Thread: Illegal Immigrants remain a threat in our skies

Border security is only a part of Homeland Security. Managing Immigration is a problem that is simply not being addressed adequately, anywhere, not just the Mexican border.

Here is a great article by Annie Jacobsen of WWSJ concerning the threat of terrorist attacks by individuals who are here on a pretext, and have overstayed their visa's. Ms. Jacobsen has written a serious of great articles on the subject that are worth looking into for anyone interested in the big picture.


http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns ... px?aid=846



Annie Jacobsen Gets a Visit from the Feds
This is Part XIII of the ongoing series entitled "Terror in the Skies".
WWS Exclusive
By Annie Jacobsen
4/22/2005



The call came a little over a month ago, on my cellular phone -- which is not listed. It went like this:

"Hello Annie, this is [name withheld, and name withheld, and name withheld and name withheld]. We're from the Department of Homeland Security."

"Yes."

"We'd like to set up a time to talk with you."

"Okay, now is good."

"Actually, we'd prefer to come to your house. How is March 15?"

"Not so great. That's three days before I'm due to have a baby…"

They came anyway. To my house in Los Angeles. By plane from Chicago.

Look Who's Coming for Coffee
The four federal agents showed up exactly on time, in a rented green mini-van, carrying briefcases and wearing suits (it was 75 degrees). They came to discuss the events of Northwest flight 327, the now notorious Detroit-to-Los Angeles plane trip I took last June. My husband led them to our house through the garden and, from where I sat in my kitchen, I could hear their comments: nice garden, pretty plants, too bad palm trees don't grow in Chicago. So, I thought, federal agents are people too.

In truth, I was excited that I hadn't gone into labor before the meeting. I was, after all, meeting with the big boys (actually three men and one woman). In the nine months that I've been working on this series, my access to the government has been through mid-level bureaucrats and agency mouthpieces. So here I was, suddenly meeting with agents who have real access to the truth -- and at their request.

On the telephone, the agents explained to me that the Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General, has been investigating flight 327 and flying DHS agents around the country to talk to various parties -- the flight attendants, pilots, federal air marshals and the passengers. They had saved me for last.

Here's what I find fascinating: while one arm of the government (the Federal Air Marshal Service) has vehemently maintained all along that "nothing happened on flight 327," the other, more muscular arm (the Department of Homeland Security) has been conducting a rather large investigation about it. Based on my 4 ½ hour meeting with the agents, I can tell you that not only have they been investigating what did happen during the flight, but they've also been investigating who botched the subsequent investigation as well as how it got botched.

So what do you say to four federal agents at your kitchen table on a bright Tuesday morning? The first thing I clarified for the agents was that, prior to my experience on flight 327, I had never heard of a "probe" or a "dry run." For the record, I explained, I had never heard of the James Woods incident either. [In case you're not aware, the actor James Woods flew on an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles one month prior to 9/11. Alarmed by the behavior of a group of four Middle Eastern men, Woods summoned the pilot and told him that he was "concerned the men were going to hijack the plane." A report was filed with the FAA on Woods' behalf but, tragically, no one followed up with Woods or the men. A few days after 9/11, several federal agents showed up in Woods' kitchen. Woods can't talk about what was said -- he believes his testimony will be used in the trial of the supposed 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui-- but, in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, Woods revealed that his flight "was a rehearsal [for 9/11] with four men."]

Standing in my kitchen, one of the agents said, "What I can tell you is this: Mohammed Atta was one of the passengers on that flight with James Woods." (Apparently, this information has never been made public.) With that, the agent pulled out his chair, opened his notebook and started in with his questions for me (at which point the other three agents opened up their notepads almost simultaneously).

During my meeting with the agents, what was not said was often as revealing as what was said. Naturally, the agents "were not at liberty" to tell me anything about the 13 Syrian men aboard flight 327, but they asked a lot of questions regarding my "intuition" about the situation: Intuition told me something was not right. Intuition is why I began noting the men's actions from the get-go. And it was exactly these details in which the agents seemed most interested. One of the agents commented on the fact that I took a lot of hits in the press -- that I was called a racist and a bigot simply for sticking with my gut instinct. To me, the agents' story that Mohammed Atta had been on James Woods' flight was a wink and a nod to the fact that it's fine to trust your intuition. If you're wrong, you can always stand corrected.

The Devil Is in the Details
Each agent carried a thick document (30-40 pages) filled with questions. All four took copious notes. After about three hours, they excused themselves, saying they were going to pow-wow privately in the garden for a little while. When the agents returned, they continued with what seemed to be the same line of questioning.

