Is It “UnAmerican” To Question Suspicious Airline Passengers? The New Racial Profiling Lawsuits
Six Iraqi natives announced in Detroit last week that they are suing American Airlines for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” because they were racially profiled, leaving at least one of the six feeling “violated.” Putting aside the inaccurate charge-racial profiling is defined as the practice of substituting skin color for evidence as grounds for suspicion by law enforcement officials; the men’s skin color was never an issue-the real question to be asked of this scenario is, are groups of Middle Eastern men purposefully behaving suspiciously in airports and on airplanes in an effort to cash in on America’s civil justice system?
The Director of Safety and Security for at least one airline, Sun Country Airlines, believes this may be true.
“There are some groups out there pushing the limits to reap the rewards of what happened on 9/11,” Tony Loeks told PJM in an interview. “They behave in a non-violent but suspicious manner to get themselves pulled off the aircraft with the result being a civil suit against the airline.”
An example of what may have possibly been such an attempt – a separate incident involving a group of 12, suspicious-acting, Arabic-speaking men that took place on Sun Country Airlines Flight 274, traveling from Washington to Minnesota on June 27. Two passengers on that flight had contacted me about the men’s threatening behavior and asked me to investigate. At first, TSA wouldn’t confirm that the incident even happened. Later they acknowledged that it did, but refused to comment.
Loeks, the affable Director of Safety and Security at Sun Country Airlines, by contrast, was willing to talk, explaining how important safety and security is to Sun Country, and “that goes for all the passengers as well.”
When thinking about airport security, it’s easy to conjure images of x-ray and bomb detection machines, but security, is, as Loeks explained, and as Webster’s defines, “being free from danger or threat.” So what happens when passengers feel threatened? Therein lies the airlines’ conundrum.
Based on passenger accounts, the 12 Middle Eastern men on Sun Country Flight 274 appeared to be going out of their way to call attention to their aberrant, in-flight behavior. One passenger explained: “They were so many of them and they were seated all over the plane. They acted like college kids except they were too old. They stood up in unison, kept changing seats, and kept passing cellular phones. They were so disruptive. No one else was being obnoxious like they were. This was totally out-of-line behavior. They were playing musical chairs. The flight attendant kept telling them to sit in their seats. But every time [the flight attendant] was out of eyesight, they were at it again.”
During the flight, this passenger debated whether or not to tell the flight attendant further details of the men’s behavior. “But then one of the men pulled out a video camera, a big camcorder, with a big mike. The flight attendant told him to put it away. He did, until she was gone. Then he pulled it back out and started video taping all the passengers on the plane. It was intimidating. Now, there was no chance of me saying anything. These guys had me on tape.”
The passenger’s mother, who was also on the plane, described in a separate interview what she witnessed in-flight. “What the men were doing was very intimidating, especially with that video camera. I felt scared. They were loud and boisterous. I thought about saying something to the flight attendant. But we live in Minnesota and are aware of the imam’s lawsuit. It’s a little bit scary, thinking you can get sued for giving information like this.” (At the time of the flight, lawyers for six Muslim clerics, removed from an airline for suspicious behavior, had named airline passengers in their well-publicized, racial profiling suit against U.S Airways, and the Minnesota airport authorities.)
The first passenger said that what disturbed her most was what she saw after the flight landed. She was waiting at the baggage claim alongside the men. “They scared a lot of us on the plane. One girl was crying. And then, when we got to the baggage claim, the men’s wives appeared, in their headscarves and with their kids. I thought, ‘Oh, my God? These guys have kids. How can men who have their own children to think about intentionally scare people like that? On the flight, I was with my kids.”
The answer appears to be because they can. There is no passenger recourse for being intimidated, spooked or threatened by a group of obnoxious men-hailing from the Middle East, America, or anywhere else. So far, there have been no civil lawsuits.
There’s no considerate-behavior-advocacy law firm waiting in the wings to cash in. And yet these incidents-these acts of intimidation-happen far more than is recognized.
Tony Loeks of Sun Country Airlines confirmed the aforementioned incident. “There were twelve men. Because of concerns by passengers and flight crew, we asked TSA to meet the plane, which they did. We had twelve Middle Eastern men taking videotape of passengers without those passengers’ permission. It raises questions, that much is for sure,” Loeks said.
Because the men had violated other passengers’ privacy, they’d most likely have had trouble filing any kind of a discrimination-based civil suit. The question remains – who were they? Were they affiliated with a group or did this somehow happen spontaneously? One passenger described two of the twelve Middle Eastern men as “clearly the two elders in the group. They had caps on. They were in their 70′s. One sat in front and one sat in back.”
