Jerry Wynn, of Jacksonville, Florida, considers himself a good American citizen. He believes the War on Terror to be real and important and he’s willing to accept certain inconveniences when he flies on commercial planes. He’s got two adorable kids whom he coaches at sports on the weekend. He thinks of their safety, and the safety of his wife, whenever any of them fly.

But what happened to Jerry Wynn on American Eagle Flight 4518 on September 21, 2007 has forced him to consider what the War on Terror means to his own, individual citizen’s rights. He wants others to know it could just as easily happen to them. And if it did, what would you do?

The rest of the story is here.

The ACLU doesn’t have the time, resources, or inclination to assist Jerry Wynn. Maybe there’s a pro-national security law firm willing to go to bat for an innocent bystander looking out for his country.

Panama’s National Police said Tuesday they detained six Syrian passengers after they approached the cockpit of a Copa Airlines flight from Cuba to Panama.

The Syrians were detained for “suspicious behavior” and were being held at Panama’s international airport after the airplane landed safely Tuesday, said National Police Director Rolando Mirones.

“The crew noticed suspicious behavior from those who approached the cockpit, apparently with the intention of opening the door,” Mirones said.

They were just testing the locks, I’m sure.

Flashback: Flight 327.

What caught my eye were the photos of some of the suspicious devices taken by airport authorities:

The report states that “individuals involved in these incidents were of varying gender.”

Oookay. Is that all they can tell us, though? Did any other traits “vary?” Shouldn’t we know a little more about the people giving shady explanations for toting around blocks of cheese with wires sticking out or taped to a cell-phone charger?

Every vigilant traveler–every once and future John Doe–should take a look at the TSA warning. And if you see something cheesy, say something. At the very least, you’ll offend a cheddar-lover. At best, you could save thousands of lives. Quite worth the risk, I think.

Speaking of John Does, it appears–take with a grain of salt–that the John Doe protection amendment will become law. But there is still no final language of the amendment.

Be on the lookout…

***

And speaking of dry runs, remember this?

Patterico dissects the case, excerpts the key part of the TSA video, and points out that “Although a TSA official is standing in the way, you can tell her action is deliberate. She even shakes off the final few drops.” He adds a caveat: “The TSA should not have made her miss her flight over this. Had she related the story honestly, she would have my sympathy.”

Patterico’s right. I would add a caveat, though, that if the TSA weren’t filled with so many incompetent boobs who enforce sweeping, overbroad regulations while refusing to do common-sense national security profiling, I’d have more sympathy for them.

Update: New WashTimes article on the report here.

This weekend, dogged Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson previewed a Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s report on the handling–and mishandling–of Flight 327. Longtime readers will remember this incident as an airline security object lesson on the need for passengers to say something when they see something. Thirteen Middle Eastern men aroused the suspicion of federal air marshals, flight crew, and passengers with disruptive, red-flag behavior at takeoff and landing. Freelance writer Annie Jacobsen was on the flight in June 2004 and bravely blew the whistle on security lapses and bureaucratic incompetence.

Now, the redacted, 51-page OIG report is online in PDF form. Jacobsen has posted it at her blog, Aviation Nation. POGO also obtained the report through a FOIA request and has also posted the report here. More on the report in a moment.

For those who aren’t familiar with Flight 327 or who have forgotten the details, Jacobsen wrote a book about her experience and continued to investigate the case and related reports of terrorist dry runs at home and abroad. She did all this despite ridicule, derision, and accusations of bigotry. Here’s a reminder of what I wrote about the case on July 24, 2004:

Following the lead of anonymous air marshals (see Eric Leonard’s KFI news story), some in the blogosphere are piling on Annie Jacobsen. One blogger calls her a “sniveling little twit.” Kevin Drum pooh-poohs “Panic in the Skies.” Armed Liberal advises Annie to take a “chill pill.” And Commissar at Politburo Diktat writes: “We are freaking out. Panicking. Overreacting. Getting jumpy. For Chrissakes, GET A GRIP, comrades. We (I mean Ms. Jacobsen) are, by the words of our federal air security officials, creating a danger in the air.”

I respectfully take issue with this characterization. Let’s remember what exactly Annie and Kevin Jacobsen did on their flight. By one unnamed marshal’s own words: “Jacobsen and her husband had a number of conversations with the flight attendants and gestured towards the men several times, the source said.”

Who’s freaking out? The unnamed marshals who spoke to KFI are popping veins over the Jacobsens for having merely discussed their concerns with the flight crew and “gestured towards the men.” The couple didn’t jump up and scream “We are going to die!” They didn’t faint or have heart attacks. And they didn’t confront the 14 Syrians while they all stood up before landing, went to the bathroom, and congregated in the aisles in violation of security regulations. (No one confronted them, for crying out loud. That is the problem.)

The Jacobsens didn’t even muster up the courage to say meekly to the Syrians, “Hey, could you please sit down. You are making me nervous.” And they didn’t blab to other passengers about their fears.

