Donald Sensing has a great series of posts on the subject. I think that's the best analysis so far.

1 2 3 4.

Dan:
This is ridiculous. I can't believe you take this type of crap seriously. It's DETROIT! There are thousands of people of middle eastern descent boarding flights there every day. Yes, they were questioned, and frankly, that's probably more than should have happened. Assuaging the bigoted nerves of screechy paranoids like this woman is not what airline security should be about.

For what its worth, it definitely is the case that screeners do some profiling. I'm an Indian American, and I was travelling from LAX to NYC a year or so ago. I had about 5-6 other people from the same company traveling with me. Another was Indian American like me (he was a permanent resident, I' a citizen). Of the group of 6, the two of us were selected for a random search and examined most carefully. I can understand why the y did it, but I find it most annoying and humiliating.

Annie Jacobsen is yesterday's news. Let's try to stay hip here: BERGLERGATE!

suggests at a minimum that something suspicious was going

So Dan, what was it that was going on? They were questioned and RELEASED. Appears like absolutely nothing happened, other than 14 arab men were on a plane at one time. I don't really know how you get more racist than that -- especially the way the right is blowing this up into a catastrophe.

Couldn't it be that the agents met the plane because the passengers were overly paranoid and someone on the crew radioed ahead to tell of "suspicious activity" as reported by Ms Jacobsen (et al?)? Why else would they show up on that end of the flight and not elsewhere unless they received some tip during the flight, and where would such a tip have come from but on the flight?

The trip plus their fee must have cost at least a few thousand. Was this a private party? If not, where is mythical casino in the desert? Has the group been identified?

I haven't been following this story down every cubbyhole, but unless someone can answer those questions what happened is quite suspicious. Perhaps this was a "publicity stunt" rather than a training mission or a failed attempt. It certainly seems to have worked and, in some cases, gotten some people worked up. Perhaps that was the real goal.

Dave:

Of course you're right. Most of Dan's post is complete pap. Jacobsen gets nervous ("oh...dark men talking to each other; eveeel"), mentions it to the flight attendent, and CYA takes care of the rest. Even if you are the non-wingnut flight attendent (who is also not inclined to brighten a boring journey by speculating about terrorists), and you don't think there's a problem, are you really going to expose yourself to the risk that you might be wrong (however small the risk)? If you are the FAM agent who gets notification, are you really going to expose yourself to the risk that the attendent and you might be wrong? Why do it? Any real pain associated with interrogating the Syrians will be borne by the Syrians. Who cares? They're only Syrians.

Moreover, most people aren't objecting to her being nervous (at this point, we pretty much expect Republicans to be frightened children and racists). Most object to the breathless tone, and the implied point, of her piece. Seriously - you're walking down the street, and a bunch of black teenagers seem to be following you. You get nervous, and mention it to a cop, who in turn questions the kids. It turns out they're going to their school which is just down the block. Which story do you tell about this:

(1) Life is scary. There are black teenagers everywhere. Some seemed to be following me today. I was terrified. It turned out they were going to school, but some day I could be followed by black teenagers who want to hurt me.

or

(2) I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I got really scared when I thought those black teenagers were following me. I got the cop and he questioned them. I feel terrible. Look, I could have been right - but I feel terrible because I wasn't and I don't know if I would have reacted the same if they weren't black.

Pick the first, you're a Republican. Pick the second, you're a Democrat. Hell, it's OK to be nervous and even to act upon it. But when you're wrong, don't try to avoid thinking about you're motivations by saying, "It was all OK...THIS TIME!"

Tim,

I'm not a Republican. But you are welcome to go play in traffic after that display of hidebound bigotry. Tarring every one of your political opponents in the Republican party as a racist. What a disgrace you are to this civilization!

Jor: Appears like absolutely nothing happened, other than 14 arab men were on a plane at one time.

Well, there is the accusation in Jacobsen's story that they got up after the captain ordered everybody to sit down and fasten seat belts for landing. This could count as a violation of federal regulations to follow crew orders and would certainly be sufficient reason to hold and question these people after landing.

But it seems weird that this behavior would have been tolerated on the flight in the first place, and it kind of makes me doubt at least this particular detail of her account.

The only explanation would be that the flight attendants were really scared to confront the Syrians. But if there really were several air marshals on board, it seems hard to believe that nobody did anything. At the very least they could have made an announcement over the intercom that everybody had to return to their seats (maybe they did, and Jacobsen didn't mention it).

I've read conflicting reports on whether the "no-congregating in the aisles" rule was in effect for domestic flights before Jacobsen's flight or not. There is her claim that two days after her flight a new directive was issued by the TSA. Someone somewhere has stated that she was wrong about this, that she confused a non-American date "7/1" to mean July 1st, when it really meant January 7th. I don't know that, but I do know that the American Airlines crew of a flight I was on on June 24th was strictly enforcing this rule - just as another crew on a flight I was on on July 3rd was not paying any attention to it. So if there was any change in directives on July 1st, it seems to have been to relax enforcement of the rule, not the other way round.

Maybe the Syrians' English wasn't so great, and Syrian in-flight regulations are different than the FAA's.

I'll break my personal moratorium on thinking about this week-old Annie Jacobsen nonsense to set a few things straight.

