My guess is that this was not TSA, this was FBI/JTTF and that the story is a little bungled as to who did the interviewing. A young US Citizen traveling on a oneway ticket paid for by a third party to scary-brown-people-terror-land sets off alarm bells. I'd love to know what the person or people who interviewed the traveler was wearing and any credentials presented or representations made as to agency. The person or people he spoke to were most likely not with the TSA and most likely had authority to make nominations to the TSC. The 'alarm bells' I described above don't ring in the TSA breakroom. This was not the result of a chance encounter with a BDO-- they were there in advance ready for him with information about his travel and then told him they needed time to check out his story.
I believe that this citizen was intentionally blacklisted from travel to a certain destination (or possibly travel at all) by his own government until he provided them with an explanation of his reason for traveling there, and until he gave them time to decide if they were satisfied with that explanation. They only asked for 24 hours in this case.
Last edited by Ari; Jun 26, 2012 at 1:08 pm