Thanks to Velveeta at The Threat Matrix.com for the ping and pointing to this incident.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549564,00.html
“TSA Defends Holding Student With Arabic Flash Cards at Philadelphia Airport”
Saturday, September 12, 2009
SNIPPET: “The Transportation Security Administration is defending its treatment of a California college student who was detained at the Philadelphia airport after Arabic flash cards were found in his backpack.
Nick George, a senior at Pomona College, told a Philadelphia Daily News columnist that the stereo speakers he was carrying in his bag on Aug. 29 led TSA workers to pull him out of the metal detector line and search him.
When they found 200 Arabic/English flash cards in his carry-on, they escorted him to another screening area and questioned him for about 45 minutes, he said.
Suspicions may have been raised because his passport had stamps from Jordan, where he’d studied abroad, and from his trips to Egypt and the Sudan, the News reported. It didn’t help that “terrorist” and “explosion” were among the words on his flash cards — which George says he was using to help him understand Al Jazeera TV.”
That's "an indicator sometimes that somebody may have gone through a radicalization," Liberati explained.
Probably true -- many lefties have "cleaned-up" externally in the last couple years, hoping to appear more acceptable.
Obama’s fault.
For what it’s worth, Adam Gadahn didn’t always look like a jihadi freak. Especially considering he’s half-Jewish.
It all sounds reasonable to me. Good for the TSA.
(Imagine how terrorists could take advantage of this security failure--send a few low-level know-nothings through the checkpoint with with Arabic-English dictionaries and large bottles of Gatorade to distract the screeners while the real fighters go through unimpeded.)
I think someone once said something derisive about people who give up liberty in exchange for the illusion of security. Unfortunately, there are always those eager to participate in security theater, and they force the rest of the audience to participate, too.
As much heat as TSA gets for shaking down granmas, in this case they had more than enough probable cause to detain this young man-—innocent or not. Good job TSA!
UPDATE:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/weep-not-for-nick-george.html
#
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/11/local/la-me-arabic12-2010feb12
“Arabic-language flashcards don’t fly with TSA”
A Pomona College student from Philadelphia was jailed after airport security workers found study cards, including the words ‘bomb’ and ‘terrorism.’ He’s suing.”
February 11, 2010|By Larry Gordon
SNIPPET: “George said his interest in Arab culture began when he saw “Lawrence of Arabia” as a child. “The more I studied it, the more I was fascinated it by it,” he said. He plans to take the State Department exam to become a foreign service officer.
Last year, George spent a semester in Jordan, where he studied Arabic, and then traveled to Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. He said his passport, with stamps from those countries, and a book in his possession that was critical of U.S. foreign policy, may also have raised suspicions at the airport.
Professors describe George as an excellent student in science and Arabic.”