Student handcuffed and held for five hours because he has Arabic flash cards

[The Straight Story]

Dave Davies: Student air passenger handcuffed to echoes of 9/11 fears

By Dave Davies
Philadelphia Daily News

EIGHT YEARS after 9/11, we're used to changes in our routines. We show ID to get into office buildings, and take off our shoes at airports.

But should a college student flying back to school be handcuffed and held for five hours because he has Arabic flash cards in his backpack?
...

George, of Wyncote, Montgomery County, was about to catch a Southwest flight back to school when stereo speakers in his backpack caught the eye of screeners at the metal detector.

When they looked though his bag, George said, they found his Arabic/English flash cards, and escorted him to a side screening area.

He figures it didn't help that his passport had stamps from Jordan, where he'd studied a semester, and Egypt and Sudan, where he'd gone backpacking.

And among his 200 flash cards were words like "terrorist" and "explosion." He was learning to translate the Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera.

"I understand I might warrant a second look," George told me. "They should have taken me aside, seen I had a legitimate explanation and a student ID and that I was carrying nothing illegal, and waved me on."

...

Davis said that George had been selected for screening before he even reached the metal detector by TSA behavioral-detection officers, personnel trained to screen passengers for "involuntary physical and physiological reactions that people exhibit in response to a fear of being discovered."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/58864467.html?cmpid=15585797

[Sanity Claws]

1. In light of their failure to find anything

it indicates that their screening test is full of shit.

[Taverner]

4. Exactly - those screening tests are just a backdoor for "he looked funny"

Something cops used to use routinely for probable cause

[MindPilot]

2. I wonder if

TSA behavioral-detection officers, personnel trained to screen passengers for "involuntary physical and physiological reactions that people exhibit in response to a fear of being discovered" are also trained to distinguish that from the involuntary physical and physiological reactions that people exhibit in response to the very real fear of being falsely accused.

[Swamp Rat]

3. Meanwhile, Timothy McVeigh Jr. gets onboard.

The TSA is dysfunctional and does not protect anyone but corpo-fascism itself.

I went on over a dozen international flights these past few months, and it was sooooo easy and SAFE on the other airlines, and a brazillion times faster.

The best way to make flying in the USA safe is to stop bombing other countries and take care of our own citizens.... but of course, that would not be profitable for the corporatists running our country.

[Indenturedebtor]

14. Pretty damn much... keep us all afraid, at work, and in line to buy garbage

The whole screening apparatus is set up to make us afraid.

[ClayZ]

16. Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

K and R




:hi: Swamp Rat!

[Rex]

5. TSA behavioral detection officers, what a bunch of fucking idiots.

I doubt the have any clue...

[Milspec]

10. And just who the fuck is not

in a pissed off mode at any airport.

[customerserviceguy]

6. TSA = American Gestapo

:mad:

[surrealAmerican]

7. So, we are now expected to go through airports without "looking scared" ...

... or else we will be searched and detained.

What could possibly go wrong with that? :sarcasm:

[paulsby]

17. customs has ALWAYS used such criteria

and people didn't complain about it. not here at least

ask any customs officer who happens to work airport (international flights) or physical border screening.

TSA now also uses the same. i would hope they receive the same training as customs, before using it. customs iirc trains at FLTSE. i have trained FLTSE courses, and they are excellent (hate crimes investigator train the trainer) but not this course.

[Ezlivin]

8. Good thing he didn't have the U2 album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb"

Or the excellent movie "Dr. Strangelove (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)".

[CreekDog]

9. Handcuffed and detained

over nothing.

:rant:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Will the idiocy never cease?

The U.S. NEEDS people who speak Arabic and have lived in a Middle Eastern society.

The TSA should have given this guy a pat on the back instead of detaining him.

[Odin2005]

12. The STUPID, it BURNS!!!

Leanring Arabic, one of the world's great languages, makes one a potential terrorist? Christ, what morons.

[CreekDog]

13. kicking

if i had my way, this would make it to the greatest page. :grr:

[HopeHoops]

15. Great web site for learning Arabic...

http://www.arabion.net/learnarabic.html

Come handcuff me for THAT shit, fascist asswipes! He must have been "lookin' like a terrist" or something. Why do we still have to put up with this shit? The shrub is out of office.

[RufusTFirefly]

18. WTF? His clean-cut appearance sent up a red flag?

Amazing!

But Liberati said that it was the stuff that the TSA found in George's backpack and wallet that really aroused their suspicion: the Arabic flash cards with troubling words, a card that had George's name and Arabic script, and the longer hair in George's driver's license and passport photos than his current clean-cut appearance.

That's "an indicator sometimes that somebody may have gone through a radicalization," Liberati explained.

[DCKit]

20. "...the longer hair... an indicator... may have gone through a radicalization..."

Or just a poor college student who went home and let Mom and Dad pay for the fucking hair cut. Reminder to self, never, ever take laundry home to Mom's again - you'll end up in GITMO.

Morans.

[abumbyanyothername]

19. Just as I suspected

airport delays are created on purpose to test the stress levels of passengers.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. THere are things I no longer carry when I travel

and this is the reason...

Kiddies this is also something those who have lived in controlled countries know.

[Hekate]

22. God damn I hate the TSA. They are idiots with power to do you great harm...

... and they wonder why I look stressed when I pass through airports.

"Frau! Deine Papieren, bitte!"

And now, please excuse me. I can't type for shit when I get this mad.

Hekate

[JCMach1]

23. at least the Gestapo were professional...

:sarcasm: