest and question them. And guess what, that was even before 9/11.
Finest Regards,
Boiler Plate

[swheats]

I join you in the tin-foil.

I live in a quiet neighborhood and there's a home up for sale. there's a male of Asian decent living there til the place sells. In the course of a month or two there has been 3 other vehicles that have come and are staying there. 2 females Asian, 2 for sure and possible 2 more Asain men living in this home with little to no furniture-bare necessities according to my husband. All vehicles are from out of state, Idaho, Colorado, California and Utah.

I'm hesitant on reporting anything because I could just be paranoid after reading this:

"The Citizen Awareness Program, proposed by a domestic security task force in Orlando, had planned to ask firemen, utility workers and other workers who go into homes to report any suspected terrorist activity. One possible sign, the program had planned to note, would be "multiple adult males living together, usually of Middle Eastern appearance and between the ages of 18 and 45, with little or no furnishings."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/7/22/131303.shtml

[kyguy]

Actually, I would agree with the principle of prohibiting "things that go boom" from being carried onto the plane. While I'd feel a lot more comfortable if I were armed, putting a hole in a pressurized tube at 30 or 40 thousand feet is a non-stop ticket to loss of structural integrity. However, I like the idea of the pilots being armed, and I am all for armed air marshals. I think those guys are are a great defense against future hijackings, and they've been giving the appropriate training for discharging firearms in pressurized planes. One hopes they have, at least!

I have read that. It's been posted here about four hundred times in the last couple of days. I have no doubt that there is another attack brewing. It sounds like the air marshals did a good job of keeping an eye on the situation. But we're talking about two entirely different things. Trying to rip the mirror out of an aircraft's lavatory and watching cars go by are not equalivant! Even giving them an extreme benefit of the doubt, it sounds like these guys were failing to comply with the flight crew's instructions. They were certainly in a position to endanger the safety of the other pax if the plane would have hit some turbulence -- having 180 pound ragdolls being tossed about the plane can certainly cause injury to innocent by-sitters.

In the case of airliners, though, there is nothing that can be done to provide complete security against hijackings short of handcuffing each pax and shackling them to their seats. They found a way to go "low-tech" and get through our "no things that go boom" armor on 11SEP: They proved themselves determined enough to use small blades to slaughter the flight crew. Do you seriously think that they won't find something else, now that box cutters are disallowed? A broken piece of glass? A pencil's stab wound to the throat? A garotte? If we say that we must sacrifice everything to provide airliner security, I submit the only possible way is to shackle pax in their seats, handcuff them, and ship their luggage (and carry-ons, and purses) on a seperate cargo plane, after hand-inspecting every single item in every single bag.

The same applies for targets closer to the ground. If we say we value our security more than anything else, I submit that the logical conclusion of this slipperly slope is to mandate state-issued travel papers, outlaw photography, prohibit any outdoor painting or sketching, and to arrest and prosecute anyone who is outdoors and not actively moving. You keep pressing the point that it's just middle eastern men that you're seeing, and I'll grant you that, right now, that's not an altogether invalid point. Right now that is where the main threat is from. But what happens when they start winning converts from other ethnic groups? If they work with the Irish, then we'll only arrest arabs and redheads for looking at a building for more than 3 seconds. Then they'll work with the North Koreans, and it'll be arabs, redheads, and asians. Then, maybe the pakistanis, and they look kind of like Indians to a lot of people, so throw them into the mix as well.

Yes, that is taken to the extreme. My point is only this: There must be a point where we decide we are as secure as we can get without giving up "too much" freedom. I believe that when we're to the point of making it illegal to take photographs of public landmarks, we have traveled past that point of "too much".

[GreyWolf]

4:15 PM EDT

[livius]

The problem is that if we lose this battle and the Muslims take over, you're not going to have any liberties at all. And on top of that, no music, no art, no technology.

I think we have to be vigilant for our liberties now, but we can't forget that this is a war, declared on us by the other side, and that wartime is a different from other times.

[7.62 x 51mm]

I came, I saw, I drank wine.

[mtbopfuyn]

It's against the law to fly remote controlled toys or even kites near airports because it could interfere with planes.

[kyguy]

Agreed. This is a war, and certainly in wartime some extraodinary measures must be taken. This is a bit different though: Under what conditions do we declare victory? At least for the Japanese in the internment camps during WWII, there was a scenario where their rights would be restored: when Japan was defeated. Is the war on terror a war with an end? Unseating the Taliban did not end terrorism. Defeating Iraq didn't do it. It's not a war against Islamofascist terror, either, so what about the ELF? Or the Basques? If we get a lefist administration, will they declare Operation Rescue a terror organization? Before I'm willing to sacrifice my freedom for a wartime effort, I think I'm within my rights to know in what scenario my rights will be restored. When most people talk about these sorts of infringements on our rights (for example, being allowed to take pictures of tunnels) I hear them talking about two periods of time: pre 9-11 and post 9-11. For example: "In a post 9-11 US, it is dangerous to allow people to have pictures of landmarks because they could use them in planning a terror attack". I do not hear people saying "Until we have defeated terror, it is dangerous...". That way of thinking frightens me.