TSA spokesperson Laura Uselding declined to discuss the incident. Airline Security Director Tony Loeks said he was not surprised.
“We often get the same canned response..” Loeks said. “I do remember this one situation about two months prior to the JFK terror plot. There’s a long taxi out of JFK. We had a Middle Eastern passenger using his cell phone camera to take pictures of the airport grounds. During the taxi portion of the flight, cell phones must be off – his wasn’t. So we reported to TSA. Barely a response. Well, after the foiled plot, they were very interested in this individual, the flight and the date.”
Loeks added: “The airlines spend a lot of time, money and resources behaving professionally. We have training for flight attendants that far exceeds what’s required by the government. We don’t racially profile people. We follow reporting procedures. But first and foremost, we want all passengers to feel safe when they fly.”
Which brings us back to the six Arabs and their lawsuit currently in the headlines. These were six Iraqi military contractors hired by the U.S. Army to teach Marines about Iraqi culture and etiquette. Six professionals returning to Detroit on American Airlines flight 590 on August 28. Six grown men who claim they were “humiliated,” “violated,” and “mortified” for being questioned by airport officials at Lindberg Airport for one hour. There were no handcuffs involved. No law enforcement officers with guns.
David Al-Watan, Talal Cholagh, Ali Alzerej, Hassan Alzerej, Hussein Alsalih and Mohammad Al-Saedy are suing American Airlines in U.S. District Court for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The men’s lawyer, Lawrence Garcia of Allen Brothers Attorneys & Counselors PLLC, says what the airline did to them was “un-American.”
Another passenger on the plane, a mother traveling alone with her two young kids, felt uncomfortable by the men’s behavior during boarding procedures and asked, without fanfare, to be let off the plane. Media reports said she’d “overreacted.” To this end, Leah Robbins spoke to the press, “How can you overreact when it’s your children?” she told the San Diego Union Tribune. American Airlines officials decided to ask the men a few questions. Since when is it un-American to clarify the facts?
The men’s Detroit-based attorney, Lawrence Garcia claims that American Airlines is “trying to say the issue is about security.” Garcia says it’s “about a violation of an individual’s rights,” quoting Thomas Jefferson: “anyone who sacrifices liberty in order to gain security deserves neither.”
How was it “violating liberty” to interview the six men for an hour — ten minutes each — he was asked.
“Security is a noble goal, I agree.” Garcia said. “But American Airlines excuse for how they handled this case was that security is a noble goal. My clients were detained. It was false imprisonment, they were aware of their captivity.”
Captivity? Captivity is the condition of being imprisoned or confined.
“But your clients were simply questioned by American Airlines employees,” it was pointed out to Garcia.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Then they were certainly free to go,” this reporter pointed out to him.
“They were aware of their captivity,” Garcia hedged.
“Were the men handcuffed?”
“No.”
“Were any police officers or other law enforcement agents involved?” (Early press reports quoted airline spokesman Tim Wagner as stating, “several passengers were briefly interviewed by law enforcement officers but no passenger was arrested.”)
“No,” Garcia said. “And I have no further comment.”
His position appeared inconsistent. The men in question not only had military training, but were contracted by the U.S. government to educate U.S. military men regarding etiquette. You’d think these men, of all people, would have a pretty clear understanding of what it means to be held captive and/or detained-as opposed to what it means to be questioned.
But attempts to get him to clarify further were unsuccessful.
“Do not reach me again,” he said. Then he hung up.
How “un-American.”
Annie Jacobsen writes about aviation security and homeland security for a variety of newspapers, magazines and blogs. She is the author of the book, Terror in The Skies, Why 9/11 Could Happen Again.
Western Civilization is doomed unless we get a handle on white guilt. This may be the number one priority of our age. At this moment, our society become unglued when dealing with the threats of dark skinned individuals. We are supposed to feel forevermore guilty about past instances of racial injustice. Whites are to consider themselves scum of the Earth and unworthy of self-defense. This mindset pervades the thinking of almost all Democrats and country club Republicans.
We must soon resolve this issue. If we do not—the radical right-wingers will take advantage of the situation. The Ron Paul political campaign, for instance, is heavily supported by outright racists.
These are just more examples of the harmful effects of the Politically Correct mind-set that has this nation in it’s grip. If the people, in this case the passengers, don’t start to handle these situations, then all is lost. Try the right channels first, tell the flight attendant about the problem. If nothing is done, or the suspicious characters keep acting out, then citizenship is required. I know we’re told not to take matters into our own hands, but dammit it’s time to start being pro-active and responsible again. You can do this while being polite, you can ask for the questionable behavior to stop. You can be nice until it’s time not to be nice. Most people, including these 12 individuals, will cease their disruptive behavior once they realise they have not intimidated the passengers. The only way they win, the only way they succeed, is through our passivity and inaction. ..