The Jacobsens talked to the flight attendants and they kept to themselves. In fact, in their MSNBC interview, Kevin Jacobsen said he sat quietly with his wife and son during the landing and resignedly wrote about his concerns in his journal. Out-of-control menaces in the air? Come on.

The message that the alarmed and panicked marshals are sending out is that if and when we view suspicious behavior, we should all just sit tight in our seats, shut up, and do nothing until it’s too damned late lest we possibly risk blowing their cover.

Meanwhile, Tom Ridge and Norm Mineta ask us all to be vigilant, buy our duct tape, hand over our nail clippers and knitting needles, keep our lips sealed, and relinquish complete control and responsibility for homeland defense–and self-defense–to The Professionals.

Two words: Hell, no.

Jacobsen was a citizen John Doe before the John Doe movement had a name. Here’s what she wrote in April:

I am John Doe, in spirit, and I’m also John Doe in reality. I am Annie Jacobsen and three years ago, I saw something on an airplane and I said something about it. I wasn’t sued — but a whole lot of other things happened instead.

What I saw on Northwest Flight 327 was a group of Syrian men act as though they were going to hijack the plane. The men blocked the aircraft aisles, knocked over a passenger and spent so much time in the aircraft bathrooms that one Syrian emerged covered in toilet chemicals. As the flight was about to land, seven of the men stood in the aisle and used the toilets while the leader read from a small red book. One of the men then made a slashing motion across his throat and mouthed the word, ‘no.’

What I saw on that Detroit-to-Los Angeles flight was so alarming it never occurred to me to censor myself when it came to speaking out about what happened on the flight. It never occurred to me to worry about getting sued. First I spoke with federal agents for two hours, under oath, detailing what I saw. Later, after I learned that the government botched the investigation of the Syrians and then tried to cover their mistakes, I spoke up about that. For three years now, I’ve spoken up about what I saw as a guest on more than 400 radio and television programs. I’ve written 28 articles on the subject as well as a book. I’m so glad I did.

Federal counterterrorism agents have told me that the Syrians on the flight I was on were practicing how to build a bomb in the aircraft toilet — that the flight I was on was something known in counterterrorism circles as a “dry run.” Other federal agents have told me it was more likely “the real deal called off.” But that information came to me much later. That information came long after WomensWallStreet.com published my original 3,000-word article in which I describe exactly what I saw.

Any reasonable person would have done what I did; others on the flight went on television and described the terror resulting from what they saw on Flight 327, too. Eventually, the White House asked the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, to investigate exactly what happened on the flight. The investigation, called Review of the Department’s Handling of Suspicious Passengers Aboard Northwest Flight 327, took 22 months to complete (I was interviewed for the investigation). The review is a textbook case of why reporting suspicious behavior must be a citizen’s protected right.

Indeed, it is. If not for Annie Jacobsen, who was backed up by flight crew members and who emboldened other passengers on the flight to speak out, the OIG report would not have forced the feds to address fundamental flaws in airline security. If the Left weren’t stuck in 9/10 mode and so bent on demonizing Jacobsen, it would be heralding the OIG report as evidence of the Bush administration’s homeland defense ineptitude.

Here are excerpts from the report, but go to Jacobsen’s site and read the whole thing.

The OIG narrative of on-board activity summarizes the suspicious behavior:

The report also corroborates WNBC investigative reporter Scott Weinberger’s scoop that the Syrians were here on expired visas and corroborates the Dallas Morning News’s finding that the feds had not bothered to check their visas against immigration databases on the day of the incident. We also learn that the Syrian band promoter, whom Clint Taylor first identified as Nour Mehana correction: Elie Harfouche, had been involved “in similar suspicious behavior” on another flight:

Jacobsen’s investigative work and the work of those who followed up and took her seriously resulted in the OIG demanding that the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Air Marshals Service, and FBI address serious gaps in communication, coordination, and basic database searches:

The ball is now in the homeland security agencies’ court:

For its part, here’s how TSA rationalized its failure to report the Flight 327 incident to the Homeland Security Operations Center, which was created after 9/11 to “serve as the nation’s nerve center for information sharing and domestic incident management:”

So top brass at FAMS, the FBI, and TSA all wanted to downplay the incident and keep it out of the homeland security database. But HSOC believed the case warranted reporting after an inquiry from the White House Security Council and coverage by the Washington Times–all prompted by citizen whistleblower Annie Jacobsen’s eyewitness account and investigative research.

Several questions remain: What was in that FBI ACS report about Nour Mehana’s [correction:] Elie Harfouche’s previous suspicious behavior? Was that a test run or misinterpretation? The OIG report does not say. Because of the heavy redaction, it is also unclear whether Flight 327 was a jihadi test run. What is clear is that some federal agency officials have a bad habit of denying the obvious. What is also clear from the OIG report is that the feds remain woefully underprepared to handle jihadi test runs–let alone the real thing.

Thanks to Annie Jacobsen, we have been put on alert again: Homeland security begins not with the White House or behemoth bureaucracies. It begins with you.

Never forget.

