http://womenswallstreet.com/WWS/arti...&articleid=711

couple of comments from me

i believe this to be a propaganda piece. there are some things that just don't make sense to me

1) the men talk in arabic.....but yet mouth the words "no" in english? what.
2) they opening carry a cell phone, camera, mcd's back into the bathroom...is the author really that observant?? would would-be terrorists be that blatent?

What a panicy, racist idiot. She ought to stay at home if the flight experience is going to be so terrifying for her and her husband.

She has swallowed much of the tripe measures which pass for security as actually working.

Wanna keep bombs off planes? It's simple: use the devices like the Sentinel II and GE's EntryScan3 to non-invasively check passengers for explosives. Improve the x-ray to also better detect explosives.

Stop all other forms of "security" that are needless harassment.

Well, since the beginning of the article, the intent is clear. The author questions whether the United States can both preserve security and respect the rights of human people, even non-citizen. Why is she saying "non-citizen" ? Why should they have less rights than citizens ? "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation." It's written "No one" and not "No American".

The article then proceeds by describing the pre-boarding time. The author notices 14 middle-eastern looking people, and takes notes about their attires, what they carry, and so on. Could she remember what the other pax were doing ? I wil grant her the benefit of doubt, and say she's a journalist, and is trained to keep an eye open. Let's assume that she could have said what the other pax carried, and only mention the Middle-Easterners because of the subject of her article, not because she was keeping an eye specifically for them (which denotes a racial profiling on her part). But it's still strange... Could she tell where any of the pax was seated ? I am amazed by this prodigious memory.

As far as we know, the ME pax are guilty of speaking Arabic, going to the lavatories at the beginning of the flight and again at the end of the flight (terrible, people are going to the lavatory before landing...). Probably due to her reaction (and written description, and all) they were harassed at landing, and found guilty of nothing. If they had been carrying something suspicious, you'd guess all the government agency would have found it. But nothing.

When I read this article, I thought "hey, if I was member of a ME group of friend, used to be discriminated against (for example by other passengers eyeing me all the time) I would purposely carry strange bags to the lavatory and eat their content there. Let the morons be afraid, and spend a lot of money in more harassment (the LAPD, FBI etc. doing interviews costs money).

Because the more concerning is that the author doesn't actually suggests anything. She says "Hey, the US can't protect US and the rights of foreigners", describe a situation where a group acted "suspiciously" (I admit that if they behaved like she said, it is worrying) but did nothing illegal, and is highly checked by law enforcement authorities afterward, who found nothing wrong and cleared them.

And ? I suppose the reader is left to conclude that the situation COULD have been worse, and that in order to protect the US citizen, no right should be granted to the unworthy human being of the Outside. I can't see any other purpose to her article.

I suppose most intelligent readers will read this article and scoff, though.

The author has some serious misconceptions about security:

She claims the men were not screened; surely they didn't bypass the checkpoints at their originating airport, and if TSA there was functioning well, the men, their instruments, their McDonald's bags (if carried through the checkpoint), and in all liklihood their shoes, were screened. How does screening them twice improve security?

She claims their passports were not checked at the gate. How does checking their passports improve security? Terrorists have passports and id-cards too. Sometimes they're even real! (i.e., 9/11)

How would TSA/LEO at DTW questioning her family about their food/bathroom activities have improved security?

The suspicious-acting man in 1A who stood by the cockpit was probably an air marshal.

If 4 groups of 2 men (ok, 3 groups of 2 and 1 group of 1) each spent 4 minutes in two lavs after the author had downtown LA in sight, then there were probably still men in the lav during landing. Either she's being a little hysterical in exaggerating what happened, or there was some sort of procedural/safety violation here by the airline.

I was unaware of any new required announcements on flights about "congregating" around aisles/lavs (which in itself should not be considered suspicious), and I have flown since July 1. So where'd she get that from?

Her story would have been much more credible if she had left out her implied suggestions about feel-good security meausres that don't actually improve security when you think rationally about them.

That said, I will take the controversial position and agree that the woman witnessed something suspicious if it happened as she described and had legitimate reason to be concerned for her safety. Maybe it was just a strange-acting musical group, maybe not. I've witnessed similar bathroom/congregating behavior from a group of 12-year-old girls returning from a Europe trip on a transatlantic flight although usually they obeyed the seatbelt sign, unlike the group in the article just before the landing. But people witnessed the dry runs for 9/11, and the skeletons of those stories are similar to this one (minus the hysteria about feel-good measures). Yes the gender/age/nationality of the people involved matters; that's life.

However, this might be the closest we get to a good example of the system working correctly => large group of foreigners from suspicious country on flight, air marshalls assigned to flight (hopefully in Y seats but probably not), air marshalls observe activity but take no action because none required, flight lands. If the "14 men" did nothing wrong, I hope they were politely conversed with for no more than 10 minutes and then let on their way. If they did something wrong, then I hope they are in jail with access to a lawyer.

Oh, and if TSA or the airlines have a quota on how many people in a specific ethnic group they can screen, shame on them for reducing our security with this PC crap. Racial quotas have no place anywhere.

Well, I for a while, thought I was dreaming. On my European email address I am getting racist texts, some very similar to that stupid article.

This is the biggest load I read for a long time. Who can sanely believe that the crew would have continued the flight if the FA's were so anxious?