I was questioned for three hours when crossing the US/Canadian border.
Can I sue? I could use the cash…
Oh darn it, I’m white. I guess I’ll just have to lump it.
Why is the lawsuit and the story about a group of obnoxious fliers linked? White American spring breakers perform way worse than this on planes all the time. Should we link them to the lawsuit as well? Why no commment about the individuals in the lawsuit’s behaviour on the plane? What were they doing to cause them to be detained for an hour? Have we all forgotten about the Oklahoma City bombing? Terrorists don’t always have a different skin color. Next time you are on a flight with a bunch of rowdy college kids you better be scared.
Allow me to put this to rest once and for all and solve the problem by taking out the flaw that i is based upon.
Arab is not a race no more than being from Virginia. Muslim is not a race no more than being Baptist.
That ends it.
I don’t think rowdy spring breakers video tape their fellow passengers* as a means of gathering evidence.
*Unless one of them is hot.
To Ted Jones: Idiocy, stupidity, mental disorder? I’m trying to find the right word to describe your thinking. Oklahoma city bombing: A couple of sick guys with an ax to grind with government. Isolated incident. College kids: Immature, out on a fling behaving badly. 12 middle eastern middle age and elderly men deliberatley acting suspicious that could belong to the global Jihad that desires to chop off your unbelieving head: Totally unacceptable. Get it? Zero tolerance on airlines for obnoxious and suspicious behavior. Land the plane at the nearest airport and remove the offenders and detain, identify, question. In other words protect the plane and the passengers you moron.
“Muslim is not a race no more than being Baptist.”
The racially obsessed and politically correct leftists disagree with you. They are also the ones who invented the weird classification of “Hispanic.” It may not be entirely logical—but the fact that most Muslims are dark skinned is deemed more than sufficient to describe them as victims of white oppression.
If while flying I see passengers acting suspiciously enough I feel completely within my rights, and certainly within my responsibility to confront and if necessary disable them to prevent physical and/or emotional harm to the other passengers.
No ifs, ands, or buts. I would take my own freedom lightly when faced with such a decision.
I suppose you could stand up in the airplane and start a song if the crew refused to do anything.
maybe something to the tune of “some enchanted evening”
ask the passengers to join in…
Some annoying afternoon
You will meet middle easterns
You will meet middle easterns
Across a crowded plane
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you’ll see them
Again and again.
Some enchanted evening
Someone may be taping,
You may hear them taping
Across a crowded plane
And night after night,
As strange as it seems
The sound of their taping
Will sing in your dreams.
Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons,
Wise men never try.
Some enchanted evening
When you find your terrorist
When you feel him call you
Across a crowded plane,
Then fly to his side,
And make his shoe your own
Or all through your life you
May dream all alone.
Once you have found him,
Never let him go.
Once you have found him,
Never let him go!
David Thompson,
No, it does not justify anything. The fact is and no one has had the fortitude to bring to the front line yet becuase of implied fears, is… a religion is not a race, nor a nationality.
Address this and the problem not only goes away, it dissapears.
This may seem overly simple but that is how it is trying to find trees in a forest.
white guilt = racial profiling. questioning questionable behavior on a flight or anywhere else for that mater should be considered a reasonable precaution.
My guess is the whole suspicious act was to precipitate the law suit. They’re doing it for the money.
Loser pays.
Simple rule: if it looks like a dog, and barks like a dog, it’s a dog. Is every Muslim a terrorist? No. But every airline, domestic or international, MUST do everything it can to protect its passengers. Who committed the atrocities of 9/11? A flock of crazed Buddhists? No. The minute we stop questioning odd behavior is the minute we stop protecting ourselves; and that is simply unacceptable.
I’m Irish and during the 1990′s I spent most of my working life in London which meant that I frequently flew between London and Dublin.
The 90′s marked a high point in the IRA’s bombing campaign on mainland England so occassionally I was stopped by the airport police at Heathrow and questioned about my visit purely because I was an Irish male in my 20′s.
Did this upset me? No it bloody didn’t. Why not? Because I was aware that some pieces of scum from my homeland were bombing London and as far as I was concerned these terrorist dogs were causing me the problem not the airport security guys doing their job.
If dark-skinned muslims feel they are being profiled its not because “whitey” is racist or bigoted or whatever else, its because the vast majority of terrorist attacks around the globe are being committed by dark-skinned muslims. Learn to deal with it.