I am responding to Audrey Hudson’s article “Scouting jetliners for new attacks” (Page 1, Thursday). We are shocked by this article. It only reflects paranoia verging on the point of hysterics. The woman mentioned most prominently in this article, Annie Jacobsen, is an advocate of ethnic profiling who survived a horrendous ordeal: a flight with 14 harmless Syrian musicians.

Your reporter failed to mention that the only “crimes” these professional musicians were accused of committing were going to the lavatory, eating McDonald’s food and talking to one another.

The fact that they have performed in the past six months in places such as the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School did not prevent Mrs. Jacobsen from saying, “[C]ouldn’t 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?”

The reporter for The Washington Times should have informed her readers that the whole story was a case of a group of talented musicians going to Los Angeles to play music, as simple as that.

Case closed? Not yet. Annie Jacobsen called the Syrian ambassador, Imad Moustapha, to inquire more about the band and its performances. She reports in her latest article:

I called Dr. Moustapha to ask him if he had some kind of specific information about the “harmless” men on my flight. Perhaps, he, of all people, could clear some things up. What an opportunity! I thought. I’ve always maintained that if these 14 Syrians showed up on my doorstep and serenaded me, I’d still have some serious questions about their behavior at 30,000 feet. Remember, they themselves admitted to law enforcement in Los Angeles that they “acted suspiciously.”

Maybe Dr. Moustapha — of all people in the United States — with his long list of credentials and his diplomatic pull, might actually be able to get me in touch with these 14 members of Nour Mehana’s back-up band…Certainly Dr. Moustapha, a member of the Syrian team responsible for drafting reform strategies for the ministries of Culture, Education, and Higher Education, might be able to account for the behavior that I, other passengers, the flight crew and the federal air marshals found so disturbing.

After introductory pleasantries, I asked Dr. Moustapha why his letter suggested that these 14 Syrians played at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Julliard School, when according to my research, that’s not at all the case.

Dr. Moustapha said Nour Mehana and his back-up band had not played there, but that other Syrian musicians had. I told Dr. Moustapha that his letter to The Washington Times was at best misleading, and at worst, completely misrepresenting the facts. I added that I didn’t consider doing so either diplomatic or fair.

Dr. Moustapha told me that I was a paranoid racist.

The saga continues…

Update: Washington Times reports “Second passenger saw suspicious behavior.” (Actually, wouldn’t it be “third passenger,” if you add the new account to Annie and Kevin Jacobsen’s?)

In any case, the new witness told the Times:

“I thought I was going to die…And that makes me furious because that’s the whole point of terrorism, to make people afraid. It makes me mad that they achieved that. But I’m not letting it stop me from taking other trips…”

The second (sic) passenger on Flight 327 said the men were “up and down the aisles of the plane the entire time,” and that one of the men pushed other passengers as he rushed toward the front lavatory…

The second passenger said she did not share her concerns with the flight attendants because “I thought I was just crazy, and I didn’t want to be the crazy person on the flight that stands up and says something is wrong, but I will now in the future. I praise Annie for what she did, because I didn’t have the guts to.”

More:

Officials called to Capitol Hill included Randy Beardsworth, director of Homeland Security’s Operations, Border and Transportation Security Office; Thomas Quinn, director of the Federal Air Marshals Service; and Willie Hulon, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division.

One staffer who attended the briefing said officials were “very cagey” on details, which he described as “very frustrating.”

However, the officials confirmed air marshals found the activities unusual and suspicious.

“They are trying to have it both ways and say yes, our people are smart enough to see something and that’s why they called for authorities, but they deny it was as scary as it has been portrayed,” the staffer said.

DHS is also attempting a CYA move on the expired visas issue; a spokesman revealed that the department “learned late Tuesday” that an extension had been granted to the Syrians until July 15. The fact remains that no federal immigration officer was present when the passengers were questioned in Los Angeles and no one bothered to check on their status until after they were released.

Update: The Washington Times piece also mentions the suicide bomber-glorying song performed by Nour Mehana. Heather Wilhelm first reported on the lyrics on July 27 here.

Heather reports:

Mr. Mehana has a nice little song on his recent CD, by the way. It’s called “Um El Shaheed.”

In English, that’s “Mother of a Martyr.”

I noticed “Um El Shaheed” on Nour Mehana’s web site. “Shaheed,” I knew, meant “martyr,” but that was as far as my Arabic could go. Since martyrdom seemed an odd topic for a casino crooner, I called the Middle East Media Research Institute. I spoke with Aluma Dankowtiz, who is fluent in Arabic, to find out exactly what Mr. Mehana has to say.

“Mother of a Martyr” glorifies the death of a young Palestinian. Mehana sings
to a grieving mother that she should not be sad, because her son, who died as
a martyr, is a hero. She should be happy that her son is gone, Mehana croons,
because freeing Palestine and the Golan Heights are heroic goals. The song,
which starts slow and solemn, ends with a triumphant chorus, celebrating the
martyr’s glorious death: “Allahu Akbar…Allahu Akbar…Allahu Akbar!”