1. Jor: You missed Dan's point. He was trying to point out that leftish columnists have ignored certain important facts in dismissing Ms. Jacobsen's account of what happened. Dan and you and I have no idea of what was really going on up there, but it was all just suspicious enough to get the feds interested. By ignoring that, Patrick Smith is ignoring some plausible factual support for Ms. Jacobsen's claim that things didn't seem quite right on that flight. Which, of course, doesn't prove that th Syrians were bloodthirsty terrorists. Indeed, the only things proven here are Patrick Smith's prejudices and Jor's failure to read too closely.

2. Tim: I'm a Republican and you just called me a racist. Since you've elevated the discourse, here's my rejoinder: Fuck youself.

The screening process is not random.

I travel with a Canadian passport, although I currently reside in the US. I have flown 4 times in the past six months, and I have been flagged for extra screening each and every one of these four times. Once I was travelling with a female friend, also a US resident with a Canadian passport, and she was flagged for extra screening.

I know enough about probability to know that the chances of this happening randomly are almost nil. What I have been told by friends who work for the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs is that because so many Canadian passport blanks have been stolen from foreign embassies lately, the US is very leery of any Canadian passprt issued in the past 5 years. And I'm as northern-European WASP as they come - there's no chance of me ever being mistaken for Greek or Sicilian, let alone Arab.

So there you go, boys and girls. The claim of "randomness" is merely a piece of puffery to assuage the tender sensibilites of the egalitarian-American psyche.

Wacko: the Arabs in question were detained by the FBI, questioned and released. Obviously, their story checked out.

If there had been even the slightest grounds to charge them with violation of some aviation rule or another, I am sure they would have been charged. Zero tolerance, and all that.

It's fairly obvious to anybody slightly familiar with Islam that they were praying. It's a ritual that far too few North Americans are familiar with. BTW, I've been on flights where several Arabs congregated in the rear galley to pray as soon as the seatbelt light is turned off, but the people in question notified the cabin crew in advance, so nobody got scared when they all got up in unison. The stewardesses were happy to oblige on the condition that the Arabs get finished up before the crew had to start the cabin service.

So apparently we have a reading comprehension problem, because Smith mentions the investigation later on in the column.

when I dared express doubt, and noted that investigators from the Transportation Security Administration and the FBI had confirmed the men's identities and motives, I was mocked, ridiculed and eventually hung up on.

As other people mentioned, the most likely reason for the investigation, from mwhat we now know, appears to be the rampant paranoia on the plane. As smith notes the fact that the investigation turned up NOTHING -- CONFIRMS the fact that this is being all blown out of proprotion. All the evidence we have suggests nothing was going on -- an investigation that turns up nothing -- is not proof that something suspicious was going on as Dan suggests.

Apparently wingnuts have problems reasoning with evidence. It seems like the lessons from the Iraq WMD fiasco were completey forogtten in the course of a few days. It's good to know "personal beliefs" can over-ride all the facts you have.

I should mention here that on many longer flights, especially to Europe, people often get up in the middle even if the fasten seat belt sign is on. Its not uncommon, and flight attendants don't enforce it unless there really is turbulence or the pilot insists.

However, when landing or taking off, the crew does enforce theser regulations.

In 2002 and 2003, we visited our daughter in Florida. Each time at least one way, I was pulled out of line for a full search - as was my 2, and then 3 year old son.

I too believe it is good to do random checks. But I think that the Jacobsen's story is in no way biased. I would have been freaked if ANY shade-of-color people had performed the same stuff they did.

Also, don't forget James Woods who flew with some of the 9/11 hijackers merely a month before 9/11 - doing their little dry-run. Was he hysterical? Over-reacting? Racist?

Who's to say that what these guys did on the Jacobsens' flight won't have reprecussions next month - or next week?

Jor, it's funny how both you and Tim-boy think that that word "wingnut" is a helpful term. Try not to let your joint study sessions turn into identical work product.

As for the substance of your last post: Again, point missed. Here's what Smith says: "Turns out the Syrians are part of a musical ensemble hired to play at a hotel. The men talk to one another. They glance around. They pee. That's it? That's it." As Dan points, out, that's not it. Here, in fact, it is: "...They pee. At least four passengers are alarmed by the activity. An attendant tells one of them that federal air marshals are present. And, when they get off the plane, the Syrians are met by what appear to be federal agents." THAT'S IT.

And, as you helpfully point out, Jor, Smith KNEW that that was it. After all, he reports later that "investigators from the Transportation Security Administration and the FBI had confirmed the men's identities and motives." In other words, there was a TSA and FBI investigation. Do you think Smith bothered to wonder whether the FBI investgated because of the "rampant paranoia" of witnesses or because there was some reasonable basis for suspicion? We'll never know, Jor, because Smith dismisses the latter because he really, really believes the former. Sorry, but that's not reasoning: it's proselytizing. Which, incidentally, is something you and Tim seem to know a lot about.

Oh, and why do you and others seem to so blithely conclude that the "investigation turned up NOTHING." Says who? We know that the Syrians weren't arrested (which makes sense seeing as how they didn't seem to do anything illegal). We know that they were in fact musicians who were flying to a gig (which means nothing because musicians going to gigs can case planes en route to figure out how to blow up the joint). But do you know that these musicians aren't being watched now? Do you know that their backgrounds haven't been traced? Do you even know if the investigation has BEGUN? You don't, Jor. In fact, you know NOTHING about the investigation. You're just making it up as you go along.

Personally, I think these Syrians are just a bunch of musicians flying to a gig who like to eat and pray in the head. But, unlike you or Annie or Smith, I won't say that that's a fact. I don't know. But I hope the feds are trying to know.

Wacko: the Arabs in question were detained by the FBI, questioned and released. Obviously, their story checked out.

I'm sure what you meant was: "according to the FBI's public statement, their story - which may have been a cover story - checked out."

That's where we stand now. As stated by someone else above, they might be under surveillance.

And, whether they're under surveillance or not, the band thing might have just been a cover story or only part of the reason they came here.

If they Syrians wanted to sow fear in our populace for one reason or another, this'd be one way to do it. Empty suitcases left in NY subways or something recently would be another way to spread fear.

'Personally, I think these Syrians are just a bunch of musicians flying to a gig who like to eat and pray in the head. But, unlike you or Annie or Smith, I won't say that that's a fact. I don't know.'

Fair enough. But Anne seems to claim that it was for real. Remember her message was "Terror in the skies", her message seems to imply that she had just survived a fate worse than death. For someone who didn't know, she does an awful lot of exclaiming and hypothesizing.

erg, I agree, but I think there are two reasons why Annie's story still has legs: first, despite what some have said, it was pretty compelling reading -- indeed, I confess it scared me; and (2) it reminded a lot of people (including me) of the fear we felt almost three years ago. And it reminded us that we've become a bit less afraid and maybe less diligent. For reminding us that we still have a lot to be worried about, I think Annie's done us all a service.

I do think, though, that Annie's pressing it a bit too far now. From what I've seen, there's no reason to tar and feather these Syrians, and certainly no reason to accuse the feds of dropping the ball in this case. Annie needs to relax a little and give up the ghost of her 15 minutes.

The Idiotarians, like zombies, walk among us -
"It's fairly obvious to anybody slightly familiar with Islam that they were praying," writes Barry P., oblivious to the fact that they were not praying.

Idiotrarians vote Democrat, work at universities and read Drezner. Partisan excuse making and rediculous rationalizations prevail in the face of realities demanding hard-nosed "Don't Mess With Teas" common sense - somethinig notoriously lacking among girly-man Democrats.

They are naive to evil and don't yet grasp that Jihadists can't be reasoned with. Perhaps Graham Allison's "Nuclear Terrorism" (August release) will wake some up before we lose a city!

Amazing ignorance is revealed in this comment thread.

--Orson

Yep, Annie Jacobsen noticed an unusually large number of Arab men, behaving in an odd way, and it scared her. What racism! The nerve of her, to think that oddly behaving Syrian men may have sinister motives! It's not like it's ever happened before. How dare she make judgements based on incomplete information, backed only by her own knowledge, experience, and common sense! She'd better redeem herself by casting equal suspicion on some Omaha football players, or perhaps a group of Polish nuns. I mean, each is equally likely to be suicidal terrorists, no matter what your common sense tells you! Otherwise, you're just racist! Racist, I say -- pining for a whiter America! Wingnut!

And Patrick Smith's dismissal of her concerns is, as Dan says, disingenuous. I found this particular bit interesting:

Then another man from the group stood up and took something from his carry-on in the overhead bin. It was about a foot long and was rolled in cloth. He headed toward the back of the cabin with the object. Five minutes later, several more of the Middle Eastern men began using the forward lavatory consecutively. In the back, several of the men stood up and used the back lavatory consecutively as well.

What was this, some kind of synchronized urination cycle? Actually, no. It really sounds like it may have been prayer. But it may not have been, and without knowing this custom, the actions would look -- should look -- extremely suspicious when carried out by a group of Arab men on an airplane. That's not paranoia, and it's not racism. It's good sense, not subordinated to progressive dogma. Something we could have used back in September of 2001. (And speaking of common sense, the Syrians could have exercised some as well. It's not like they don't get the news in Damascus.)

A couple years back, I wrote the following about what would have happened had the FBI caught the 9/11 hijackers just before the planes took off, boxcutters in hand:

. . . And then what? Not much, I imagine. Oh, CAIR and its ilk would be having a fit, of course, complaining to everyone including George W. about profiling and unfair targeting of Arab-Americans. After all, just what did the FBI find? Some box cutters? Those aren't illegal on airplanes. Flight manuals? These men were all attending accredited flight schools, trying to achieve the American dream, etc. etc. So they had one-way tickets: is that a crime? Funeral shrouds? Are you honestly arresting these men for bringing white sheets onto a plane? Korans? So because these men are pious Muslims, you dare to assume . . .! And really, folks, come on: flying a Boeing into a skyscraper? You've been watching too many movies! Who would come up with something this complicated, when a truck bomb in a garage would do just as well?

It's nice to be proven right through the efforts of SomeCallMeTim et al, though somewhat depressing to realize that one 9/11 was not an adequate lesson. I wasn't on the flight with Jacobsen, but she sounds like a reasonable and vigilant person who saw something suspicious, and reported it accordingly. It turned out to be benign, which is great, but she should be praised, not castigated, for paying attention.