They continued to ask my husband and me question after question but, in the course of the morning, here are some additional details I gathered -- things that I didn't otherwise know:

The Northwest Airlines flight attendants interviewed for the investigation would only speak to federal agents with lawyers from the airline present. (One agent remarked to me, "Northwest Airlines wishes flight 327 never happened.")
There were 27 airports between Detroit and Los Angeles where the pilot could have landed flight 327 yet didn't.
Because the men were from Syria -- which the State Department lists as a terrorist-sponsoring nation -- each man was interviewed individually by Customs and Border Patrol when he entered the country. Once in the United States, they traveled back and forth across the country several times using one-way tickets, for which they paid cash.
Two months prior to the flight, the FBI issueda warning that, based on credible information, terrorist organizations might try to hide their members behind P visas -- cultural or sports visas -- to gain entry into the United States.
The Syrians entered the United States on P-3 cultural visas, which they overstayed; the visas had expired by the time they boarded flight 327.
While being interviewed at Los Angeles Airport (LAX), none of the federal law enforcement agencies involved noticed that the men's visas were expired.
At LAX, the FBI interviewed only the two "leaders" of the group; 11 of the Syrians on flight 327 were never asked a single question by law enforcement.
The Syrians were allowed to leave even before the FBI interviewed me and my husband.
The Federal Air Marshal (FAM) supervisor at LAX took statements from my husband and me on the back of an envelope, later borrowing a notepad from another FAM.
Another passenger from flight 327 indicated to the agents that he did not see any musical instruments in the baggage claim area, including the oversized baggage area.
So What Really Happened on Flight 327?
The agents who sat with me all morning going over the events of flight 327 seemed sincerely committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on that flight. It seemed obvious that they believe something happened. Was it a probe? A dry run? A training exercise or an intelligence gathering mission? My sense is that the jury's still out on a hard and fast answer. But flight 327 was far from a situation involving 13 hapless Syrian musicians and a case of bad behavior.

Since 9/11 the Justice Department has been widely criticized for one particular tactic it uses in fighting the War on Terror: it detains suspicious persons for long periods of time and puts them under heavy questioning before they are ever even charged with a crime. Flight 327 seems to have had an extreme case of just the opposite. There were 13 men on a domestic flight acting in such a way that many passengers felt their lives might be in danger. And yet not one of the individuals responsible for that threatening behavior was detained. Only two were put under light questioning, let alone medium or heavy questioning. Two individuals from a terrorist-sponsoring nation were allowed to speak on behalf of the other 11 men. In this War on Terror, whatever happened to a middle ground? Can a democratic nation fight a War on Terror and at the same time bend over backward so as not to offend a few visitors' rights?

Perhaps these answers -- or at least some of them -- are forthcoming. According to the agents, once the investigation wraps up, the Office of the Inspector General will generate two reports on flight 327: one for DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff (Tom Ridge's replacement), which will be classified, and one for public consumption, which you and I will be able to read (this DHS report is different than the document Congress is working on). Whether the version we get will be a mere press-conference account or an actual glimpse into what went wrong during and after flight 327 is anyone's guess.

As they stood to leave, one of the agents shook my hand and said, "Thank you for writing those articles." The most senior agent asked if he could touch my very pregnant belly. Then he said, "As a fellow American I can say you did your duty." A third agent borrowed a line from my original article: "If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 13 terrorists learn to play instruments?"

Anyone who's read my Terror in the Skies Series knows that I have not been writing with an eye toward approval from any government agency. But I really appreciated the agents' tip of the hat.

Annie Jacobsen writes about business, finance and terrorism for a variety of national and international magazines and webzines. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and two sons.

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HonestConservative

Thank you for posting this........I've not read it completely as my emotions are getting the best of me.

This is not something that we speak of publically but this one time I will.
My cousin- one of our hero firefighters- lies in the ash of the World Trade Center. He left 3 very small children.....because of that James Wood's flight and the beaurocratic hypocracy

I've never heard about this and I'm about to explode. Thank you again -have to step back and regroup right now.

HonestConservative and 2ndamendsis,

I read "Terror in the Skies" last year when the first part came out and subsequent articles following.

I suggest every one who has ever taken a plane or plan to, read these articles.

I could not believe what I was reading or the willful neglect of Norman Meneta of only being allowed to check no more than two Middle Eastern men or it would be considered racial profiling.

A practice that is still going on today.

Also the part about the Syrian with the big shoe being exempt, don't they remember the "shoe bomber".

I have saved these articles and printed them for friends and relatives who fly frequently.

Thank you for part VIII, the last I looked it was only up to VII.

I am glad that someone in our government finally took it seriously.

I could not believe what I was reading or the willful neglect of Norman Meneta of only being allowed to check no more than two Middle Eastern men or it would be considered racial profiling.

A practice that is still going on today.

Elderly friends were returning recently from (wherelse) FLA. Yes this is secondary hearsay, but if you don't think you can believe it, then don't. As the 80 year old man was going through his secondary search, he noticed 2 black gentlemen, Walking around the security area and right into the waiting area, by-passing security.

My friend called the security peoples attention to it and they promptly retreived the 2 men to go through screening. Hopefully, they had to go through the secondary process as well, since they choose to ignore the rules.

Why is it ok to search intimate areas on 80 year old men and 8 yearold boys, and at the same time ok to just let others get by?

For more info, go to the library and get Flying Blind by Michael Smerconish. It has some good info. If you buy it, the money goes to victims of 9/11 families.

For more info, go to the library and get Flying Blind by Michael Smerconish. It has some good info. If you buy it, the money goes to victims of 9/11 families.

I heard him on the radio, I think he filled in for Rush.

He also testified before Congress about this subject.

I will have to get the book one of these days.

I just noticed at the WWS.com there are three more installments I have to read since I was last there.

It's now up to 13 articles.