Read the whole thing here.

Thirteen Syrian musicians whose behavior aboard a June flight stirred suspicions and talks of “dry runs” entered the country lawfully on artist visas, but immigration officials said those passes expired more than two weeks before they boarded the flight from Detroit to Los Angeles.

Some passengers and air marshals aboard the flight raised concerns about the men’s behavior, and officials from the FBI, Transportation Security Administration, Los Angeles Police Department and federal air marshals met the plane on its arrival. But the expired visas were not detected until an immigration check was run after the men were released, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman said Friday.

As I’ve discussed previously, the reporting is a bit murky on the technical difference between visa expiration date and duration of stay, but the strong implication seems to me to be that they had indeed fallen “out of status.” Translation: They were here illegally. The key point here is that nobody bothered to check. An immigration official stated that those questioning the band members did not include an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official and that “checks on the status of the visas should have been conducted at the time.”

Have we learned nothing from 9/11?!?

The band members had artist P-3 visas, not P-1 visas, as some of my readers speculated earlier.

Note also that the Dallas Morning News reports, contrary to the assertions of unnamed air marshals’ sources quoted by KFI’s Eric Leonard, that it was not just Annie Jacobsen and her husband who raised concerns about the Syrians’ behavior, but both “passengers and air marshals” who did.

Meanwhile, the London papers pick up the story here and here.

Note especially this paragraph in the Telegraph‘s article:

Concert promoters confirmed that some of his band had flown in on Northwest 327 but that the members did not remember anything unusual about the flight. Beyond that, the promoter said, he had been told by Homeland Security not to talk to the press.

I had wondered why not one of the Syrians had come forward to give their account of what happened and to explain their behavior. Now, we learn that our Department of Homeland Security is pressuring their promoter not to talk.
Now, we know that immigration officials didn’t bother to check their immigration status.

What else don’t they want us to know?

We are freaking out. Panicking. Overreacting. Getting jumpy. For Chrissakes, GET A GRIP, comrades. We (I mean Ms. Jacobsen) are, by the words of our federal air security officials, creating a danger in the air.

I respectfully take issue with this characterization. Let’s remember what exactly Annie and Kevin Jacobsen did on their flight. By one unnamed marshal’s own words:

Jacobsen and her husband had a number of conversations with the flight attendants and gestured towards the men several times, the source said.

Who’s freaking out? The unnamed marshals who spoke to KFI are popping veins over the Jacobsens for having merely discussed their concerns with the flight crew and “gestured towards the men.” The couple didn’t jump up and scream “We are going to die!” They didn’t faint or have heart attacks. And they didn’t confront the 14 Syrians while they all stood up before landing, went to the bathroom, and congregated in the aisles in violation of security regulations. (No one confronted them, for crying out loud. That is the problem.)

The Jacobsens didn’t even muster up the courage to say meekly to the Syrians, “Hey, could you please sit down. You are making me nervous.” And they didn’t blab to other passengers about their fears.

The Jacobsens talked to the flight attendants and they kept to themselves. In fact, in their MSNBC interview, Kevin Jacobsen said he sat quietly with his wife and son during the landing and resignedly wrote about his concerns in his journal. Out-of-control menaces in the air? Come on.

The message that the alarmed and panicked marshals are sending out is that if and when we view suspicious behavior, we should all just sit tight in our seats, shut up, and do nothing until it’s too damned late lest we possibly risk blowing their cover.

Meanwhile, Tom Ridge and Norm Mineta ask us all to be vigilant, buy our duct tape, hand over our nail clippers and knitting needles, keep our lips sealed, and relinquish complete control and responsibility for homeland defense–and self-defense–to The Professionals.

Two words: Hell, no.

(Now, read this: When government failed: Passengers of Flight 93 saved America from even greater horror.)

***

Some annoyed bloggers wonder why I keep “flogging” this subject. For the same reasons they keep discussing it themselves: Very simply, it’s interesting and it’s important and there’s much to learn here about how both the government and citizens should properly respond to real and perceived homeland security threats. If you’d rather read about what the Bush twins are wearing and who saw whom at what restaurant, you are in the wrong zip code.

This does not give me much confidence in the background checks that the Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI, and LAPD may or may not have conducted on the men before letting them walk away. Would you trust the terrorism investigation of officials who apparently neglected to verify whether these men–coming from a designated state sponsor of terrorism, flying on a day on which Department of Homeland Security officials had issued a warning about a possible terrorist attack–WERE EVEN IN THE COUNTRY LEGALLY?!?!?!

If Weinberger’s reporting is accurate, I won’t be surprised. The 14 men join a club of at least an estimated 2.3 million illegal visa overstayers currently living in the U.S. today. Until September 11, 2001, the Visa Overstayers Club also included “student” Hani Hanjour and “businessmen and tourist” Nawaf al-Hazmi and Satam al-Suqami.

