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.
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
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
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.