Like a lot of other people, I read Anne Jacobsen’s article ‘Terror in the Skies, Again?‘ with interest and not a little anxiety.
Tenacious G read it, and asked me what I thought. My reply was – “I’m not sure, and I think it would be good if all of us were a bit uncertain as well.” I see that Donald Sensing shares some of my skepticism. Here’s the deal; having flown a fair amount lately, I’m eminently convinced that much of the security in place is what Bruce Schnier (I’d strongly suggest subscribing to his e-newsletter, and I owe a review of his book) calls ‘theatrical security.’ So the general concerns raised in the article are more than valid. But as to the story itself, let me counter by telling one of my own.A long time ago, I took a one-day writing class from a semi-famous writer through UCLA. We met in Westwood village, in a building that had once house a club I used to go to, and the class was fun and somewhat useful. Most useful – and fun – was the incident that happened right after we regrouped for lunch.
The building entrance was on an alley, and as I walked back with a few others from my burger, I noticed three homeless men, sitting on the steps, eating their lunches. One was daintily eating a yogurt with a plastic spoon, and I remember remarking “What a healthy guy!!” as we went up the elevator.
A few minutes later, one of the women students dashed into the classroom, exclaiming that she’d been confronted by a homeless man with a knife. I moved to the front of the room, and asked her ‘did you see the knife? what did he look like? where did this happen?’ and was told he’d been in the corridor, she was sure she’d seen the knife, and he was a homeless guy. The teacher locked the door and used the room phone to call the University police.
Then, as I walked to the door and opened it to look and see what was going on, one of the homeless guys – my yogurt-eating guy – was walking by. I stepped in front of him and told him “Hey, man, you can’t be in here. You need to leave right now – come on with me and I’ll walk you out.” Another man from the class stepped out to join me, shouting instructions at the homeless guy – “Show me your hands! Do it!” and generally acting like he had Monster Kody standing in front of him holding a boo-yah. I told him to shut up or leave, so he was silent as we walked the homeless guy out to the elevator, rode down with him, and walked him to the street. I asked him: “So, do you have a knife? Did you show it to a woman wearing a yellow shirt?” “No, man, I don’t have a knife. I was eating my lunch and I asked her for some change, and she freaked out.”
Then I saw the white plastic handle of a spoon sticking from his back pocket.
Hmmmm. I thought, He probably did have something shiny in his hand…
Homeless people generally don’t commit armed robbery on civilians (non-homeless people); they have no where to run to, no means of escape, and they are usually smart enough to know that they’ll be busted right away for it (note that this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be attentive when walking down a dark alley with one, just that you’re more at risk from a bunch of teenage kids). But they are scary, and it’s a more logical narrative to me that when one person – already scared by the presence of a homeless man where he wasn’t supposed to be – saw a homeless man with a plastic spoon in his hand, she read it as ‘knife!!’ and reacted appropriately (note that trained police officers have been known to make similar mistakes).
Similarly, there are two competing narratives we can construct out of Jacobsen’s story.
On one hand, a dry run or failed mission by a group of terrorists, as she suggests.
On the other, a group of foreign musicians, already somewhat out of place, being bad-vibed beyond belief by the rest of the passengers, and so acting with a less-then affable demeanor, and doing what I’ve done in the past when flying with large groups of people, which is to walk around and congregate so we can chat.
Which do I think is the case? I have no idea. Would I have prevented them from flying? Probably not. I think that the idea of limiting the number of Arabic men flying together is kinda absurd; no one’s taking a plane over and flying it anywhere these days, and if I want to blow a plane up in midair, I don’t need 14 men to do it.
So what would I have done? TG wanted to know, and the answer is pretty simple. I’d have walked up to them and chatted. Annoyingly cheerfully. “Hey! How you doing? You waiting for the bathroom, too? Where are you guys from? Where you going? Isn’t that cool?” Their responses – both verbal and nonverbal – would have determined what happened next.