Yo Orson. I agree that Jor and Tim and Barry P. and some others here have some splainin' to do, but you should take that idiotarian-bombs-away-girly-man act back to LGF. It's kind of fun over there -- but it's sticks out like a Little Green Thumb here. Oh, and why would anyone want to mess with tea?

Matthew:

"I'm not a Republican. But you are welcome to go play in traffic after that display of hidebound bigotry. Tarring every one of your political opponents in the Republican party as a racist. What a disgrace you are to this civilization!"

Great. Fabulous. I've read enough of you posts to believe you are a fanatic alarmist and not terribly bright, so I don't much care what you say to me. Fire away!

D.J.:

" I'm a Republican and you just called me a racist. Since you've elevated the discourse, here's my rejoinder: Fuck youself."

I'd like to respond in kind, or as I did above, but you seem a reasonable sort and you have a point. Words like "racist" probably shouldn't be thrown in a paranthetical comment; if you're going to use the word, you should provide some context. So I'll give it a shot.

First, I shouldn't have equated Republicans with racists. Clearly, not all (or even most) are racists.

Second, the problem with a word like "racist" is that it's generally treated as binary - you are or you aren't. But I think it's something more like a continuum. When we talk about racism, we're really talking about the effects of it, and I think that Republicans are often more willing to brave the risks of those effects for other goals than Democrats. (Sometimes you can make a stronger claim than that - see, e.g. Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, and Nixon's southern strategy - but that's a much more specific situation).

As Daniel said, Jacobsen's tale is a sort of Rorshach test. You look at it, and you see the continued risk to America in the skies. I look at it (and particularly the tone of it), and I see someone making judgments on the basis of race (or, I guess more accurately, regional origin) and being unwilling to rethink how finely-tuned her judgment is in that area. So those are the interests that we're balancing against each other. I'd argue that Dems see the tale roughly as I do, and Republicans roughly as you do. I think I have the better argument, largely because I think people should be less worried about dying in these ways - the risks that you'll die from terrorism are really small, and she did what she could to shorten those risks, so enjoy the rest of the trip. But I acknowledge that concern about such risks is non-crazy, as I think I did in my post above.

What troubles me most about the right of center's reaction to the story is that few seem to even give much thought to what could credibly be called the undercurrent of racism in it. Jacobsen acknowledges that it is at least possible to read that in the story - hence the Some Of My Best Friends Are Jewish comment about travelling to India. Here you have a story of woman who was scared (perhaps credibly), but whose fears, it appears, were baseless. But the story she comes out of it with is, "What about next time?" I don't see how that's any different a response than #1 in my hypothetical about the black teenagers. And I think the fear in #1 could be reasonable (e.g., Jesse Jackson, IIRC, said the same thing), but the unwillingness to question (or even really raise) the issue of judgments on the basis of race strikes me as close-minded about the effects of such judgments. And that close-mindedness worries me, because it allows for a lot of bad things when you don't treat those interests seriously.

I find it hard to believe that you don't sense the same undercurrent of racism that I'm talking about. I suspect you do, but (a) you're willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, and (b) think that protecting the skies is important enough to give a "who cares" answer to that suspicion. I, OTOH, (a) am not willing to give her the benefit of the doubt (I think the evidence is pretty strong against her, actually), and (b)look at our history and suspect that the pernicious effects of racism are much more likely to do harm to our country than any group of extra-national terrorists.

I don't know how you encapsulate that. You're right that "racist" is too charged and says too much. But pretending that race didn't play a large part in that story or not addressing that part says too little.

Finally, because you're a Republican, you should go fuck yourself. But not because you're a racist. :)

'I wasn't on the flight with Jacobsen, but she sounds like a reasonable and vigilant person who saw something suspicious, and reported it accordingly. It turned out to be benign, which is great, but she should be praised, not castigated, for paying attention. '

I am castigating her, not for paying attention, but for taking the story further after the Feds investigated and apparently decided there was nothing to be concerned about. Her breathless prose (Terror in the Skies) as well as some of her interpretations (for instance, claiming the Syrians mouthed no to each other) indicate to me not necessarily the answer of a normal alert person who was upset by out of the ordinary behavior, but someone who's convinced she narrowly avoided death, and the government is too stupid to figure it out.

Well Tim I for one am suitably impressed with your scintillating intellect. A virtuoso without a doubt. Let me guess: 1100 SAT combined score (580 verbal, 520 math), 115 Stanford-Binet? That about right? As Sully would say, I'm gobsmacked!

The mystery is solved.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/taylor200407211921.asp

Just a couple of points:

For a Syrian to get a visa to visit the US these days, s/he has to wait at least six weeks while the name is being vetted by State, FBI, DHS and CIA. That includes people in Syria working for those agencies.

Second, since Syria is a designated sponsor of terrorism, all Syrians get picked for SSSS (Special Secondary Security Screening) on almost every US airline, on each leg of their travel. I do not know for a fact that they were pulled aside before boarding this flight, but would be surprised to hear that they were not.

And just as a general comment, the slaps, slurs and sneers don't really add to the tone of conversation. In fact, they make it really, really easy to just dismiss the folks tossing them about.

So we know mostly what happened.

Here's whats interesting though. It was not the band members who complained claiming that the evil American police had cracked down on them. So the theory that there are legions of lawyers rushing to sue if anything un-PC happens meets another roadblock.

