Student Sues TSA After Being Detained With Arabic Flashcards

[MeteorPunch]

That's better.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I was unaware that al-Qaeda members actually consider themselves to be terrorists. Don't they think of themselves as "freedom fighters" or jihadis, or some other patriotic term?

Hadn't they better hurry up and arrest EVERYBODY IN THE ENTIRE U.S. WHO SPEAKS ARABIC? They might ALL be intending to fly airplanes into buildings!


Sheesh.

 

[Yeekim]

I read about this from another blog and I'll take liberty to copypaste one particular comment I happen to wholeheartedly agree with:

Take a step back. It's the job of TSA to keep everyone safe ... and it is to carry that out even if that means inconveniencing some out of an abundance of caution.

This 'kid,' actually a 22-year old, had various warning flags. (i) He had flashcards on his person that included the words 'bomb' and 'terrorism' in Arabic and English, (ii) stamps on his passport to Sudan as well as Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Malaysia (see the recent New York Times article 'The Jihadist Next Door' about the transitioning of American Omar Hammami into a terrorist in Egypt and Sudan), (iii) he could not clearly say 9/11 was a bad thing once questioning had begun but only did so after hedging himself, (iv) he is a physics major minoring in Arabic, and (v) was carrying electronics on him. Some indicate he may also have had an anti-American book on his person.

Many of the above are not in themselves suspicious but you combine them together with some of the other facts and they can cause a great deal of suspicion.

Again, TSA is supposed to connect the dots for the worst possible interpretation and make sure that is not true. Why am I supposed to be upset that they interrogated and briefly detained him?

Of course, you can choose to focus on the flash cards alone and make a joke about this issue or buy the gentleman's spin wholesale ... or you can take the matter seriously.

Did they torture him? Harm him in any way beyond a missed flight? No and no. I'd be pissed too if I were him but there is no cause here for anyone else to be outraged about.

But, having read your blog for awhile, the thing that really bothers me is this: Had they done nothing, had he been a terrorist and had 200 died instead of a young man inconvenienced for 4 hours, I highly doubt that it would have merited a posting here, and if it did, one not nearly so outraged. People have a right to live far more then a right to get on a flying sardine can George. Indeed, there is no right to fly. Your priorities are totally misplaced.

Maybe TSA took their sweet time doing things and there is some grounds for improvement (and I'm not 100% sure even that's true), but I'd be more outraged - far more so - had they done nothing.

 

[illram]

Situations like this would be easier to stomach if I thought the TSA was in any way competent.

Thinking about it a little more, the problem to me is this is another incidence of the TSA taking a law enforcement role by detaining him so the FBI could come down and interrogate this guy.

If they are suspicious then search him, look for weapons or bombs, and if they don't find any release him. That T stands for Transportation, not Thought.

If they really want, get his flight info and let the FBI know and they can have a friendly consensual discussion with the gentlemen when he lands.

 

[Quintillus]

You spelled American wrong.

If they are suspicious then search him, look for weapons or bombs, and if they don't find any release him. That T stands for Transportation, not Thought.

Right on! It doesn't take 5 hours to determine if he's carrying a bomb or not - assuming he was there a reasonable amount ahead of time, there should have been no reason for him to miss his flight. The other major issue here is that the TSA never read him his rights, let him know why he was arrested, etc. Is that the sort of law enforcement and security you want to have?

That said, not all TSA agents are so unreasonable. I used to have an uncanny habit of setting off their detectors, but was never delayed more than a couple minutes, and eventually came to learn it was plastic poker chips of all things that were setting them off (can't have any gamblers, y'know). Some of them don't even make you throw out ticking timers if you can show them they're just from an innocuous board game that you forgot to take the batteries out of. So it's not like the entire TSA is eager to overstep its authority. Just some bad apples, as you're bound to get nigh anywhere. Mayhaps more than average, mayhaps not. But on the whole there's probably more of a problem with the government legally extending the TSA's warrantless search abilities than with these apples.

 

[Formaldehyde]

This 'kid,' actually a 22-year old, had various warning flags. (i) He had flashcards on his person that included the words 'bomb' and 'terrorism' in Arabic and English, (ii) stamps on his passport to Sudan as well as Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Malaysia (see the recent New York Times article 'The Jihadist Next Door' about the transitioning of American Omar Hammami into a terrorist in Egypt and Sudan), (iii) he could not clearly say 9/11 was a bad thing once questioning had begun but only did so after hedging himself, (iv) he is a physics major minoring in Arabic, and (v) was carrying electronics on him. Some indicate he may also have had an anti-American book on his person.

It sure sounds like a terrorist suspect to me. What sort of real American learns Arabic, travels to Muslim countries, and finds it offensive to be harassed by some twits who work for the TSA, "solely because he passed through an airport screening checkpoint with a set of Arabic-English flashcards and a book critical of American foreign policy".

Spoiler :

1. Plaintiff Nicholas George, a 22-year-old senior at Pomona College, was detained, abusively interrogated, handcuffed, and jailed for several hours in a holding cell solely because he passed through an airport screening checkpoint with a set of Arabic-English flashcards and a book critical of American foreign policy.