I’ve done things like this in the past – in a parking structure with four thugged-out kids. There are a couple of reasons why it’s a good idea. First, because it lets you set the tempo for whatever is going to happen. My parking lot kids may have been would-be muggers (I was once unsuccessfully mugged in a parking structure in Santa Monica), or four honor-roll kids out for a night in the town. By walking up to them and asking a question – “Hey, do you know how to get to the Edwards movie theaters from here?” – I created a situation in which they would react, one way or another, on my timeline, rather than theirs, and in a setting chosen by me, rather than by them. By being cheerful beyond belief, instead of saying something confrontational like “You’re creeping me out,” I don’t unnecessarily start a confrontation, or leave four good kids muttering about racist assholes as I walk away. I’m more sympathetic to women, who use the ‘Model Mugging’-approved technique of telling someone “You’re making me uncomfortable, please back away,” but I still think a more cheerful wording and tone could be used to convey a similar message.
So, in Jacobsen’s case, simply walking up to the suspicious characters and introducing yourself would have gone a long way to sort out what was going on – and at no meaningful cost.
Scrappleface has a gallows-humorous take on the incident—if there was an incident.
I think the prayer explanation is most convincing.
I am bit skeptical of the event for reasons documented by others as well as reasons of my own. Here are some other questions I would be asking.
_”A month ago I traveled to India to research a magazine article I was writing. My husband and I flew on a jumbo jet carrying more than 300 Hindu and Muslim men and women on board. We traveled throughout the country and stayed in a Muslim village 10 miles outside Pakistan. I never once felt fearful. I never once felt unsafe. I never once had the feeling that anyone wanted to hurt me. This time was different.”_
Why was this different than a month ago? Were or are terrorists any different in that region of the world now? If anything my apprehension would have been greatly elevated.
_”Two days after my experience on Northwest Airlines flight #327 came this notice from SBS TV, The World News, July 1, 2004:”_
_”The U.S. Transportation and Security Administration has issued a new directive which demands pilots make a pre-flight announcement banning passengers from congregating in aisles and outside the plane’s toilets. The directive also orders flight attendants to check the toilets every two hours for suspicious packages.”_
I’ve flown multiple airlines on several occasions after 9/11. Pilots have always advised passengers not to congregate in the aisles, galley or near the head (toilet facilities). As a matter of fact pilots as well as crew have asked customers to take their seats when things get out of hand. The requests are never made to individual passengers but are relayed over the speaker system to all passengers. Why would they react differently in this case? Why would she not remember or note any announcements over the speaker system? After all sky marshal’s are aboard the plane.
Last but not least. Where is the crews account concerning the events. As a crew member you can bet your sweet bippy I’ld be shouting it to every news organization on the block. For her to be scared out of her wits is one thing for the crew to be scared out their wits as she suggests is something entirely different.
There are a couple of things that struck me about this piece. One was the blantant assumptions that checks had not been done, yet they first saw these men at the gate for preboarding. She and her family had come from another flight, while the other gentlemen of Arab descent, we do not know what security screening they went through prior to getting to the gate.
I say this having flown on July 4 from Portland, ME, (where Mohammed Atta started his trip on 9/11) to Dulles, for a cross country trip to LA. I had a cast on my leg at the time, and was stopped long before I ever hit the gates for extra security screening. I’m with Sensing on this part, some skepticism on details.
That said, why were guys with Syrian passports in the country to begin with? FBI might have concluded the passports are legit, they weren’t on any “lists”, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t new recruits. It isn’t exactly as if we have friendly relations with Syria to enable musicians from there to come to the states on a passport…sounds like an unlikely reason to grant 14 passports from Syria to me. I’m with Steyn on this part, healthy skepticism on why this even took place.
Donald Sensing, as usual, has info on what is likely to be “The Band in Question”:http://www.donaldsensing.com/2004/07/what-they-said.html
AL,
I wonder if your “cheerful engagement” technique–which I endorse and have occasionally used–isn’t something of a guy thing.
I don’t want to be sexist–really, I don’t–but the majority of my close friends are female, and their reaction (and my wife’s reaction) to uncomfortable situations is very different from mine. In fact, when I’ve deployed the engagement tactic, I often have female friends try to restrain me, muttering in an undertone, “What are you doing?!”
