FredAnderssen

Woman reports 'dynamite' text; passenger removed from plane

I see no mention of repercussions for the passenger who reported the alleged text message.

Randyk47

Therein lies the rub. It goes to her motive and intent. Was it an honest mistake, was it racially motivated, an out and out lie, a mental problem, a drinking or drug issue, and so on and so on? Not hard to understand a certain amount of paranoia, it's not like the news hasn't been full of warnings and reminders to be aware and watchful. That's not at all to excuse or explain the passenger's behavior, barring any other report only she knows her motives and reasons. We're caught between minding our own business, being reasonable prudent and observative, and overreacting.

NOTE: Just watching CNN and they had a report from New York. One of the main points made over and over again was New York's "See Something, Say Something" anti-terrorist/terrorism campaign. Where and how do you draw the line?

saulblum

Makes me want to get up and sing the national anthem on my next flight.

♫ And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air ♫

saulblum

As is often the case, Bruce Schneier said it best, back in 2007.

https://www.schneier.com/essays/arch...the_war_o.html

mikeef

My wife speaks Hebrew. I wonder what would happen if a passenger overheard her speaking Hebrew with her parents?

Oh, one other thing: There is no freakin' way that that passenger knew that BLR was the code for Bengaluru. None. Zero. Zip.

Mike

GUWonder

Bang a lore. Bang = the sound of a gun or explosion. I tell no lore this time.

As we know, Hebrew is a Semitic language and so is Arabic. If the Hebrew-speaker is ethnically Persian -- whether Jewish or not -- fireworks could start if the person speaks of Yom Teruah, which is the day of the blasting/shouting of the shofar. The same could happen even if the ethnic Persian doesn't speak Hebrew but says the same thing in talking about a holiday.

A little ignorance can be a very dangerous thing, more so when the paranoid ignorants are being empowered -- as increasingly evident at airports and on airplanes these past few weeks, but also as evident elsewhere.

chollie

When I was in high school, we had a bomb alert one day. Alarms, everyone evacuated, stood around for a while, back to class.

It happened a few more times over the next couple weeks, then it stopped.

Of course, a couple years later a departing teacher clued us in: the phoned in threats hadn't stopped and they had never caught anyone. The school couldn't just keep evacuating every time.

That's one of my concerns about this 'see something, say something' stuff. All too often, it is paired with zero tolerance, with blowing every tiny thing up into a potential catastrophic threat, reinforced by encouraging people to keep coming forward with this trivia, even if their motivations are attention-seeking, stupidity, misunderstanding, revenge, paranoia...

At some point, when we've chased down too many false alarms, we'll have to pull back - and that's when we're most at risk of dismissing something we really should be paying attention to.

FateSucks

They will freak out, unfortunately. Especially if your wife is Israeli and has strong Semetic features (dark eyes and hair).

Most Americans still stupidly believe all Jews or Hebrew speaking people look European or have lighter features (ashekenaz Jews) much like they assume all Muslims have dark eyes and hair (ever been to Bosnia?). The opposite of Europe where they know their Jews can have any hair or eye color, they have huge numbers of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, in addition to Ashekenaz and a good number intermarry.

It is propaganda by the anti-terrorist brigade to keep an eye on people who look different from you due to paranoia. I live in the Midwest, and my family and I get this mistrust because we are lighter skin Mexicans and have a certain look (because all Mexicans are suppose to be short and dark with flatter faces....stereotypes are fun!)......

petaluma1

Revolving door incident keeps passenger off flight

Due to the screwiness of the NY Times site, I can't copy and paste a quote from the article.

However, a passenger, an attorney from Texas, was not allowed to board a flight because he allegedly cut off a crew member in a revolving door when arriving at the airport.

Randyk47

I read the article and it sounds like a personal vendetta by a crew member because of a perceived slight. Also sounds like the airline recognized it as "abuse of power" by the crew member. Hopefully the airline did something about the crew member's actions with the crew member.

gingersnaps

That likely explains why airport screeners have not improved at tests. In the early years of post 9/11 test success rate high and that rate has decreased to nearly zero over time.

chollie

People can not maintain a state of 100% focused red alert for long periods of time.

It's even more difficult when you are trying to maintain a state of ready alertness while looking over your shoulder and carrying on personal conversations with co-workers and playing with your cellphone with barking co-workers and overly-loud taped messages blaring in the background.

Perfect place to test someone's powers of concentration. TSA does nothing to make it easier for their folks to stay focused, ie, ban barking, personal conversations and cellphones at the checkpoint.

Randyk47

I've seen the same behaviors in emergency rooms where I've been regular or on call staff. You need good supervisors who stay on top of the situation though even they can get sucked into it.

Boggie Dog

Serious question.

What evidence is there that TSA did better job at detection in the early years after 9/11/2001? I have never seen any such documentation although I am not suggesting that such doesn't exist.

gingersnaps

In the context of "false-alarms" or "boy who cried wolf"; it is plausible that this has contributed to the documented reduction of detection success rates.

Do you remember what is was like trying to drop off someone at the airport on November 2001, "tuck and roll grandpa" was about all one could do. Now, some decade later, you can leave you car on a curb and about no one gives much of any concern.

I have seen passengers leave their carry on bags in a line walk away for 10 and then question why anyone complained.