Instead we have Jacobsen describing her ordeal. I can understand her concern, calling the police etc. However, her rather breathless description seems clearly exaggerated in many respects (although she had legit grounds for concern).

Where to start, Tim? Well, first (since I'm a reasonable guy), I'd point out that it's not-so-clever to denigrate other peoples' intelligence. First, it opens the denigrator up to easy, cheap put-downs: "If you're so smart, Tim, how come you never learned how to spell 'parenthetical'." Second, it's a cop-out, a technique used by lazy people who don't want to take the time to explain why their opponents are wrong. I think you should knock that shit off.

As for your anti-racism screed, I guess I'd say this: I think your definition of "racism" simply proves too much. By looking solely at EFFECTS rather than INTENT, you sweep whole categories of unremarkable -- even benign -- activity into your "racism" bucket. If a rule of general applicability disproportionately hurts a discrete racial group, is it really rational to label supporters of that rule as "racist?" For example, because Social Security pays out far less to African Americans than to whites (because blacks die earlier on average), are people who want to keep the retirement age at 62 racists? If you say yes, I think you're high.

In short, your effects methodology is just another lazy argument technique and, at best, can only identify DISCRIMINATION and not, as you'd like, "racism." You need to use clearer definitions if you want to be persuasive.

I'd add that the alleged "undercurrent of racism" you've detected is quite another thing: an undercurrent of realism. As pointed out above, we are not talking here about a gang of Minnesota Lutherans or a Pop Warner football team. This was a large group of Arab men who were apparently behaving in an unusual way. You would have Annie perform a Herculean task: observe every detail of this group EXCEPT their ethnicity. Sorry, but it's one thing to single people out just because of their race; it's quite another to ask anybody to take race completely off the table -- especially where, as here, it's one relevant factor among many. Context matters, and race is part of the context.

I don't think we can force ourselves to give up categorical proxies such as race. To be sure, in most cases race is not relevant. If you're a white guy and walk to the other side of the street when you see a black dude walking at you, I'd agree that the white guy should consider going to a re-education camp. But if that white dude is in a sketchy neighborhood and a bunch of NWA-looking motherfuckers make a beeline at him, is Whitey so wrong to think for a minute about his wife and kids? If you say yes, I think you're high.

Dan, Syrians aren't Pakistanis, although I'm sure they are all terrorists to certain people.Moreover, the number of public vague warnings Ridge gives out every few weeks has led to a crying-wolf syndrome. Internal warnings must be far more numerous (to cover asses), and have long since passed the crying-wolf stage -- so it seems unlikely that the 29th was any more riskier than any other day (w/its own vague warning).

Matthew:

“Let me guess: 1100 SAT combined score (580 verbal, 520 math), 115 Stanford-Binet?”

Worse than that, worse than that. I got a 380. Couldn’t even spell my name right.

D.J.:

“I'd point out that it's not-so-clever to denigrate other peoples' intelligence. First, it opens the denigrator up to easy, cheap put-downs: "If you're so smart, Tim, how come you never learned how to spell 'parenthetical'.”

Yeah, that always happens to me – I fire one off, and get it hit right back at me. We can only hope that time and practice will improve the quality of my insults.

Racism: Intent & Effect

I think you’re misconstruing what I wrote, or I wrote it badly. You seem to be talking about circumstances where a rule that is applied is race-neutral on its face, but effects different races differently. I’ll quibble with that in a moment, but it isn’t what I was talking about. By “effects” I meant only to deal with the possibility of a rule that was race-differentiating on its face, but had no real negative effects – that is, if there was no harm, why would we care? The specific instance I was thinking about was racial profiling by police making traffic stops. It might be a good policy in terms of its relative efficiency in capturing drug dealers (or whatever its purpose), but it’s irritating and humiliating to the innocent who are stopped. (NB: I’m not African-American; I’m basing the harm on comments I’ve heard and read). Because African-Americans are a minority, the majority of people have no reason to fear any effect of racial profiling (being not black), and it is easy for them to minimize the harm of the policy. It seems like such a little thing: so you stopped, so what? I suspect it’s easy to be generous with other people’s understanding.

Furthermore, I would disagree that we should, or even do, look only at intent rather than effect. Or rather, we constantly infer intent from effect. Intent is hard to demonstrate; if you’re halfway competent, you can always gin up a reasonable excuse. So you end up looking at disparate treatment of large groups of people, and trying to determine what caused the disparate treatment. As an example, IIRC, there was a study done that seemed to indicate that employment applicants with “black sounding” names were significantly less likely to get a call from employers than other applicants with the exact same qualifications. The authors inferred that racism was a factor. (I didn’t read the paper, and may be misstating it; I’m using it only an example).

I think your Social Security example is a good one, but I’d suggest that there are examples that go the other way as well. Our early lack of an AIDS policy might be one. (Not racism, just an example). Specifically, government didn’t say, “Let’s not worry about AIDS, because we hate gay people.” The policy of no real policy was not anti-homosexual on its face. But people argued, I think convincingly, that if it were cherished grandmothers dying off, the policy would have been more robust more quickly.