2. Mr. George was attempting to travel from the Philadelphia International Airport to California in order to resume his studies, including Arabic language studies. At the airport screening checkpoint he was stopped and detained for 30 minutes by TSA screeners and abusively interrogated for an additional 15 minutes by a TSA supervisor. He was then handcuffed, without explanation, by a Philadelphia police officer and transported to the airport police station where he was jailed for approximately four hours, more than two of them with his hands cuffed behind his back. Mr. George was released only after having been subjected to an additional 30 minutes of custodial interrogation at the hands of two FBI agents.

3. The conduct of the TSA officials, the Philadelphia police, and the FBI violated Mr. George's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure and his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

and eventually came to learn it was plastic poker chips of all things that were setting them off (can't have any gamblers, y'know).

I'd say apparently being paranoid of the X-ray image of plastic poker chips in your luggage isn't exactly a glowing compliment to their screening capabilities.

 

[warpus]

@Yeekim - it wasn't a brief custody - it lasted 6 hours.

I hope they at least paid for his flight - to make up for the one they made him miss.

 

[Martacus]

@Yeekim - it wasn't a brief custody - it lasted 6 hours.

I hope they at least paid for his flight - to make up for the one they made him miss.

What? And raise the federal deficit even more? For shame!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What "electronics" was he carrying that isn't on the approved list?

 

[Mise]

Did he do anything illegal, or against regulations governing air travel?

No. End of story.

Do what all patriotic Americans do, George: sue their asses off.

 

[amadeus]

(iii) he could not clearly say 9/11 was a bad thing

Wait, what?

 

[woody60707]

I'd say apparently being paranoid of the X-ray image of plastic poker chips in your luggage isn't exactly a glowing compliment to their screening capabilities.

A roll of poker chips, depending what they are made of can very well look of something dangerous. X-rays aren't magical that show bombs clear as day.

 

[Formaldehyde]

No, they aren't "magical. And neither is the ability to discern what is important and what is not. Speaking of which, good thing very few people actually try to smuggle explosives onto the planes given how frequently they can't even find the real thing.

Transportation Security Administration screeners and security equipment at 21 U.S. airports failed to detect materials for making homemade bombs carried through checkpoints by federal investigators.

"In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through," reports MSNBC. "Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials."

Quoted by MSNBC, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission stated, "I'm dismayed and, yes, to a degree, it does surprise me. Because I thought the Department of Homeland Security was making some progress on this, and evidently they're not."

But they are apprently great at finding Quintillus' poker chips.

What I don't understand is how consistently less proficient the TSA appears to be compared to the rent-a-cops which used operate the same machines...

 

[woody60707]

I'm not sure if I can legally comment on a on-going lawsuit, so I will post some comments off the TSA blog by other TSO.

Anonymous TSO Jacob said... Ernie,

First off, this incident happened back in August. That is when the people on this blog discussed the incident at great length. So this isn’t something “new” that’s happening every week.

Secondly, as stated before, TSA does not have a procedure to stop people for flashcards in any language nor speaking any particular language. I have personally seen many people travel through my airport that speak Arabic or Farsi, or have literature written in a foreign language and nothing ever happened to them. The reasoning behind the further scrutiny that TSA gave to the individual was obviously something else that was in his bag or on his person. Any x-ray operator would not have a bag checked to look at flash cards and the TSOs would not know that the flash cards had Arabic translations until they actually went into the bag for some other suspicious item.

Third, like you, I don’t work at the airport in question, you or I can only render random guesses as to why a Law enforcement officer was called, but, at the point in which the Philadelphia police stepped in, TSA stepped out. Everything that happened after that, the handcuffs, being held in custody, the FBI interview was all after TSA was removed from the situation.

Lastly, I don’t know how the Philadelphia police work but at my airport if the LEO shows up and no crime or reasonable suspicion of a criminal act has occurred then they release the passenger. All police departments have strict guidelines, policies and procedures to follow. If the police took further action there was something more than just carrying flash cards going on.

http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2010/02/bol...howComment=1265986737761#c1009631267414162156
And I found a much better news story that gives a more complete picture of what happen. I'll just post what the TSA spokesman said because that side of the story hasn't been posted yet.

TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis tracked down a report on George's encounter, and said that it wasn't the flash cards that got him flagged.

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."

Davis said that the report indicates that in the screening area, George's "behavior escalated to a point where our officers deemed it necessary to contact the Philadelphia Police Department."... Liberati said nothing about "escalating behavior." Liberati said police checked with the FBI, and the feds decided that they wanted to come and interview George. ... Lt. Louis Liberati said, just as Davis did, that TSA personnel initially selected George because of something in his behavior. ... Liberati also said that he's certain that George had not been left handcuffed in his cell.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/h...enger_handcuffed_to_echoes_of_9_11_fears.html

 

[ParkCungHee]

Oh, those things, yeah. I got caught in one of them last time I flew. They just automatically start searching your bag and start asking random questions. The point isn't how you answer the questions, but how you respond to them.

 

[West 36]

<in Arabic> "Hello, I am a *looks at flash card* terrorist! And I have a *looks at another* bomb!"
It's a basic terrorist learning lesson. Kill him.