[mtbopfuyn]

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be on the lookout for those on the 'most wanted' lists.

Think a moment about they did to get on the 'most wanted' lists. Reporting suspicious activity is nipping it in the bud rather than waiting until after the fact.

[mtbopfuyn]

The little furniture doesn't bother me, but everyone with a different license tag certainly does. Why are you hesitant to report this? Report it and then the ball's in the authorities' court.

[rabidralph]

Are you sure it's not Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle, in brownface?

[JimRed]

any cchance you could stop and discreetly follow him the next time? preferably with a cell phone

...and a video camera, and a sidearm.

[GreyWolf]

Perhaps, now that Ronald Reagan has assisted the reunification of Germany, and they are now free as you describe freedom, to do the things you found difficult to do before you came to America, you might want to consider the option of returning there. They subscribe to Euro and to the UN and to political correctness, so you might be more comfortable in that environment now.

If you decide to stay here, on the other hand, you need to realize that Americans will fight to the death to protect what we have, Euro, UN, and PC be damned. When we see something suspicious, we don't look the other way or bury our heads in the sand. As someone in a previous post quoted, "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck", it's most likely not a pig. I believe in statistical probability and am skeptical of coincidence. In the 60 years I've lived here, I have seen many changes to our culture, some good, some bad. The most damaging trend that I have noticed is the withdrawal of citizens within their own clans or mini societies with two blind eyes to what is happening around them. People often never speak to neighbors, never attend community meetings, or communicate to anyone outside their tight little circle. If this trend continues, it will ultimately bring this great Country down and, frankly, I hope I am not around to witness it.

You call me a "busybody" and I accept the title with pride. If my reporting of these incidents helps in some small way to thwart just one of the hundreds of attacks currently being planned against us at the expense of one bicycle rider having to answer a few questions to a local or national LEO, then so be it. Better him being inconvenienced than to have members of your family, my family, or friends die or be injured in another 9/11 type attack.

[BritExPatInFla]

I witnessed a similar thing just last week. I was driving down the road I take to get home each afternoon. I pulled up to a redlight, near the ramp to I-75. I look to the right, and what do I see but a "swarthy type" sitiing in a chair with a laptop. Why would a person of obvious M.E. descent be sitting out there watching traffic on a busy state road, near an interchange, with a laptop. I had the cell phone out, until I remembered, he was one of the traffic counters from my office doing a traffic count on one of my traffic engineering projects. Oh, and he's not middle eastern, he's hispanic.

[TomHarkinIsNotFromIowa]

Amen....

I laughed at this movie until after 9/11. Click on pic to get the great clip.

[eyespysomething]

Call my sheriff, although I am in GA, he will promptly call the right persons and kick them in the a$$ to do something.

I'm not kidding. He takes all this very seriously. You can even use my name. PM if you'd like.


(we have the best sheriff a county could want or need)

[livius]

ELF and the Basques are not a serious threat to the US. They might be, however, in the hands of the Islamic terrorists. For example, there is considerable suspicion arising from the investigationg being conducted in Spain now that ETA and the Moroccan AQ cell were working together in the Madrid bombing. Without that influence, things like ELF, which has a tiny, crazy membership and no mainstream support, can be controlled through normal criminal control activities. It is only with the influence of a worldwide terrorist network behind it, and one which operates by disguising itself behind religion, that things like ELF could move beyond setting fire to car dealerships and become a serious threat.

The problem is that we have not been attacked by a state and we are not fighting against a state, but an ideology. Here we must refer to history: Islam has been on the attack since its inception, and in fact, it spread by the sword. Mohammed fought 70+ battles, and only one of them was defensive. Europe was threatened by Islam on and off for centuries, and Islam came very close to overrunning Europe but was stopped at the gates of Vienna. The fight against Muslim pirates - who were not in it just for the money, but were taking and enslaving European and American sailors - was one of the US's first battles.

Islam only subsides when it knows it has no agressive power. In the past, it was overtly supported by states, which gave it military power, and when these states faded, so did Islam's aggressiveness, or at any rate, its power to be aggressive. However, it has always had a tendency to freelance, and now, with AQ, it has virtually cut loose from state support. Any state supporting it must, of course, be punished and prevented from doing so, which has been our objective over the last few years. But because Islam believes any non-Muslim to be the enemy, this war is being conducted by ruthless armed civilians against peaceful, unarmed civilians.

I think we will only know it is over when the attacks stop or die down. Various things may happen to produce this: we may kill enough of the leaders to discourage their followers; other countries (such as China) may become involved and take savage action against the countries where the terrorists are known to live (such as Pakistan), regardless of whether the terrorists are being actively supported by the government of that state or not; or some completely unpredictable factor may disrupt them.

This is a completely different war from any before. I agree that we don't want to be in a situation where perfectly routine actions suddenly become suspect. I often buy air tickets at the last minute, for example, and it's a nuisance to have all my luggage torn apart because this is a "red flag." I can still remember the days when you could buy a ticket and sprint through the gates to the plane just as it was about to leave!

I agree that the level of petty inconveniences is pretty irritating. But we're not losing freedom of speech, freedom to travel, etc., and we're not about to. If our enemies win, though, we'd lose it all.