Most recently this occured when a group of construction workers were breaking their necks to stare at a group of my friends. I gave those boys the gayest smile and wave I could manage and guess what? They stopped staring. Instantly. It horrified my friends, before they started laughing.
I think our culture has a problem when it trains those most vulnerable to attack (young women) to be passive, fearful, etc. instead of in control. And which teaches anyone to write a newspaper article about being fearful rather than jump into the situation and figure out if there’s any reason to be afraid.
Schneier’s books are outstanding (both his earlier reference works on cryptography and the more recent writing for the general population). The “theatrics” are costly, pointless, and will _inevitably_ lead to a false positive, which will kill people. A governor’s plane landing at Reagan National with a faulty transponder nearly got them killed, quite recently…some people respond to that by saying “too bad, they shouldn’t have been there”.
Schneier’s point is that when your false positive rate is significantly higher than your true positive you really have to look at the other costs of what you’re doing.
Has the “additional security” on airlines made us any safer since 9/11? Not a bit. The only effective measure being taken is the air marshal program, and I suspect that there are so few of those that statistically it’s not relevant. I guess we can include baggage matching as relevant too.
Pointless security infuriates me, and is why I have no patience for fearmongering. Fearingmongering -> Theatrical security -> false positives -> dead people.
I remember a night about ten years back when I was walking back to my car with my girlfriend at the time. We were approached by five young guys who surrounded us, laughing and asking for money…we all know where that’s going. But the girlfriend got scared, happened to be Vietnamese, and let loose with a torrent of…well, I have no idea what she said. It sure confused me, and there was a lot of it. It also confused the five guys, who just started looking at each other in confusion. Then I was looking at them in confusion and they were looking at me. Without pausing her diatribe for one second, she grabbed my arm and dragged me off towards the car. They just stood there, baffled, and I remember looking back at them and giving them a kind of “huh?” expression, which they returned.
Do not accost the Vietnamese girl, for she will place a spell of confusing syllables upon you.
Ross
_”Has the “additional security” on airlines made us any safer sine 9/11?”_
Being a frequent traveler myself I can say with some certainty yes to a point. For example most frequent travelers now check their bags rather than carry them on board. As a traveler I prefer less hassle. Besides I’m sure TSA doesn’t want to rummage through my dirty under wear when it isn’t necessary.
Major airports now screen all baggage regardless of whether it goes in the hold or not. For those airports that do have the equipment I can’t say if they are or are not screened when transfers occur from plane to plane at major airports. It is debatable as to whether or not all airports should have this capability so there is some risk mitigation in this area.
Plane manifests are checked against baggage at major airports. I can attest to the fact that if you do not get on the plane your bags will not get on the plane either. Whether or not this kind of checking takes place in all airports is debatable. Again another area of risk mitigation.
Finally most of the major airports were and are still set up in the fashion of mini-malls. Most shops are only available to the traveling community since you must have a ticket or a pass from the sales counter to get beyond the check point to the boarding gates. That said there are sundry items that one can purchase and not be searched for. Things like lighters, over the counter medications, electronic goods, hygiene items (yes nail clippers), foods, music, videos, clothing, sporting goods the list goes on and on. My belief here is that since the purchasing community is limited to travelers these mini-malls will eventually become more oriented to traveler needs versus general public wants and needs.
Are there still issues to resolved. Absolutely. Have we made our airports any safer? In my opinion yes. What is in place today is considerably more than what we had prior to 9/11. Does it eliminate all potential threats? No. Again the risk mitigation factor versus costs and public tolerance will determine what we as a society deem as necessary.
Ross,
Great story! And Schneier’s books/points are outstanding.
I had an interesting discussion this morning with a guy I’ve seen in my local deli for years now. Somebody mentioned the governor’s plane; I said that the agencies are pointing at each other, that nobody could make a decision, and that the pilot didn’t do anything wrong. Talk about putting my foot in mouth. 😉 Turns out that this guy is one of the key people in charge of the airspace in this region (Washington DC), for one of the agencies. He said “everything you’ve just said is wrong”, which doesn’t happen to me as often as you GOP types probably think. At least, it doesn’t happen where I can hear it. 😉 It was time to shut up and listen.