Flashback: On Scarborough Country (July 19, 2004), former FBI chief of counterterrorism, Steve Pomerantz, commented on the FBI’s investigation of the Syrian band members:

I am struck by the fact that the FBI did turn out. There seemed to be an appropriate and proper response, and they did what sounds to me like a very thorough, exhaustive investigation, during the course of which nobody was charged with a crime, nobody was even detained, which tells me that these people were here legally, legitimately, had official and appropriate and proper documentation, because, as you know, for the last few years in particular, the FBI has not been reluctant to detain people who are here in any way illegally, whether they’re out of status, or whether they have false documentation. That didn’t happen in this case.

Update: Avert your eyes if you are allergic, but some immigration law wonkery is necessary here. Some readers have technical questions for Scott Weinberger. For example:

[A]s you must surely know, just because a person’s visa has expired doesn’t mean they are “out of status.” A person is deemed to have “overstayed” when they have exceeded the time allowed him or her to stay in the U.S. by DHS/ICE. This time is put on the alien’s I-94 card when they enter the U.S. In fact, if the Syrian musicians entered the U.S. on P-1 visas, as I suspect, the visa, i.e., the stamp in their passport issued by the U.S. Consulate, would have expired the instant it was used. Syrian P-1 visas can only be issued for a single entry…And even if they entered with B-2 visas, which can be issued to Syrians with more than one entry, just because the visa itself has expired doesn’t mean they’ve overstayed. To determine whether the Syrians overstayed we’d have to see their I-94 cards.

Right. In lay parlance, partly because of journalists and politicians trying to avoid bureaucratese, “overstaying a visa” is commonly used interchangeably with overstaying the authorized “duration of stay.” I assumed that Weinberger meant the latter and have put in a call asking him for clarification. (See more here for a tutorial on what a visa is and how the visa expiration date differs from the duration of stay date or status determined by DHS at port of entry.)

Update: Still no word back from Scott Weinberger. Meantime, these comments from reader BorderAgent are on point:

Musicians typically have a P-1 visa and without a doubt a Syrian, entering on a P-1 visa would only be allowed a single entry on that visa and the visa would then expire immediately upon entry. The Visa only allows them to enter, while the I-94 allows them to stay here for the duration, whatever that might be, of the I-94.

As Michelle said earlier, in lay parlance, “overstaying a visa” could also mean having an expired I-94. But even then it would not necessarily make them an overstay. You see, you can actually apply for an extension of your I-94 while you are here at an inland office with BCIS. And the funny thing is, when you apply for an extension you are legally allowed to stay, even if you documents expire, until you receive a response, which generally takes longer than 45 days. So basically, you can automatically extend your stay for up to 45 days if you merely receive a peice of paper saying that you are waiting for a response.

Hope that helps clear some things up. A good rule of thumb when dealing with the old INS, now the DHS, is to remember that we have the most strict laws of any agency but have a waiver for everything.

Yeah, that last sentence pretty much sums up our entire immigration (non) policy: A waiver for everything.

Update: From KFI’s Eric Leonard: Air Marshals Say Passenger Overreacted. Excerpt:

FBI agents met the plane when it landed in Los Angeles and the men were questioned, and Los Angeles field office spokeswoman Cathy Viray said it’s significant the alarm on the flight came from a passenger.
“We have to take all calls seriously, but the passenger was worried, not the flight crew or the federal air marshals,” she said. “The complaint did not stem from the flight crew.”

Too bad the flight crew has been barred from confirming this.

Update: Daniel Drezner and Donald Sensing weigh in.

An excerpt:

For a while the blogosphere settled on a Syrian band called Kulna Sawa as a likely candidate, but the gents at Powerline received a note from that group’s tour manager explaining the band was still in Syria when all this happened. Even the mainstream media began to notice the story: New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey confirmed some of the details of the story today but admitted he, too, was unable to identify the band.

Well, I am nominally the “news director” for Stanford University’s student radio station, KZSU, and I figured I’d help the Times out. There aren’t that many casinos in southern California, so I had my research assistant, Mr. Google, take a look at some. An hour later I was talking to the nice folks at Sycuan Casino & Resort, near San Diego. Unlike most casinos where it’s all Elvis impersonators, Paul Anka, and Linda Ronstadt � oh, wait, scratch that last one � Sycuan books the occasional “ethnic music” show, too. In August, for example, they’ll have a Vietnamese night.

“Oh, do you mean Arab music?” inquired Angie, who answered Sycuan’s phone. Yes, they had had an Arab act perform on July 1, an artist named Nour Mehana. Terry, Angie’s supervisor at Sycuan, confirmed that he was there and that there was probably a backup band brought in, since there’s no house band at Sycuan. In fractions of a second, Mr. Google found a website for Sycuan’s event promoters, Anthem Artists, whose archive confirms Nour Mehana performed at Sycuan on 7/01/04…

Liberals will likely decry the suspicion and interrogation the musicians faced on Flight 327. And the principled Right will regret that that was necessary. If the band’s English wasn’t very good they might not have understood the instructions. But a polite word and some helpful gestures earlier on, rather than a guilty PC silence, might have saved them some embarrassment. In any case, the police-state parallels fade quickly: In a real police state, like, oh, Syria, you are not even allowed inside the country with an Israeli stamp in your passport.

