Uh - wouldnât any math flash cards technically be âArabic flash cardsâ
Zero.
There, I said it.
TSA Agent tough train:
1-I canât understand what is written here.
2-I canât imagine any possibility of an unknown language used for anything other than terrorism.
3-Ergo, this written thing is terrorist.
4-Man carrying thing I cannot read terrorist.
5-Detain terrorist.
6-PROFIT
Next time get a legal team and a publicist, $25k is chump change. Everyone hates the TSA, easy jury award and verdict.
Do you know what mathematical concept Osama Bin Laden was aware of while planning his attacks on the United States? Thatâs right. Zero. How many American Freedoms does Osama Bin Laden want us to have??? THATâS RIGHT. ZERO. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.
Now do you understand why you are being detained?
I used to keep lots of notes in shorthand; itâs disheartening to think that I could be put through a lot of stress and probably financial burden just because some illiterate hero wannabe sees this as his moment to save the world.
This is the kinder, gentler Philadelphia police. In the old days they would have just firebombed the whole area and shot those escaping the flames.
Does anyone else remember the story of Neil Godfrey who, in October 2001 was detained because the book he was readingâHayduke Lives! by Edward Abbeyâlooked suspicious?
I can understand airport security being slightly edgy at the time, although this was still pretty ridiculous. It doesnât surprise me that several years later airport security was just as stupid, and probably still is today.
Hey it ainât bad for five hoursâ work. Iâm gettin me some flash cards!
I suppose itâs official that everyone who speaks or writes Arabic is âsuspiciousâ nowâŚ
âŚawards him $25,000 and ends the long-running legal battle.
Yeah, but they wrote âTerrorist!â on the checkâs memo line.
You are so right, as a Philadelphian myself, my first thought was,is thatâs all the Philadelphia police did? Did the TSA agent ever wonder why an Arab terrorist would need Arabic flash cards? During WW 2 would a Nazi saboteur be carrying German flash card? Of course this means they should be looking for those carrying English flash cards because that is a dead giveaway.
Thatâs funny, since no one at the airport or on the plane cared when I pulled out my copy of The Skies Belong to Us, it being much more relevant to airport security than Arabic flash cards.
Is the TSA aware of the number of obvious enemy agents, moles craftily embedded deep in our security apparatus, employed by the FBI, NSA, and other TLAs as âinterpretersâ and âlinguistsâ in order to âunderstand what the residents of foreignstan are plottingâ? Theyâd better start arresting those as soon as possible.
Clearly, America Will Not Be Safe until we are totally incapable of understanding any plots not hatched in idiomatic American English.
What language did the Unabomber speak? And what language are we speaking now? Do you see the problem?
Whatâs really funny is the bizarre chilling effect this had on people who were studying Arabic for security reasons. I knew a lot of people who were studying Arabic because they were in the military or planned to join the FBI, and all of them instantly stopped reading Arabic material on commercial planes for a bit, at least when they werenât in uniform.
I recall the TSA also arrested a man for having Arabic writing on his shirt. I wonder what happened with that.
Look, all they had to do was ask the guy who won the World Series. That always works.
It is unclear from the blog if he was actually arrested (as in charged with something) or just detained. Not that being detained isnât bad enough.