Finally, I’d disagree with your easy distinction between “discrimination” and “racism.” I’m not actually sure what you’re saying, to be honest. If you are saying we can find rules that are racially discriminatory on their face, but they aren’t “racist,” well that might be true, but we are rightly suspicious of those laws and require special evidence that they aren’t racist. If you’re saying that discrimination in effect does not show discrimination in intent, I’d agree, but I wasn’t referring to that. And, as I argued above, sometimes neutral policies either hide or don’t properly account for the interests of minority groups because they’re minority groups. Note, I’m not saying that the majority actively hates the minority, but just that it is willing to minimize the risk of harm of certain policies because that risk to it is zero.

Undercurrent of Realism

If you look at the post, I’ve said that I wasn’t troubled particularly by her actions in notifying the flight attendants (and thus using race as a proxy). I’m not particularly worried about you crossing the street when you see “NWA-looking motherfuckers.” I would, however, be worried if you didn’t cross the street, nothing happened, and you went home and wrote a blog piece that said “Those NWA black guys didn’t want to harm me, but we’ve got to be vigilant about NWA black guys. And we’re not vigilant enough right now.” It takes what might be a reasonable and unfortunate assumption and makes it a point of pride without any evidence from the event. I don’t get that. I mean, we all know that some Muslims attacked us on 9/11, and some still seek to hurt us. I’m not sure what new data points Jacobsen’s offering – Middle Easterners fly, they travel in groups, flight attendants and marshals don’t immediately secure Middle Easterners in chains once they’ve been alerted by suspicious passengers? Where’s the meat for the breathless tale of terror?

At some point we have to stop hurling about accusations of racism and recognize that sometimes people are just responding on the basis of a sound understanding of probability.

Some people are racists. Others are just playing the percentages.

"Political correctness" keeps coming up in this story as the bogeyman that supposedly makes us vulnerable to terrorism. Even the NRO story that basically cleared it all up suggest towards the end that it was "a guilty PC silence" that caused all the discomfort (possibly for both sides!).

In other words: If only people were allowed to openly act our their partly irrational (and racist) and partly rational fears, everything would be so much better.

And who is blamed for the fact that this is (supposedly) somehow not allowed? Lawyers, liberals, the ACLU. But no evidence is presented that these evil people actually have any say in any of this. In fact, no evidence is presented for many of the claims of "non-PC" stuff being prohibited. (Is it really true that only two Syrians could be screened? I doubt it. Are airlines really worried about lawsuits because of profiling? How so, when the security checks are done by the TSA? Did the flight crew really not tell the Syrians to go sit down before landing? We don't know for sure. Was there any rule preventing them from telling the Syrians to go sit down before landing, or would anybody have considered such a request politically incorrect? Definitely not!)

And people seem to forget quickly that this country is already run by a Republican President, a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a mostly Republican-appointed Supreme Court.

"Your" guys are in charge already! It won't get any "better" than this! So stop blaming people who aren't in charge and start blaming those that are. Or start realizing that your vague "ideas" are considered unworkable even by those who might give patriotic speeches suggesting otherwise.

E. Nough: Your little speculation on what might have happened if the 9/11 terrorists had been caught thanks to profiling is ridiculous. Here is what I think would have happened:

White House press release on 9/11/01: Thanks to the alertness of the President, who interrupted his vacation last month after the intelligence services warned him that most-wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden is determined to strike the US and explicitly mentioned that he might consider hijacking planes, several such plots appear to have been stopped today in their tracks.

That's what the story would have been.

Dear Orson:

I'm impressed with your absolute knowledge of what happened on that flight. Given your definitive conviction that the moslems in question were definitely not praying, one would almost think that you were on that flight.

BTW, thnaks for the insults. They're illumunating. And I don't mess with my tea, unless you consider two sugars to be a mess.

D.J.: what is it you'd like me to explain?

While its clear that Jacobsen had some legitimate grounds for fear, her rather hysterical behavior now, claiming that the Feds let these people go, that it was indeed a dry run etc. seem pretty bogus. I fully expect to see her forthcoming book

"Terror in the Skies: How One woman's alertness prevented a second 9/11" by Anne Jacobsen

Jacket Blurbs

Anne Coulter "Masterful. Clearly indicates why liberals have commited treason against America"

Little Green Footballs "Clearly indicates why every Arab who travels on a US airline should be handcuffed first"

McDonalds "Even terrorists love our burgers"

It's not racism, it's sexism. "Do real men go to the bathroom together?"

The warning for flights from Detroit to LAX probably set all of the flight personnel on edge. This was picked up by the passengers as Jacobsen's story shows. The multiple air marshalls seems to show that the security was under control but it put the flight crew's nerves on edge.

If there was no warning, the same events by the band would probably have been interpreted differently. Synchronized urination is pretty common. When I see someone I know going to the bathroom on a flight, I often go to the bathroom myself a little later.

gw writes:

In other words: If only people were allowed to openly act our their partly irrational (and racist) and partly rational fears, everything would be so much better.

There is nothing "partly irrational" or "racist" about realizing that Middle Eastern men are likelier to be terrorists than the Swedish bikini team. Just because ethnic background is taken into account, doesn't mean that someone is "racist," unless we're going to define the term so broadly as to make it meaningless.

And people seem to forget quickly that this country is already run by a Republican President, a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a mostly Republican-appointed Supreme Court.

I don't know who these forgetful "people" are, but I'm well-aware of who runs the Federal government. And the fact that it's mostly Republican run doesn't cancel out the inertia, not to mention the reflexive intolerance of the very idea that perhaps we should take appearance and background into account when selecting people for closer scrutiny. The knee-jerk yelps of "racism!" from gw, SCMTim, and various others would seem to illustrate this point quite nicely.