June 29 was no ordinary day in the skies. That day, Department of Homeland Security officials issued an “unusually specific internal warning,” urging customs officials to watch out for Pakistanis with physical signs of rough training in the al Qaeda training camps. The warning specifically mentioned Detroit and Los Angeles’s LAX airports, the origin and terminus of NWA flight 327.

That means that our air-traffic system was expecting trouble. But rather than land the plane in Las Vegas or Omaha, it was allowed to continue on to Los Angeles without interruption, as if everything were hunky-dory on board. It certainly wasn’t. If this had been the real thing, and the musicians had instead been terrorists, nothing was stopping them from taking control of the plane or assembling a bomb in the restroom. Given the information they were working with at the time, almost everyone should have reacted differently than they did.

Jacobsen’s fear was quite natural under these circumstances, and she has done us a service by pointing out some egregious shortfalls in our airline security.

Quick update: I’ve sent an e-mail to Annie Jacobsen asking her to take a look at the photos and video of band to see if she recognizes them.

Update II: 8:55pm. This just in from Dave Adams, Federal Air Marshals spokesman:

Michelle:

It is the policy of the FAMS not to release the names of individuals who have not been arrested. On a side note, I was not given the name of the band.

Dave Adams

Update III: 11:06pm Annie Jacobsen responds:

“I went to the link and I do not recognize any of the men or the lead singer himself.”

Hmmm. Well, the lead singer was apparently in first-class, wearing sunglasses. Would be hard for Annie to identify him from his cheesy publicity photos. As for the other men, it’s probable that he has many different back-up musicians that might not travel with him for every gig. Clint has persuaded me, conclusively, that it was indeed Nour Mehana and his band on the flight. I agree with him that in all likelihood, it was not a dry run.

Which, as Clint notes, is “not the same as saying Jacobsen was wrong to worry. The proven existence of this band confirms one of the last details of her story, and her story confirms some of our worst fears about airline security. The mindset of passengers, of the crew, and even of the law-enforcement personnel (Jacobsen said a flight attendant reassured her husband by pointing out that air marshals were on the flight), and decision makers higher up the ladder was reactive, not proactive.”

With the exception of the sentence that refers to the dry run, I stand by my final statement on the matter. I repeat:

Better a false alarm than a flaming plane.

Update IV: The invaluable Donald Sensing weighs in, and I share his sentiments regarding the great work of Clint Taylor and National Review Online in getting the story out…

Now, there are a couple of points here. One is that the fabled New York Times apparently has no reporters who know how to use Google. The other is that the only substantive coverage of this flight and what it might mean has been done mostly by amateurs, not professional journalists (Ms. Malkin excepted, of course).

I mean, folks, that what Taylor did is, as Sherlock Holmes would say, elementary. So why didn’t I do it? Actually, the thought occurred, but I do have to work for a living, too. And I did spend a lot of time futilely trying to talk to the FBI press office about the flight. I wish I had done the Googling, though, and Mr. Taylor deserves all the plaudits that should rightfully come his way.

Ditto! It kept getting knocked off my to-do list by other column deadlines/endless day job commitments/family stuff. Huge, full-time investigative teams for major papers don’t have the same excuse. The New York Times should eschew the diversity crap and get Taylor an internship pronto. And perhaps Joe Sharkey and the rest of us in the media should brush up on Google 101 skills.

Update V: Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports on pilots and flight crews who say they have witnessed dry runs, including a pilot who said that “on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period. The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side….There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines,” the pilot said.

One reader doesn’t buy the band story. Mark Powelson, a former PBS executive and San Francisco magazine editor familiar with the world music scene, cc’ed me a copy of his letter to the Times’ Joe Sharkey. He makes some interesting points, especially with regard to the lack of any complaints by the ethnic grievance whiners who usually come out of the woodwork when they’ve been unfairly harrassed. Here’s the letter in full. Would love to hear Joe Sharkey’s response:

Something still doesn’t add up. There are indeed a few–but only a few–Syrian musicians and groups of the kind of reputation in the world music world that give them the opportunity for actual music tours…the big WOMAD fest last year bemoaned the fact that the large group called Whirling Dervishes from Syria couldn’t get travel visa’s ok’ed in time for the festival. But it’s hard to name or find a large ensemble (ten or more) Syrian group with a rep big enough for someone to pay their travelling $$ beyond Whirling Dervishes.

And there are a number of noted and recorded individual artists including Sabah Fakhri, who is also in Syria’s great Sufi tradition. Having tried a couple of years ago to develop a PBS program dealing with world music, I can tell you that it is always the case that when a ‘world music’ group travels, they’re doing a concert tour with as many stops as possible. (No self-respecting Middle Eastern group with any reputation would pass through NY without playing in Brooklyn, for example).