In any case, he said the following:
1. The pilot did not establish two-way communication at the 30 mile boundary, as he is required to do. This was a no-no, and a big mistake on his part.
2. The FAA, Secret Service, Air Force, Capitol Hill Security, and TSA representatives in the central airspace control were all fully aware that the plane posed no threat.
3. The evacuation was caused by a lower-level FAA staffer who called someone in Capitol Hill Security directly. Capitol Hill did not check with their coordinator; they just initiated evacuation.
4. Reports in the press about the incident were grossly inaccurate. He and his agency asked for a retraction and/or correction, and were ignored.
So a couple of mistakes were made: We go to all of the expense of setting up this centralized place for information and decisions, and lower-level folks bypassed it. The pilot didn’t do everything he was supposed to. I had thought that the pilot didn’t do anything wrong, and that made a big difference for me…people who don’t do anything wrong shouldn’t get smacked down by the system.
I asked if he thought the procedures currently in place were adequate and appropriate; he said that based on the analyses they had done, the procedures were appropriate. I’ll take him at his word.
He also laid some blame at the feet of the TSA — having been stood up so quickly, he felt that their representatives just didn’t have the domain experience necessary for their roles. Well, that’s a lightweight version of his critique, but I don’t want to say anything more than that…
The link to The Band in Question is to the wrong Sensing post. It should be here.
I’m sure that the literal events happened more-or-less as Jacobsen stated, but her entire view was filtered by a pre-existing fear of Muslims and the liberals who (notwitshtanding being out of power) sabotage airline security. Jacobsen’s source Ann Coulter (doesn’t that say it all?) accuses Norm Mineta of leading us on a “Bataan Death March” to avenge an incident that occurred when he was interned in WWII.
An even less sympathetic view than mine shows up in Drezner’s comment section [search for “radish”]
I doubt if, after the band’s bona fides are established, we liberals will be getting an apology from the crowd that thinks we still don’t understand 9/11. Maybe the point is we understand pointless aggression all too well.
Here’s another fine mess we got ourselves into Ollie. Can everyone say sue the transportation industry and government because they didn’t recognize my medical problems due to anxiety caused by 9/11. Add insult to injury and sue the transportation industry and government for detaining band members and not terrorists. I bet the lawyers are already circling. It’s a no win situation folks.
From the article:
This reads to me as though she tried Armed Liberal’s friendly-confrontation suggestion, with negative results.
I’m also rather unsympathetic to the “religious observance” reading alone. It isn’t as though Muslims only just started flying in passenger jets, or have never before confronted the practical implications of prayer under constrained situations. Unless someone can show that this exhibited behavior is also customary in, e.g., lengthy overseas flights, the “deliberately provocative” reading given by Jacobsen has merit. Wrapping sinister motives in the conventional cloth of protected status is a typical M.O. for recent terrorist activity; see also, ambulances as personnel carriers, stockpiling weapons in schools, & photographing future targets as tourists.
gerrymander-
My guess? Her freak-out pissed him off.
praktike,
After considering the possibility, I don’t buy it. Him being pissed off relies on his knowing she freaked, which means he saw, heard, or had it told to him.
He was sitting behind her, so he couldn’t have seen it. In my experience, the economy sections of planes are rather noisy, so I rule out overhearing as well.
Which leaves being told. This is possible, but means we can to surmise from prior action. As described to us, the boarding interaction was cordial. Would a trusted (I assume) third party be enough to completely kill that, when cordially approached in the near future? Somewhat, possibly; I would expect a guarded reaction perhaps, but not outright hostility.
gerrymander –
No, she didn’t; my method puts the other person in a situation where they have to respond in some way. She let them off the hook for too easily (smiled and didn’t follow up).
A.L.
A.L.,
Fair point — I see the difference.
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