E. Nough: Your little speculation on what might have happened if the 9/11 terrorists had been caught thanks to profiling is ridiculous.

Oh? Care to explain? Nineteen Middle Eastern men would be arrested and walked off airplanes without any evidence stronger than some box cutters in their possession, and the fact that they took flight lessons -- on the basis of some vague, unsubstantiated reports that didn't mention any names. Tell me how CAIR and the ACLU and, well, you wouldn't be apopleptic with outrage over this obvious act of profiling and "racist" leaps to conclusions. I'm serious: they didn't even act all weird or congregate near the bathrooms. How would you justify even hassling them, much less forcing them off the planes? I repeat: all you have is 19 men, legally in the country on student visas, with valid ID and tickets, and armed with nothing more than permissible box cutters. Please explain.

This hypothetical White House press release by gw was just too funny to ignore:

White House press release on 9/11/01: Thanks to the alertness of the President, who interrupted his vacation last month after the intelligence services warned him that most-wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden is determined to strike the US and explicitly mentioned that he might consider hijacking planes, several such plots appear to have been stopped today in their tracks.

Jeez, where to start?

First, what does "the alertness of the President" have to do with it, much less his vacation plans? Is the President supposed to personally foil every terrorist plot against the U.S.? Someone's been watching Air Force One a few times too many. I know it's fun to play the pin-the-blame-on-Bush game, but you gotta have some skill at it, otherwise, it's just silly.

And second, did anyone really need warnings from intelligence services that Osama bin Laden wanted to strike at the U.S.? Or that his terrorists might hijack planes? Wouldn't this have been obvious to anyone who'd even heard of Osama bin Laden? I mean, which part was new -- the part where the guy who sponsored the Cole and embassy bombings and called for jihad against America, might actually plan a terror attack against America? Or the part where terrorists hijack planes, as they have been doing since the Palestinians introduced this method in the 1960s? My response to any report like that would have been, "Thank you, Captain Obvious!" Seriously, though: what should Bush have done with this "intelligence"?

And, of course, had this ever-so-insightful intelligence actually led us to Atta & Co., the level-headed progressives would be screaming their heads off about the utter lack of evidence, and how Bush is just doing this to boost his sagging poll ratings. I don't even want to think about the fallout from any invasion of Afghanistan to actually capture bin Laden...

'Nineteen Middle Eastern men would be arrested and walked off airplanes without any evidence stronger than some box cutters in their possession, and the fact that they took flight lessons -- on the basis of some vague, unsubstantiated reports that didn't mention any names. Tell me how CAIR and the ACLU and, well, you wouldn't be apopleptic with outrage over this obvious act of profiling and "racist" leaps to conclusions'

Several of them were on terrorist watch lists. It was not a matter of picking up or screening random people. The visas of some were illegal. A search warrant would have given us plenty of Al Qaeda material in their homes. Even their visas were temporary (and at least a couple of cases were overstayed visas).

'And, of course, had this ever-so-insightful intelligence actually led us to Atta & Co., the level-headed progressives would be screaming their heads off about the utter lack of evidence, and how Bush is just doing this to boost his sagging poll ratings'

Yes, we saw completely how they screamed their heads off about the millenium plot (not at all). I know that conservatives like to imagine that liberals are just waiting to jump on any attempt to defend the country, but that just ain't so.

Several of them were on terrorist watch lists. It was not a matter of picking up or screening random people. The visas of some were illegal. A search warrant would have given us plenty of Al Qaeda material in their homes. Even their visas were temporary (and at least a couple of cases were overstayed visas).

No one said anything about "random people." But all you've got is some minor immigration violations (technicalities!) and a secret list maintained by the Bush State Department. Even if a search warrant based solely on this was granted, somehow I doubt CAIR and the ACLU would be very impressed.

Yes, we saw completely how they screamed their heads off about the millenium plot (not at all).

The millenium plot involved someone being searched at the border, and caught with explosives. It's not even close.

I know that conservatives like to imagine that liberals are just waiting to jump on any attempt to defend the country, but that just ain't so.

I have no idea what conservatives like to imagine, but I'm not insinuating that liberals enjoy obstructing national defense. My point was that in and of themselves, everything the 9/11 hijackers did had an innocuous explanation, right up until they took over the planes. So not only was there virtually nothing the Bush Administration could have done to stop it, but the CAIRs, ACLUs, and Michael Moores of this world would have gone apeshit even if the FBI had caught the entire group on their respective tarmacs. That's to say nothing of the follow-up, when their close friends, distant friends, and passing acquaintances would have to be questioned, and virtually all of them Arab Muslims.

The shrieks of "Profiling!" and "Racism!" (not to mention the occasional "Zionist plot!") would be deafening.

As I understand it, we have random screening and we have screening for cause. The random screening should be random (and, BTW, I'd like the government to do it and not the airlines: that's the division of labor). Having a foreign passport (I would think esp Syrian) means you're likely to get extra screening for cause. For that matter, the Bushies seem to have a politically-motivated list that also guarantees extra screening.