I don’t think you’ll ever hear of a case of a ‘mid level’ or lower group flying to one city for a one or two day stint…at an LA area Indian casino??? It would have made sense if the group had played in Detroit with that city’s very large Arab American community…but searching the Detroit News on Lexis-Nexis (and the Detroit News has a very very extensive arts/entertainment calendar), I see no mention at all of any Syrian or “Damascus” based group performing over the past 60 days. But why ‘no name’, for heaven’s sake?

But since you yourself were not able to ‘report’ your way to the actual name of the group…I don’t think your column can accurately be called a “what really happened” story.

If this were some terrible case of harrassment in the nation’s entertainment capital, Los Angeles, it is extremely odd that none of the myriad of activist-oriented groups involved in world music heard about the fracas. (You should read the kind of heat that the visa problems that blocked groups from last year’s WOMAD triggered.) This is not a media-shy community. In fact, the silence in this respect is stunning, even if it is a case of Sherlock Holmes ‘dog that did not bark.’ Musical groups touring from Cuba and other countries that have faced perceived excessive scrutiny have ALWAYS had US-based supporters who have gone to the media…including the Times. The Arab American community is relatively tightly knit and it would be very odd that a popular music group would be subjected to apparently prolonged “grilling” with any of the major (and again hardly silent) Arab American civil rights organizations speaking out, and not just in response to a call from the Times.

A telling fact against the ‘paranoia’ theory may be the very fact (if it is a fact) that the gentlemen were carrying Syrian passports. It is very difficult for Syrian passport holders to get travel visa’s to the U.S. And a Syrian passport is not a very good way to travel clandestinely. Also, the 14 person group is larger than what we would see in a typical ‘training’ excercise…based on what we’ve seen in “cell based” organizations over many decades.

On the other hand, the fact that none of the names shows up on a ‘watch list’ means only that. Every candid intelligence agency estimate whether from the US, the Brits, the Israeli’s, gives very large estimates of both trained terrorists not yet ‘activated’ as well as “sleepers.” (U.S. intel from inside Syria would make our inside intel of pre-war Iraq look positively rich. At least in Iraq the CIA had long, intimate involvement with the Kurds in the north and to a lesser extent the anti-Sadaam regions in the south. Police state Syria is perhaps one of the most impervious nation’s on earth to US intelligence beyond ‘elint’)

But the “racial profiling” aspect is a complete canard. You are ‘profiled’ every time you apply for a credit card or a mortgage, you ‘profile’ people you invite to an intimate dinner party or any time you arrange a blind date. FBI ‘profilers’ are celebrated on national tv every time a major criminal case is being investigated. Profiling is simply a formal or informal use of statistics drawn from the past in an effort to predict the future. If 19 out of 19 men on September 11th were between 20 and 40 and of Arabic extraction, that’s fact-based profiling and for better or worse, it passes for a science, that is, it is a body of knowledge and experience proven useful in the real world and based on verifiable principles and suppositions. It’s time we just bit the bullet on that unhappy fact.

(We are all reminded, of course, of actor James Woods perception of very disturbing behavior of 4 young men of ‘middle eastern appearance’ on the American Airlines Boston to LA flight on the morning of August 1, 2001. No action taken, of course, because no crime committed. )

Perhaps someone will get to the bottom of this one, but whoever wrote the ‘what really happened’ headline to your piece was stretching it a bit.

Mark Powelson

Update: Many people have raised the possibility that the band was Kulna Sawa. A representative passes along the following message (also sent to Power Line):

I am Manager of the Kulna Sawa/Together Concert for Peace Tour which will take place in November. The group is currently in Syria and is not in any way involved with the recent incident referred to on your web site. The Concert for Peace Tour is designed specificially to counter this kind of misunderstanding which is so prevalent today in the United States.

Mel Lehman
Concert for Peace Tour
New York City
ML9612921@aol.com

Well, that clears things up. Sort of. Not.

I believe the Jacobsens. I believe they observed what Annie called “not normal behavior” by an unusually large group of Arab foreign nationals. I believe they witnessed a dry run for a terrorist attack. I don’t believe they were “paranoid.” I believe they were acting as responsible parents and responsible citizens who take their post-9/11 obligation to remain vigilant at all times dead seriously.

I will be doing a lot of flying over the next few months, and I will act–without apology or shame–as the Jacobsens acted on their flight. As much as possible, I will be aware of what’s going on in front and in back of the planes I ride. I will pay attention to detail. I will remember faces and gestures and odd objects. I will write things down. I will pester the flight attendants, discreetly, if I witness anything of concern. I won’t hesitate to contact authorities if my gut tells me that danger is imminent. And I will be prepared to fight for my life.

Bottom line: I will not be lulled by the fashionable apathy of the blind. And I will not be cowed by the politically correct protestations of the dumb.

To those who shrug that “nothing happened” and that this is “not news,” I say: Wake the *%&^#@ up and stop acting like 9/10 sheeple. Better a false alarm than a flaming plane.

