For two days, all we heard was that UA refused to transport nine passengers on a Sunday evening flight from Dulles to Tampa due to security concerns. Few details filtered out and we were left to speculate what really happened: was a well-known frequent flyer thrown off because the FAs refused to heat his ramekin of nuts?
Sadly, it was another case of overreaction. Here’s the real story:
The nine-member Pakistani delegation, headed by a two-star Navy rear admiral, was already aboard United Airlines Flight 727 when one of them reportedly made a comment to the flight attendant — saying he hoped the flight was his last, in reference to their long day’s travel from Islamabad.
The comment prompted concern and security officials were notified. The delegation was taken off of the plane and missed the flight.
Though United offered to fly them to TPA the following day, the delegation refused and has since returned to Pakistan.
And who can blame them? The passenger comment noted above "sparked a call to Dulles law enforcement officials, who detained the delegation for 2.5 hours and refused to allow the officials to contact their embassy or the U.S. military officials who had invited them to visit, according to a Pakistani military official who spoke on condition of anonymity."
While I can understand that an "Islamic" looking man saying "I hope this flight is my last" in a cabin with nine other "dark skinned" men seated throughout the aircraft can raise some concern (though I cannot condone or make excuses for the concern without further context), the incident shows how little faith we really have in the Transportation Security Administration.
These men had not just waltzed onto the airplane: they had endured the same obtrusive screening procedures that all of us must endure when we fly. And yet they were still singled out and kicked off the flight because one of them made a comment that was misunderstood.
I hope its becoming clear that we really don’t trust the TSA to effectively screen passengers. Apparently, we think they don’t know how to effectively screen hand baggage or pat down passengers. Apparently, we believe the TSA "behavior detection officers" really can’t detect a "terrorist".
Stories like this infuriate me because they show the stupidity of our draconian security paradigm and the irrational fear over those who look different than us that illustrates that in many ways, the "terrorists" have won. They have brought out the worst in us, making us fearful of those around us and suspicious of anyone who doesn’t carry a surname that looks like ours.
Some may say, "Well, better safe than sorry, right?" Talk about a copout… Do we really want to live in a society in which we are so afraid of our personal safety that we consign ourselves to living in fear and read the worst into every off-hand comment? Do we really want to live in a society in which we must register our personal information with the government and present approved papers and proper identification to travel internally within the United States?
Please forgive me for another political rant.
very good post
and I agree with you it is maddening that people can be put under that amount of suspicion just for making a flippant comment
Callum
I agree – the so-called “FREEDOM” that people are always talking about protecting is being destroyed by our own policies!
Metal detectors and x-ray machines are reasonable and fine. Secondary inspection for bags with suspicious x-ray images or persons who can’t go through the metal detector with accurate results or who set it off is fine. The rest of the security theater is just destruction of the very freedom it is supposedly protecting.
I’m sure North Korea has a great record of keeping terrorists that hate the government in power from succeeding in attacks on their (terrible) airline’s planes. But do we want North Korea’s level of freedom?
Freedom isn’t free, and that includes the fact that we can never have 100% security of our commercial aircraft. Really what percentage of pax don’t make it safely to their destination in this country? It is very small compared to the same figure for automobiles. We have plenty of drive-by shootings, right? But I don’t see the TSA searching every car at the freeway on-ramp.
We’ve long past the point of diminishing returns on our security procedures. We need to refocus that money on creating jobs instead.
And what’s up with not allowing the pakistani delegation to call the U.S. Military officials who invited them?
And what happened to common sense? A terrorist who wants to blow up a plane is NOT going to tell the FA so during the time period when law enforcement still has time to come remove them from the flight! DUH! They’d wait until already in the air.
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