I am shocked that such rubbish may have been printed.

Yup, not a lot makes sense here. She notices these folks as they're boarding, yet knows their instruments were never screened? I've yet to be in an airport anywhere where my carry-on did not go through the scanner. Terrorists learning to play instruments to they had a reason to all be on the same plane? A wee bit far-fetched. Odd this "journalist" didn't check to see if they did indeed perform and if they were any good. Oh, but that could just ruin the story.

Well, the lady saw at-gate screening at AMS once and so it of course should be in place at DTW, using her reasoning. Of course little ol' T.F. Green (PVD) where there are few non-white people doesn't have it which she conveniently ignores.

But the orthopedic shoe was not checked since we cannot upset the disabled in our PC world. Instead we have to x-ray Vans and Flip-flops!

As for the MickeyD's sack, that's an interesting one.

Oh TSA employees, yoo-hoo! What inspections are there of the things going into the Airside concessionaires? Could something that might be assembled inflight be packed into the boxes of Fren, err, Freedom Fries and then passed to an evil-doer with his Extra-Value meal? Ah, lemme guess...NONE!?!

You have to understand Norm Mineta on this one. He spent time in a U.S. concentration camp due to the round-up of the Nisei during WWII. So he's a leeeetle sensitive about racial profiling.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3067528/

.. and Annie Jacobsen relies upon Ann Coulter. That's where she lost me.

Mrs. Jacobsen's pieced together story takes a handful of spaced out facts and fills space with baseless speculation and fearful imagination. Maybe she should start writing fantasy novels.

Heaven forbid that an ethnically Middle Eastern male pick up McDonalds at the nice DTW airport and dares bring it on board the flight. After all the stink can be a chemical weapon that makes one puke in a contained environment (like say the elevator). ROTFLOL

Heaven forbid that someone flying from the Middle East to Amsterdam to Detroit and then onto LAX would wish to go to the bathroom and/or just stand up for a while and not die due to deep vein thrombosis. ROTFLOL [Oh wait, aren't they all suicidal! ]

Hmm, when there is an article against the TSA it is taken as being the whole truth yet a favorable story (well sort of) is automatically ridiculed.

Yea, no discrimination here either.

I don't think the TSA is ridiculed here. In fact, it is probable that procedures were followed and that appropriate screening took place.

The ridiculous one is the author of the article who 1. suspects for no apparent reason, or ...umes as you like to write, that this group of guys was not cleared by security, 2. try to develop fear and prejudice against ME when they are clearly not at fault (as the whole group was cleared afterward).

Of course, she probably asks for more screening at airport, something a lot of people here will object to, but she only takes the blame for her opinion.

In fact, TSA could be praised for NOT harassing this guys.

Like you said, she didn't know if they were screened. They probably had a connecting flight and never went outside the sterile area. She ...umed, hey just like people here.

thats one of the reasons why i started posting in this section.

there seems to be a loss of objectivity, and in its place is a whole lot of ^

there are some things that could change for the better, but some people assume that TSA isn't doing it because they're unaware or inactive. like those explosive sniffing protals in the newspaper.

there is much to be said about airlines/airports as well as the gov't (with budget caps from an unfriendly congress) which is inevitable with such an agency's politically charged full existance in such a short time.

but mainly its sort of annoying to see the belittling of individuals who took a job to do what they felt was in the defense of their country. who work long hours with more kinds of verbal abuse than we could probably imagine.

but i digress...

Additional perspective on the WWS article can be found here:
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000207.htm

So why did the "musicians" stand up at the same time during her flight as it was landing? Why the mysterious behavior during the flight? Why the flood of authorities onto the plane after landing? Why the flight attendant concern? Why the extra air marshals? And why the policy change? Why are we so hesitant to believe that it's possible that there was a dry run for a terrorist attack going on here?

A few things ring false in this article:

1) intensive secondary screening and questioning takes place for pax on all pax laying over during flights in Europe. No, not last time I checked (two weeks ago). Some place, yes, but that's not what she said in her story.

2) a "quota" of max 2 Arabs in secondary screening. I can't speak to that specifically, but I know that on some of my flights to the Dominican Republic, more than half the plane (consisting of a 100% Dominican group) is routinely put through the "line-up," while the Caucasian tourists are welcomed on board. This is probably due to the use of cash paid tickets as a flag.... many Dominicans do not have credit cards. Clearly, there's no quota on the number of Dominicans who get subjected to "line-up," so it's hard to imagine that Arabs are treated any differently.

3) a law enforcement officer unknown to the writer calling to report not only that the subjects were cleared, but proceeding to substantially violate their rights to privacy by divulging details of their employment and future movements (particularly when the LEO knows that the person with whom he is speaking is in active contact with the media).

Coincidentally, I recently travelled on the exact same two-leg itinerary as an Arab going from the U.S. to Sweden (who I saw as I was checking in for my first flight and overhead indicating his final destination, Stockholm). Throughout the journey from U.S. to Stockholm, this was guy was jacked with constantly...

P.S. I wouldn't be surprised if the men were using the bathroom as a private place to say prayers, accounting for the fact that they all went to the bathroom in sequence. The "thumbs up" could have been a sign that the bathroom stall was big enough to accommodate the prayer ritual. The bags, etc., may have contained small prayer rugs.