Posted on 07/19/2004 10:15:47 AM PDT by jimbo123
Last Tuesday morning, WomensWallStreet.com (WWS) published my first-person account of a recent Northwest Airlines flight that I took from Detroit to Los Angeles called Terror in the Skies, Again? A heads up about this article went out in our Daily Cents email -- our subscriber newsletter which primarily features financial tips and information for women.
On Wednesday morning, the WWS page views were unusually high, something like 10 times the normal amount. Apparently our readers had been emailing the article to their friends, family and colleagues and everyone was reading it.
By Thursday morning, that number had again multiplied ten-fold. It felt like the shampoo commercial from my youth: they told two friends, then they told two friends, then they told two friends. We sat in the WWS offices reading through your emails, taking stock of what you had to say. As the afternoon went on, the number of people reading the article continued to increase and the telephone was ringing off the hook.
And then a powerful thing happened. The mainstream media started calling.
The following statement was made by Daniel Drezner, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, on his website danieldrezner.com:
I received a mass email linking to this disturbing first-person account by Annie Jacobsen... I can say that the e-mail sent to me and other bloggers was cc-ed to movers and shakers in the mediaspere -- Bill Keller, David Ignatius, George Will, Anne Applebaum, and Nicholas D. Kristoff. So they're certainly aware of the story... I'd like to see real journalists dig deeper into this.
Dig they did. NBC was the first major news outlet to contact WomensWallStreet. The producer I spoke with on the telephone said the FBI had confirmed that 14 Syrians were on the flight, they confirmed the details about what happened upon landing in Los Angeles, and they said that the accounts from the flight attendants regarding what happened during the flight matched the accounts given by me and my husband to the FBI after we landed.
Then I spoke with a producer from ABC. She explained that she could not get Dave Adams, Head of Public Affairs of the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM), on the phone. So she asked me some of the questions that she had wanted to ask him: Where exactly did this band of 14 musicians play? What was the name of the band? Who booked the band and what kind of music did they play? Did anyone follow up and actually witness these 14 men performing at their desert casino gig? I had none of the answers, even though I had asked Adams these exact questions myself when we spoke last week. The ABC producer also asked me other questions which had crossed my mind after hanging up with Adams. Did I know anything about their return flight on JetBlue? Did the men go back to Syria? Did I believe FAM's story?
(Excerpt) Read more at womenswallstreet.com ...
Make that Mrs. Jacobsen's story.
What if this guy was one of the 14 sent back on a different flight.
Maybe Mrs. Jacobsen needs some formal training in rational thought,
ping
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/opinion/article_9581.shtml
Many have already labeled Annie Jacobsen as a paranoid racist. I spoke with her by telephone at her home on Sunday night, “I have ignored the negatives and am determined to concentrate on the positives.” She continued, “I write financial articles for Womens Wall Street and print publications. I don’t want this to turn into liberal versus conservative, I just wanted to get the story out.” But it has been tough. No major ‘old media’ outlet picked up the story after it ran, it really only grew legs when James Toranto of the “Best of the Web Today” led with it on Friday. The ‘new media’ of Internet blogs then jumped at the story and according to Ms. Jacobsen that has resulted in “over 2 million visits to the Womens Wall Street website over the weekend.” The ‘old media’ is catching up, as she and her husband will appear on NBC Nightly News on Monday and also Good Morning America on Tuesday. She is also scheduled on Scarborough Country on MSNBC on Monday night.
Ping II.
Part 2 ping.
This story is toxic to the old media.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/
TONIGHT ON TV
'Scarborough Country'
Monday, 10 p.m. ET
Are Terrorists experimenting with a deadly new plan in America's skies? This woman says she saw it in action on her flight. Her story on a special Scarborough Country Tonight. 'Scarborough Country' regularly airs 10 p.m. ET weeknights. Also airs 3 a.m. ET
For some reason, I believe our administration asked big media to hold off on moving with this story until today. Drudge is quiet. Fox News is quiet. Something's up.
If the mainstream media has taken an interest in this story, they're figuring out a pro-Kerry spin for it, perhaps to criticize this administration's security efforts. If they can't trash GWB or someone connected to the administration, they won't pursue it.