It seems quite probable that some Muslims are intentionally trying to cause distress in order to elicit a reaction from other passengers so that they may create an incident. They may be looking for an opportunity to make money or to create a vehicle for Islamic activism. It is also possible that they are trying to make airline security more difficult to pave the way for future terrorist attacks.
So if Arab passengers do not behave exactly like matrons from Scarsdale, they are “deliberately acting suspiciously” and hoping to reap benefits from lawsuits?
Has it occurred to you that people of another culture may actually act differently from your culture? That their behavior may be exactly like what they do at home? That they go to the airport to take a plane and act just as they would in ordinary circumstances?
Just because someone acts differently than you do does NOT mean that they are INTENTIONALLY being SUSPICIOUS. It just means they are different from you. Not the same thing.
America IS seen as the most litigious of nations. The ACLU seen as being the champians of the fruitcake, pedophile, illegal alien and and everything not white or Christian. taxpayer foot basins anyone? seperate prayer rooms in airport terminals anyone, children distruption of taxpayer classrooms for muslim children to pray their required whatever many times a day and the list goes on. we are refused from cab rides for having closed bottles of alcohol purchases on our person.
We’ve been steadily fed that WE are wrong/bad/bigoted/intolerant/etc by the “let’s be more like the Euros” viruses that America does not know who America is anymore.
Is it any wonder that foreigners, whether they be Arabs or Hispanic or followers of Allah all know this full well and use it against us?
English is no longer required as a step towards attaining the American dream. Only the new of a good Lawyer is.
This was a dry run to see what security response would be in terms of time and personel, nothing more.
Being able to try and tie up everyday passengers with threats of lawsuits is in fact, another form of terrorisim.
You can not glean sound bites and expect to come up with any sort of realistic picture of what took place, it simpily is dumping jumbled thoughts that have no real direction or rational outcome. Read the entire report.
Seat belt extenders are a weapon, a weapon of choice as a sarong would be in indonesian martial arts from which there is considerable muslim influence and intertwined history.
The fear of a lawsiut mentality is EXACTLY what the terrorists are counting on and this whole thing is a giant pr scam.
Defend yourself, defend your family and if need be, break the necks of those who would harm them.
There is not a jury in the country that would convict you with a picture of the towers being hit to keep it in the proper framing.
And if you have the opportunity cry out at the top of your lungs and scream the words that turn the cowards blood cold, “LET’S ROLL!!!”
God Bless Tod Beamer and the patriots who fought to the death the scum that invaded our lives.
Amen.
Again, my Gump point, religion is not a race. You can not racially discriminate against something that is…. NOT A RACE. A region of the world, IS NOT A RACE, IT IS A PLACE!!! You can not be racist about A PLACE!
Confront that and you have won because you are no longer being played for an idiot.
Expect no help from the far left as they have used this tactic to divide and conquer this mighty nation. WAKE UP!!!!
To MSS:
Welcome to the Irrational, Bordreline Insane
Thinkers Club of America. You are one of the “Suckers born every minute” so aptly put by P.T. Barnum. You cannnot be serious or maybe you are one of those Islamo con men on that plane. Their behavior was normal to their culture? Please leave critical thinking to those who are capable of it and go out out and look for Bigfoot or something.
Tony – you are quite right. Since 2001 there have been numerous outcries amongst people who should rationally have nothing to fear. However the problem is that in the rush to clamp down on terrorism everything ends up going too far creating the fear you felt as an Irish male in his 20s ten-fifteen years ago. My fiancee’s (wife divorced early this year, on to the next one, no there wasn’t a connection
) mother is Irish and was in her forties at this time and tells me she left her handbag in the cinema in about 1990…and they were going to blow it up even before they heard her Irish accent!! As a young woman in England in the 1970s her car with Irish license plates was routinely watched…she did get them changed but I think she felt the same as you – better that the real murderers get blamed and the public is protected against them than the PTA ignored just because a few people feel they are the targets of racism.
However there are a lot of dangerous viewpoints about the whole of the Islamic community – just read the eBay Round Table forums on a normal night and see that living standards have to be increased in this country – and soon – so that people can feel that they don’t have to blame someone else for their crap quality of life.
Michael Howard (the MH), brokenbritain@yahoo.co.uk)
Why not everyone stand up in the aisle so they cannot go anywhere?
Gee, I wonder…Would it have been racial profiling if every passenger on the plane spontaneously gave them a severe collective ass-kicking for their provacative, insensitive, and boorish behavior, not to speak of wasting their precious time?
When the law does not protect you, as these permissive, gratuitous lawsuits encouraged by the who literally bankroll the Democrat Party end up doing, then citizens will have to take their own protection into their own hands.
We could begin that by voting in favor of lawsuit reform, before it gets to knocking heads.