When I first read about the diverted plane earlier today and read the list of “terrorist” items a passenger had: a screwdriver, matches, Vaseline and a note referencing al-Qaeda, I let out a laugh. Maybe if we weren’t all acting out a sick version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, I would’ve been worried, but I just wasn’t. Can you blame me? And now, a whole new story is hitting the presses. Via AP:
The federal official for Boston’s Logan International Airport said there was no indication of terrorism and denied reports that the passenger aboard United Flight 923 had a screw driver and a note referring to al-Qaida.
Gov. Mitt Romney said the 59-year-old woman was from Vermont and became so claustrophobic and upset that she needed to be restrained. The FBI in Boston said the woman, a U.S. citizen, was detained for allegedly interfering with a flight crew and was being questioned.
And to be clear, those reports were made by Boston Logan International Airport spokesperson Phil Orlandella, not some anonymous source of Faux News.
Two F-15s were scrambled to escort the plane, originally headed from London to Washington, to Boston. Those are the kinds of F-15s that can be ordered to shoot down passenger aircraft famously referenced during the aftermath of 9/11. They could’ve been ordered, by an itchy trigger finger Prez or Veep to shoot this plane down over a case of claustrophobia, an anxiety disorder a large segment of the worldwide population experiences.
From the more recent AP story:
“I don’t know what she had on board with her, but we have been told she did not have a screw driver, she did not have any liquids such as Vaseline, and any notebook she may have had, it did not contain an al-Qaida reference,” [George] Naccara [security director for the Transportation Security Administration for Massachusetts’ airports] said. He said he had no information about matches.
Now how in the hell does a story like that get started? I’d say fear. We live in a society now that runs on fear. Fear fuels the economy. Fear fuels the war. Fear fuels the GOP’s goals for election cycles. And now the Dems are using fear as a tactic in the latest DSCC ad campaign as noted in this Man Eegee diary.
This administration has done absolutely nothing to improve the situations at airports since 9/11. If anything, they’ve clogged things up even more. Added more red tape to an already messy and imperfect process. No fly lists people can’t see nor get off of once on. Improper search techniques providing little to no privacy in compromising situations. New expensive equipment x-ray machines which do not detect explosives when shoes are passed through them, but shoes are still required to be taken off and run through them.
Air America Radio host Randi Rhodes was talking about the process of removing one’s shoes on her show yesterday. She was remarking on how the shoe search reveals nothing and is merely a way for people to be placed in perpetual fear. Passengers are asked to take off their shoes and are subsequently lead to think about why the hell they have to take off their shoes. They invariably think of the one “shoe bomber” idiot and go “Oh yeah, terrorism” and move along, in a constant state of fear.
How do we break the cycle? How do we stop living in perpetual fear? When will we understand when a person is claustrophobic, stuck on an airplane without the amenities of one’s iPod, laptop, book, bottle of Gatorade, hand sanitizer, earphones that haven’t been in someone else’s waxy ears, what-have-you, and not trying to bring down a plane with a screwdriver, matches, Vaseline and a note referencing al-Qaeda which were non-existant in the first place!
Aaaarg!!!