STUPID AIRPORT SECURITY

The list includes attacks on Americans and/or American installations by organized foreign terrorist groups and not American nutcases ebrown. Let's please focus on airport security for now.

They couldn't go around? That is interesting though Walter.

Posted 4/21/2005 11:00 PM Updated 4/22/2005
Foreign flyover policy scrutinized

Danger - Saudi on board!
Insight 16 April 2005
with Rob Greene
Thank god the world's a safer place today than it was on 9/11. I'm telling you: if I had been one of the 278 passengers on board that KLM Boeing bound for Mexico City I would not have grumbled at all at hearing from the captain that we were heading back to Amsterdam because the US wouldn't allow us into their airspace. No, I would have applauded the Mexican authorities for discovering, after checking the passenger list, that I was sharing an aircraft with two decidedly dodgy characters from Saudi Arabia. I would commend the Canadians for not allowing us to land and I would -need I say this- raise my glass to those prudent Americans. You never know what two highly suspect Arabs in a KLM plane can get up to.

Does the name Mustafa al-Harimi mean anything to you? No? Well, I'm not surprised because I just made it up. Funny thing is, though, that there might well be any number of Arab gentlemen with precisely that name. Anything that sounds Arab usually is; there could well be page after page of al-Harimis in the Djeddah phone directory. For that's how it is with names. Do a Google search on "Robert Greene" and see how many of my namesakes pop up in the 3 million-plus results, from Robert Greene the late Elizabethan dramatist to Robert Greene the author of The Art Of Seduction (how I wish that was me!). I'm especially anxious to meet Robert Greene the New York-based Public Certified Accountant, for advice on how I can start my own business and hire my wife so I can get a hefty tax concession. My wife Elaine herself is frequently mistaken for the current President of the Texas Tumor Registrars Association, who happens to bear the same name.

What I'm trying to say - and I admit I'm taking my time doing it - is this: how many Saudi citizens share their name with the two dodgy characters on board the KLM plane? To use my invented name again: how did the Mexicans know they were dealing with al-Harimi the Al Qaeda convert and explosives expert, instead of al-Harimi the halva merchant from Medina? When it comes to that: how likely is it that a would-be terrorist would check in at Amsterdam Schiphol under his own name, claiming to be taking a break from combat training in Afghanistan for a bit of sightseeing in Mexico City? And, if he did indeed have evil plans, why depart from Schiphol, where not even a wooden toothpick will pass through security unnoticed?

Other questions pop up: have the Americans gone soft or something? Somehow I'd expected that, on receiving the warning from the Mexicans, they would have scrambled a squadron of F-16's, forced the Boeing to land in the Arizona Desert, dragged out the two Saudis and bundled them off to Guantanamo Bay for some stern questioning and subsequent reprogramming. But just saying: 'Ooohhh we don't want you here, go away'….it doesn't seem the American thing to do. And another thing: it's good to know that the Mexican authorities have a checklist of suspect individuals, but shouldn't the Dutch have one too? And if they do have one, why not use it? An ounce of prevention and all that: a lot of money and inconvenience could have been saved if the two Saudis had never got on board the plane in the first place.

To me the whole episode looks like two things: entirely futile, and a total shambles. Strangely, this is not the view of US Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Christiana Halsey, quoted in a recent Dutch newspaper as saying that the events had been evidence of the 'good communication' between Mexico, US officials and KLM. 'Things happened exactly as they should happen in situations like this' was her message to the rest of us, 'of course it caused the passengers who had to return to Schiphol enormous inconvenience, but the communication lines were short, action was taken immediately and that is great.' Well. Obviously, two Arabs on a plane will from now on amount to 'a situation like this'…..

If I were a clean living, law-abiding Saudi (or Algerian, Tunisian, Moroccan, Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian or Afghan) I'd be bloody angry at not being allowed to overfly the United States in the course of my legitimate business, merely because I share my name with someone on a list. If, on the other hand, I were a naughty Saudi (or Algerian etc.) I'd get quite a kick out of booking a transatlantic flight and then sitting back and enjoying the mayhem and confusion I caused. I think we can expect more of this.

US sends BA jet back to Britain

The BA jet was carrying 239 passengers when it turned back
A British Airways jumbo jet flying to New York turned back after the US objected to one of its passengers.

Three hours after take-off on Wednesday the Boeing 747, with 239 passengers, turned around after a US request that the man should not be allowed to land.

They said his name matched one on a terrorism watch list. He was met by British police on landing and was questioned, but later released.

BA said there was "no threat to the safety of the aircraft".

BA flight 175 landed back at Heathrow at 1730 GMT - more than six hours after take-off.

Homeland security made the match by checking data transmitted after the flight departed from London
US Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman
A spokeswoman said BA took the decision to return to Heathrow Airport, west London.

She added: "The remaining passengers will depart for JFK [airport] at 2000 GMT this evening."

A spokeswoman from the US Transportation Security Administration said: "There was a person travelling on a French passport who was a positive match with an anti-terrorism watch list.

"Homeland security made the match by checking data transmitted after the flight departed from London."

In September, Yusuf Islam, the British singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, was shocked when his plane to Washington was diverted on national security grounds.

He believes a spelling error by the FBI was the reason he ended up on a "no fly" list and asked his lawyers to look into it.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said his case would be reviewed.

Wouldn't the dark eyed foreign looking terrorist just hire the innocent looking little old lady sympathizers to do their dirty after a while of being singled out?

Canadian security is apparently just as tough though. My last trip through Vancouver, I had a pair of cuticle scissors confiscated.

That does not change the fact that almost all international terrorists these days are Middle Eastern looking guys.

Then we would have to hope that normal security caught them wouldn't we Drewdad? Just like we do now. And meanwhile little old ladies are reduced to tears trying to get through security.