The check-only-two-Arabs story are part of refocusing the attack against the true enemy: liberals, and not their collaborators, Islamic Terrorists. Our system must be broken, and it must be the fault of liberals. (That it wouldn't be the fault of the Republican President and his Republican Congress alone shows how misdirected the hysteria is.)

I wonder if we'll be hearing from Orson again?

"If this had been the real thing, and the musicians had instead been terrorists, nothing was stopping them from taking control of the plane or assembling a bomb in the restroom."

Nothing but the air marshalls. And the locked cockpit door. And the preflight search. Which, I'm guessing, includes a search for bomb parts.

If the above quote is representative of Taylor's "fact-filled report", I'm not impressed. But I can't really say for certain, because the NRO link is dead-- please update!

I'd like to hear from the other passengers. I assume they're out there somewhere. Unless the only people flying were Annie, her husband, two marshalls and a planeload of Syrians? Oh, there's also the crew- but the flight attendant's "testimony" is filtered through someone else's recollection. Isn't that convenient.

E. Nough: I repeat: all you have is 19 men, legally in the country on student visas, with valid ID and tickets, and armed with nothing more than permissible box cutters. Please explain.

Fisk already explained part of it - it's not true, for starters, that they were all legally in the country. But you dismissed this and sniped at the ACLU again who would have surely sided with the terrorists. You don't actually know this, of course, but even if: why would you care? The ACLU is not running this country. It's a very liberal organization concerned with preserving civil rights - which is well counter-balanced by a bunch of very conservative organizations hell-bent on destroying our civil rights.

Another interesting point is your repeated propagation of the myth that we know that the terrorists used mainly box cutters to hijack the planes. We don't know this - all we have is one audio report from a passenger on one of the flights that the passengers in the rear cabin were held in check with "knives and cardboard cutters".

On the other flights we have reports of chemical sprays (maze) and "stabbing" with "knives", also a bomb threat and maybe even a gun shot.

But somehow this all got reduced to "plastic [!] knives and box cutters" when it was reported by the White House and then duly parrotted back by the press.

Now, the "chemical spray" may well have been hairspray, the stabbing might have been carried out with box cutters, the bomb threat may have been fake, the gun shot may not have been a gun shot and the knives may have been plastic knives. But we don't know that.

We also saw yesterday in reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times that two or three of the hijackers were actually subjected to additional security checks. So all this bullshit about political correctness preventing us from stopping them is just that: bullshit.

hey! just a question.. i have been researching this flight #327 stuff.. i was told they were trying to cut a hole through the wall into the cockpit but i can't find anything to back this up. do you know anything about this?

AIR MARSHALS SAY PASSENGER OVERREACTED
By ERIC LEONARD
KFI NEWS

LOS ANGELES | July 22, 2004 – Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, “overreacted,” to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS.

The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service.

Jacobsen, a self-described freelance writer, has published two stories about her experience at womenswallstreet.com, a business advice web site designed for women.

“The lady was overreacting,” said the source. “A flight attendant was told to tell the passenger to calm down; that there were air marshals on the plane.”

The middle eastern men were identified by federal agents as a group of touring musicians travelling to a concert date at a casino, said Air Marshals spokesman Dave Adams.

Jacobsen wrote she became alarmed when the men made frequent trips to the lavatory, repeatedly opened and closed the overhead luggage compartments, and appeared to be signaling each other.

“Initially it was brought to [the air marshals] attention by a passenger,” Adams said, adding the agents had been watching the men and chose to stay undercover.

Jacobsen and her husband had a number of conversations with the flight attendants and gestured towards the men several times, the source said.

“In concert with the flight crew, the decision was made to keep [the men] under surveillance since no terrorist or criminal acts were being perpetrated aboard the aircraft; they didn’t interfere with the flight crew,” Adams said.

The air marshals did, however, check the bathrooms after the middle-eastern men had spent time inside, Adams said.

FBI agents met the plane when it landed in Los Angeles and the men were questioned, and Los Angeles field office spokeswoman Cathy Viray said it’s significant the alarm on the flight came from a passenger.

“We have to take all calls seriously, but the passenger was worried, not the flight crew or the federal air marshals,” she said. “The complaint did not stem from the flight crew.”

Several people were questioned, she said, but no one was detained.

Jacobsen’s husband Kevin told KFI NEWS he approached a man he thought was an air marshal after the flight had landed.

“You made me nervous,” Kevin said the air marshal told him.

“I was freaking out,” Kevin replied.

“We don’t freak out in situations like this,” the air marshal responded.

Federal agents later verified the musicians’ story.

“We followed up with the casino,” Adams said. A supervisor verified they were playing a concert. A second federal law enforcement source said the concert itself was monitored by an agent.

“We also went to the hotel, determined they had checked into the hotel,” Adams said. Each of the men were checked through a series of databases and watch-lists with negative results, he said.

The source said the air marshals on the flight were partially concerned Jacobsen’s actions could have been an effort by terrorists or attackers to create a disturbance on the plane to force the agents to identify themselves.

Air marshals’ only tactical advantage on a flight is their anonymity, the source said, and Jacobsen could have put the entire flight in danger.

“They have to be very cognizant of their surroundings,” spokesman Adams confirmed, “to make sure it isn’t a ruse to try and pull them out of their cover.”

KFI reporter Jessica Rosenthal contributed to this report.

Copyright 2004 KFI NEWS. All rights reserved.