Originally Posted by
Oshkosh105
...at least from the few details I read, did not have any crime committed against him. The only things TSA are at fault for was the 5 hour detention and the resulting missed flights, based on the fact that he was carrying some flash cards with Arabic translations of words associated with attacks on aviation in the past 10 years.
Just wow. I don't know where you hail from, but here in the U.S., we have things known as constitutional rights. Those rights include things such as the freedom of speech (first amendment), the right to be secure personally in papers and effects (fourth amendment), not to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process (fifth amendment). These things are pretty important to us here. This man shouldn't have been deprived of his constitutional rights for five seconds, much less five hours.
Originally Posted by
Oshkosh105
If I walk through a checkpoint with "bomb" and "terrorist" in English, Spanish, etc., I guarantee the same thing would happen to me.
Why? How about you walk through the checkpoint with a Koran or a Bible? Are these also scary pieces of papers that would get you detained for five hours? Both of these books have some pretty dangerous things written in them.
Originally Posted by
Oshkosh105
Are the pieces of paper innately dangerous? No. Is having a regular looking, young, american man who can shout commands in Arabic to take down an aircraft potentially dangerous? I would argue yes.
You're kidding, right? So you think that young men are carrying around note cards with commands for their Muslim brethren to take down an airplane? How does that work? Do they shout "terrorist" in Arabic as a signal to their Muslim cohorts to do what exactly? How about white guys shouting out something in German to do the exact same thing? It's a horrible thought, isn't it? I guess the solution is to ban all paper! But then the terrorists would have to memorize
two words. Impossible!
Originally Posted by
Oshkosh105
It is the world we live in and foresight from a senior in college should have alerted him that it was not the brightest idea to bring those cards.
Why? Because he should know that cards written in Arabic automatically means that the constitution will be suspended for him at various places in the United States? How is ANYONE supposed to know that? Or that he should know that only Muslims are terrorists? Am I to go through all the papers that I have with me for my next trip to see if there isn't something that may trigger a "constitution-suspending" response the next time I travel?
What about information on your computer? Should you purge anything that has the word "bomb" or "terrorist" in any language on your laptop before you travel?