Hmmmm. A reason to watch Scarborough?
Okay.
Must See TV!
Major networks and liberal mainstream newspapers will give this as little attention as they can get away with...
... it makes John "the threat of terrorism is exaggerated" Kerry look like a moron.
Brokaw tonight. And Diane Sawyer tomorrow morning, too.
They played at a wedding in the middle of nowhere in Iraq and got bombed by an American plane.
(I hope)
Do you have a link to part I? Somehow I missed it.
Follow-up article from "Terror in the Skies" journalist with updates...
I won't watch Brokaw under any circumstances til election night, just to watch his face, and Russerts, to be honest.
As for Sawyer.....I might catch that. But I will definately check out Scarborough tonight.
Yep, and the pilots, stewardesses, FBI, TSA, and Los Angeles police are also all "paranoid racists" as well. Because as everyone knows, it's completely normal for a large group of guys to be huddled around the lavatories whispering to each other for the entire duration of a flight. Happens all the time.
btw, it seems pretty obvious she is going to be used to undermine the Administrations contention that we are in fact safer today than we were prior to 9/11.
Must have been bootleg copies of Michael Moore's trash Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling for Columbine?
Facts are nothing to liberal bias. They buy into their delusions wholeheartedly. How else could you explain New York voting for Kerry?
I guess the only thing to do is to have cameras in the john. It seems like a gross invasion of privacy but I'd rather have someone watch me tinkle than blow my family to smithereens.
Thanks. I've been out of pocket since the middle of last week and missed all the discussion.
Tom remember those British planes getting all the attention at Christmas? It was thought the bad guys were planning the same thing.
I understand how NBC and ABC are going to try to spin this against President Bush, but why in the hell are we letting 14 Syrians run amuck on an airplane while Grandma Whitey has to be stripsearched before they allow her to board?
I wish you hadn't said that. I've been very jittery all day, yet I can't put my finger on why. There is no reason for me to be anxious/nervous. Hopefully, I'll be able to blame it on hormones.
she's back
Can someone please post the entire article here?
Very good questions. I for one would like to know just what these characters did sfter landing in LA.
Very good questions. I for one would like to know just what these characters did after landing in LA.
The thing that bothers me the most is that the flight attendants didn't ask them to sit down during the descent second rush to the lavatory while the seatbelt sign was on.
I know I will darn sure watch it tonight. And bump, bttt.
Not again. This isn't a news story. It reads like a dime novel.
How many times has it been posted now? 30? I had 20 in the, "How many times is this gonna get posted pool."
Read it .....this is an UPDATE.
I see a couple of posts referring to an effort to "bash Bush", but if something happens like 9/11 again, due to the political correctness of Norm Mineta, I will become the biggest Bush basher ever. I'm planning on voting for Presdient Bush as of now, but this P.C. crap has got to stop and stop now. Mineta should have been fired long ago, and President Bush is the only one who can do it, as far as I know. The buck has to stop somewhere. The fact that this type of stuff is going on now, after 9/11, means that President Bush is culpable. The fact that nothing has happened so far seems to be just dumb luck, judging from the comments from people in the airline industry. I don't give a damn if its a donkey or an elephant, somebody has got to extract their heads from their rectums and get this solved.
Her flight was on Tues 6/29.
Almosaleh's flight/arrest was on Wed.7/7.
Ridge's warning on Thurs. 7/8.
She goes to Washington Post on Friday 7/9.
Her story published on Tues. 7/13.
Silence from Big Media until Mon. 7/19.
Nothing from Drudge. Nothing from Fox News. This kind of story is their meat and potation and they're silent.
Administration asked media to keep this quiet because of national security reasons and NBC and ABC held off until today.
Thank you for the ping. WWS must be getting some terrific traffic - I'm getting an error message when I attempt to open the third page of Ms. Jacobsen's article. Someone posted her first article in its entirety on the original thread. Hopefully, someone can access and post this one as well. Talk about a cliffhanger - I'm anxious to read it all.
Potatoes.
I had the same error as well. I clicked "print" the article. Two windows come up...the article in a smaller format, and the print options window. Move the print options window out of the way and read the article.
