What's this Dry-Run Hijacking Thing on Aaron Brown?

[Jacobin]

Just caught the tail end of it and can't find it on LBN or GD. Something about a passenger being interviewed by Aaron who was aboard a plane with Syrians who raised suspicions, were questioned and released.

[NWHarkness]

1. It'a a load of racist crap

Check out today's Salon, they tore the story to shreds.

[Jacobin]

3. Thanks.

Figured if it wasn't on DU there wasn't much to it, but I caught the tail end and didn't know what to think

I'll check Salon

[NWHarkness]

6. Link to the Salon story

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2004/07/21/askthepilot95/index.html

[MissB]

2. I remember reading the story

and laughing when I got to the point where the author used Ann Coulter as a source for airline security expertise.

[Jacobin]

I am so fucking embarrased.

:-(

Can I lock my own thread?

[Cannikin]

4. Here'st the link to the original article, apparently there is a part 2 now

http://www.womenswallstreet.com/WWS/

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.

continued.....

[Eric J in MN]

5. Salon article, "The hysterical skies"

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2004/07/21/askthepilot95/


Fourteen dark-skinned men from Syria board Northwest's flight 327, seated in two separate groups. Some are carrying oddly shaped bags and wearing track suits with Arabic script across the back. During the flight the men socialize, gesture to one another, move about the cabin with pieces of their luggage, and, most ominous of all, repeatedly make trips to the bathroom. The author links the men's apparently irritable bladders to a report published in the Observer (U.K.) warning of terrorist plots to smuggle bomb components onto airplanes one piece at a time, to be secretly assembled in lavatories.

"What I experienced during that flight," breathes (Annie Jacobsen, a writer for WomensWallStreet.com), "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."

Intriguing, no? I, for one, fully admit that certain acts of airborne crime and treachery may indeed open the channels to a debate on civil liberties. Pray tell, what happened? Gunfight at 37,000 feet? Valiant passengers wrestle a grenade from a suicidal operative? Hero pilots beat back a cockpit takeover?

Well, no. As a matter of fact, nothing happened. Turns out the Syrians are part of a musical ensemble hired to play at a hotel. The men talk to one another. They glance around. They pee.

That's it?

That's it.

[Lex]

7. It was a BAND. The scary Syrians were in a band.

jeez

And they used the bathroom at the same time!

[Cheneys_former_heart]

8. There is a Salon article I read today about it

On a flight from Detroit to LA were 14 Syrian guys in jumpsuits with arabic writing on their backs, they were a music group on their way to a gig in Las Vegas. The lady freaked out and wrote an article on her website, and has been all over hate radio saying these guys were on a "dry run" for terrorism. The FBI checked the guys out, they indeed were musicians on their way to play a gig, and the only thing they seem to be guilty of is having weak bladders. It's the whole Denny's restaurant scene all over again--(arabic looking men supposedly speak the word bomb, over heard by redneck, shut down the Florida turnpike..). I was disappointed Arron Brown wasn't at least a bit more skeptical, she even called those guys terrorists.

[riverwalker]

9. You can find the story

on Daily Kos. The woman is a pathetic moran, and all brown people who talk funny are out to kill her. She said terrorists are going to start forming musical groups to appear innocent. (No, I am not kidding, she was serious.) That all foreigners traveling in America are doing "probes" on our security. I think her next project will be about the alien rectal probes of her UFO abduction by the Galactic Federation.

[Jacobin]

10. I should know better by now to even flip to CNN for ten seconds

Thanks for the info.

Aaron of course was listening intently as if some ghastly shit was about to happen.