Update: Rod Dreher, Dallas Morning News op-ed editor, informs us that on his op-ed page, “we published an edited (for length) version of Annie Jacobsen’s original account. You won’t find it on our website because our agreement with Womenswallstreet.com only gave us print rights. But the story is now officially in the mainstream.” Excellent to hear. Still nothing in the Washington Post.

Jacobsen’s parents e-mailed me some family background:

Annie Jacobsen is our daughter!! She is NOT the science fiction writer nor the psychic (with the same name). She is well-educated (an ivy league school class of 89 and a top prep school graduate) and is quite rational. She is a world traveler. She is apolitical. Her mother is a registered republican – her father a registered independent. This is not a hoax. She and her family were with us in CT to celebrate our 40th anniversary. Our still-shaking daughter and son-in-law called us immediately after speaking with both the FBI and the LAPD upon their return to their home. We had expected the call several hours earlier so we were quite concerned.

Still nothing from the Washington Post or other MSM. No Drudge link to Jacobsen’s story, but snopes.com has posted an entry.

(Background 1 2 3 4)

Meantime, here’s some good flashback reading: Stuart Taylor Jr. on the case for using racial profiling at airports from September 25, 2001.

Update: Here’s Jacobsen’s update.

Update II: As Rod Dreher says at The Corner, there’s not much new in Jacobsen’s latest story. Glenn Reynolds takes this Homeland Insecurity Moment to say “I told you so.” Hey, me, too: here.

Update III: More Syrian band research from Bluemerle. And a reader passes along another blogger’s hair-raising flight experience.

Update IV: Donald Sensing remains “underwhelmed.”
He makes much of Annie Jacobsen getting the timeline incorrect on when TSA issues its “no congregate” directive, citing references to stories about the directive from January 2004 and not July 2004, as Jacobsen had mentioned.

Sensing writes:

I found all these references with ridiculous ease while writing this post. So why did Jacobsen insinuate (and insinuate she certainly did) that the “no congregate” policy somehow originated from the trips to the john the 14 Arab men made on her flight? She is a journalist. Why didn’t she check the news record to determine whether the policy pre-existed her four hours of terror (her description, not mine)?

Because, as I said in my first post, her story is not objective, it is not unbiased. It is a fear-soaked article seeking to justify the writer’s fear. Let me repeat: It is factual she was fearful, but her fear doesn’t provide facts.

Just a minute, though. I did some quick research on Nexis and found that the TSA directive from January applied to international flights, not domestic flights. As this article from May 28, 2004 shows, domestic carriers were still struggling to figure out what the policy was and should be here at home:

Chicago Sun-Times

May 28, 2004 Friday

SECTION: NEWS SPECIAL EDITION; Pg. 9

LENGTH: 400 words

HEADLINE: Airing on the side of caution: Not always OK to walk in jet

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal

BYLINE: Scott McCartney

BODY:
You’re on a long flight and, heeding medical warnings, you want to stretch your legs. But these days, airline crews sometimes leave you trapped between security directives and the fully reclined seat in front of you.

The federal Transportation Security Administration told airlines in December to police gatherings of passengers on planes for possible security risks, especially near cockpit doors. Since then, airlines have interpreted that edict differently.

Four hours into a recent five-hour trip from Orlando to Los Angeles on United Airlines, Andy Thorson wanted to stretch. So he slipped into a rear galley of the Boeing 757, only to be shooed away by a flight attendant who said he wasn’t allowed to congregate in a galley for “security reasons.”

“I told her I wanted to stretch a little bit, was aware that I could not go up front to do so and so was back here,” says Thorson. Then, he asked, “Where should I go to stretch my legs?”

The answer, according to Thorson: “This aircraft, unfortunately, does not provide for that.”

United says that isn’t its policy, and that its flight attendant was confused. The TSA has instructed airlines to ban passengers from congregating in any galley on international flights bound for the United States, but not on domestic flights, says United spokeswoman Chris Nardella. “We want our customers to stretch their legs,” Nardella adds.

The TSA says it has directed airlines only to tell crews they can break up lines or gatherings if there might be a security danger.

While the security issues are real, there are other concerns. The ultra-dry cabin climate can dehydrate passengers, and sitting in cramped quarters for long periods can facilitate blood clots, doctors say.

Still, airlines vary in policies:

*Delta Air Lines says it has no policy. “You’re free to move about the cabin, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the crew,” says Delta spokeswoman Catherine Stengel.

*American Airlines, on the other hand, says its flight attendants sometimes ask passengers lining up for bathrooms in the rear of the plane to sit and wait.

*Continental says it asks passengers not to congregate near any lavatory, particularly the front. But flight attendants let passengers line up for the rear bathroom.

*Northwest Airlines says its flight attendants monitor activity around the cockpit door and discourage congregating there.

Given this continued confusion through the spring and then the subsequent announcement of the TSA directive a few days after she landed in Los Angeles on June 29, I think Annie Jacobsen’s suggestion that the TSA tightened its policy because of what happened/didn’t happen on her plane is entirely reasonable.