What did you think about the Saudi Arabian students who took flight lessons and were only wanted to learn how to fly the plane and not learn how to take off and land? A dime novel, too?
I could read the first 3 pages, then I got an error report.
This is just a continuation of the first article - void of important details. It has increased traffic to that website though.
Now why didn't I think of that? You're brilliant! Here it is:
Part II: Terror in the Skies, Again?
By Annie Jacobsen
Last Tuesday morning, WomensWallStreet.com (WWS) published my first-person account of a recent Northwest Airlines flight that I took from Detroit to Los Angeles called "Terror in the Skies, Again?" A heads up about this article went out in our Daily Cents email -- our subscriber newsletter which primarily features financial tips and information for women.
On Wednesday morning, the WWS page views were unusually high, something like 10 times the normal amount. Apparently our readers had been emailing the article to their friends, family and colleagues and everyone was reading it.
By Thursday morning, that number had again multiplied ten-fold. It felt like the shampoo commercial from my youth: they told two friends, then they told two friends, then they told two friends. We sat in the WWS offices reading through your emails, taking stock of what you had to say. As the afternoon went on, the number of people reading the article continued to increase and the telephone was ringing off the hook.
And then a powerful thing happened. The mainstream media started calling.
The following statement was made by Daniel Drezner, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, on his website danieldrezner.com:
"I received a mass email linking to this disturbing first-person account by Annie Jacobsen... I can say that the e-mail sent to me and other bloggers was cc-ed to movers and shakers in the mediaspere -- Bill Keller, David Ignatius, George Will, Anne Applebaum, and Nicholas D. Kristoff. So they're certainly aware of the story... I'd like to see real journalists dig deeper into this."
Dig they did. NBC was the first major news outlet to contact WomensWallStreet. The producer I spoke with on the telephone said the FBI had confirmed that 14 Syrians were on the flight, they confirmed the details about what happened upon landing in Los Angeles, and they said that the accounts from the flight attendants regarding what happened during the flight matched the accounts given by me and my husband to the FBI after we landed.
Then I spoke with a producer from ABC. She explained that she could not get Dave Adams, Head of Public Affairs of the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM), on the phone. So she asked me some of the questions that she had wanted to ask him: Where exactly did this band of 14 musicians play? What was the name of the band? Who booked the band and what kind of music did they play? Did anyone follow up and actually witness these 14 men performing at their desert casino gig? I had none of the answers, even though I had asked Adams these exact questions myself when we spoke last week. The ABC producer also asked me other questions which had crossed my mind after hanging up with Adams. Did I know anything about their return flight on JetBlue? Did the men go back to Syria? Did I believe FAM's story?
And I now have another important question. Is there a link between my experience on flight #327 and the arrest of Ali Mohamed Almosaleh by customs agents at the Minneapolis Airport on July 7 (approximately one week after my flight)? Almosaleh was traveling from Damascus, Syria, to Minneapolis on KLM/Northwest Airlines. According to CNN.com, "Agents found Almosaleh to be carrying what they described as a suicide note and DVDs containing anti-American material."
It was initially reported by CNN.com that the man "is not known to the intelligence community, and that his name was not on any terrorist watch list." The following day, on TwinCities.com, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that Almosaleh "had something with him indicating a connection with at least one known terrorist." So, did a more thorough check of the man reveal this critical new information? Remember, according to Adams, FAM checked the 14 Syrian men on my flight against the terrorist watch lists. They found no match, so they let them go. I wonder what might have happened if the 14 Syrians on my flight had been looked into more thoroughly?
Since publishing the first article, I have received dozens of emails from people in the airline industry, including flight attendants, captains and pilots, some of whom I have also spoken with on the telephone. As of Sunday morning, to my knowledge, WWS had received no emails from anyone in the airline industry suggesting that the incident described in my first article did not happen. Here is what some of them are saying, all of it on the record.
Jeanne M. Elliott, Security Coordinator for the Professional Flight Attendants Association (PFAA), which represents the flight attendants of Northwest Airlines, said, "By the uneducated eye, and to those who don't walk in our shoes, it may have been perceived that we were doing nothing, when indeed we were putting the safety and security of those passengers as our first priority."
