WWS: Terror in the Skies, Again?

[iconoclastic cat]

Oh, come on.

Read the article on this article in Salon:http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2004/07/21/askthepilot95/print.html

The original, nutty story is here:
http://www.womenswallstreet.com/WWS/article_landing.aspx?titleid=1&articleid=711

Terror in the Skies, Again?
By Annie Jacobsen

A WWS Exclusive Article

Note from the E-ditors: You are about to read an account of what happened during a domestic flight that one of our writers, Annie Jacobsen, took from Detroit to Los Angeles. The WWS Editorial Team debated long and hard about how to handle this information and ultimately we decided it was something that should be shared. What does it have to do with finances? Nothing, and everything. Here is Annie's story.

On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats.

On that Tuesday, our journey began uneventfully. Starting out that morning in Providence, Rhode Island, we went through security screening, flew to Detroit, and passed the time waiting for our connecting flight to Los Angeles by shopping at the airport stores and eating lunch at an airport diner. With no second security check required in Detroit we headed to our gate and waited for the pre-boarding announcement. Standing near us, also waiting to pre-board, was a group of six Middle Eastern men. They were carrying blue passports with Arabic writing. Two men wore tracksuits with Arabic writing across the back. Two carried musical instrument cases - thin, flat, 18" long. One wore a yellow T-shirt and held a McDonald's bag. And the sixth man had a bad leg -- he wore an orthopedic shoe and limped. When the pre-boarding announcement was made, we handed our tickets to the Northwest Airlines agent, and walked down the jetway with the group of men directly behind us.

My four-year-old son was determined to wheel his carry-on bag himself, so I turned to the men behind me and said, "You go ahead, this could be awhile." "No, you go ahead," one of the men replied. He smiled pleasantly and extended his arm for me to pass. He was young, maybe late 20's and had a goatee. I thanked him and we boarded the plane.

(lots more)
****

[jpgray]

1. Note the quoting of Ann Coulter later in the article

Corroboration and coverage by a major news source would be needed before I'll buy any of this.

[Jo March]

2. Quoting Ann Coulter?

Yeah, that lends credibility to any article.

[RoyGBiv]

3. The Salon Article...

I think this part of the Salon response sums up the story rather well.

That her story concludes in such a painfully boring anticlimax ought to be the very point, and in the final few pages she still has time for a constructive moral, the clear lesson being not the potentials of global terror, but the dangers of our own preconceptions and imagination. Instead, she pulls a vile U-turn and chooses to bait us with racist innuendo and fearmongering. Nothing happened, but something might have happened, and so it serves us to remain frightened and draconian at all costs, furthering our nation's pathetic embrace of maximum paranoia.

[DinahMoeHum]

4. Here's another paranoid "security mom" (USA Today)

Link:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-07-20-malkin_x.htm


Ladies, you might as well stop living and breathing. This is EXACTLY what guys like Bush and bin Laden want.


:evilfrown:

[iconoclastic cat]

5. Oh, that woman is a freak! Who gave her a gun?

I'd trust Barney Fife with more ammo!

[geek tragedy]

6. Where's the "crap" smiley? n/t

[regnaD kciN]

7. Here's the absolutely PRICELESS follow-up (from Snopes)...

In their debunking of this incident, they include the report from the air marshals, who wondered if Jacobsen herself might be a terrorist!

:7 :7 :7 :7 :7 :7 :7 :7 :7 :7 :7

Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, "overreacted," to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS.

The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service.

(...)

The source said the air marshals on the flight were partially concerned Jacobsen’s actions could have been an effort by terrorists or attackers to create a disturbance on the plane to force the agents to identify themselves.

Air marshals' only tactical advantage on a flight is their anonymity, the source said, and Jacobsen could have put the entire flight in danger.

Read the whole story at http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/skyterror.asp