In a letter sent to WWS, she also states, "...the needs of this nation's flight attendants to adequately perform aviation security functions have been delayed and/or ignored." (Click here to read Elliot's letter in its entirety.) Gary Boettcher, Member, Board of Directors, Allied Pilots Association, said, "Folks, I am a Captain with a major airline. I was very involved with the Arming Pilots effort. Your reprint of this airborne event is not a singular nor isolated experience. The terrorists are probing us all the time."
During a later phone conversation I had with Boettcher, he told me that based on his experience, it was his opinion that I was likely on a dry run. He said he's had many of these experiences and so have many of his fellow captains. They've been trying to speak out about this but so far their words have been falling on deaf ears.
According to Mark Bogosian, B-757/767 pilot for American Airlines, "The incident you wrote about, and incidents like it, occur more than you like to think. It is a 'dirty little secret' that all of us, as crew members, have known about for quite some time."
Rand K. Peck, captain for a major U.S. airline, sent the following email: "I just finished reading Annie Jacobsen's article, TERROR IN THE SKIES, AGAIN? I only wish that it had been written by a reporter from The Washington Post or The New York Times. My response would have been one of shock as to how insensitive of them to dare write such a piece. After all, citizens or not, don't these people have rights too?
But the piece was in The [Wall Street] Journal, a publication that I admire and read daily. I'm deeply bothered by the inconsistencies that I observe at TSA. I've observed matronly looking grandmothers, practically disrobed at security check points and five-year-old blonde boys turned inside out, while Middle Eastern males sail through undetained.
We have little to fear from grandmothers and little boys. But Middle Eastern males are protected, not by our Constitution, but from our current popular policy of political correctness and a desire to offend no one at any cost, regardless of how many airplanes and bodies litter the landscape. This is my personal opinion, formed by my experiences and observations."
This brings us to the heart of the matter -- political correctness. Political correctness has become a major road block for airline safety. From what I've now learned from the many emails and phone calls that I have had with airline industry personnel, it is political correctness that will eventually cause us to stand there wondering, "How did we let 9/11 happen again?"
During a follow-up phone conversation, one flight attendant told me that it is her airline's policy not to refer to people as "Middle Eastern men." In addition, many emails have come in calling me a racist for referring to 14 men with Syrian passports as Middle Eastern men. For the record, the Middle East is a geographical region called just that: The Middle East. If you refer to people who come from countries in this region (including Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq) as "Middle Easterners," you are being geographically correct. We call people Americans and Canadians and English and French. I call my relatives who live in Norway Norwegians. So really, what is the hang up?
The fact that I quoted Ann Coulter seems to have many people up in arms. I want to be clear -- there is no political agenda here. I quoted Ann Coulter for the information she had, not for who she is. Read the quote again and pretend Joe or Jane Doe wrote it. She states the facts. The facts she states are that 10 days after 9/11, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta sternly reminded airlines that it was illegal to discriminate against passengers based on their race, color, national or ethnic origin or religion.
Perhaps the title of Michael Smerconish's new book sums it up: "Flying Blind. How Political Correctness Continues to Compromise Airline Safety Post 9/11." On June 24, Smerconish testified before the U.S. Senate about the role political correctness plays in protecting airline security in a post-9/11 world. Click here to read his full testimony.
I keep thinking back to a photograph I saw in the Los Angeles Times called "Falling" by Pulitzer Prize winning AP photographer Richard Drew. It's a photograph of a man, his body is stretched out, one knee at a right angle, as if he's lying on a couch, watching television in the living room, relaxing and enjoying life. But he's not. It's a photograph of a man falling from one of the top floors of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. This man jumped to his death, most likely because it seemed a less painful way to die than being engulfed in flames.
This picture is haunting. For a long time I kept it in my office. I still think about this picture and I wonder about this man --- his daily life, what he did for work, what he did for play, what his thoughts were about the world. I think about this person. I think about the meaning of "dry run." And then I think about what it means to be politically correct. And I keep coming up blank.
The above article is based on the opinions of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of womenswallstreet.com
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