Friday
1 Jun 2007
The New York Times on Flight 327
By Annie Jacobsen in category Dry Runs and Probes, U.S. Homeland Security
Who says you can't appear in The New York Times and on FOX News in the same week? Finally, both left and right agree on what I've been saying about Flight 327 all along. From The New York Times (subscription required):
The New York Times
It’s Not Paranoia If They’re Really Out to Get You
May 30, 2007
In June 2004, Annie Jacobson and her family were flying from Detroit to Los Angeles when she observed suspicious behavior on the part of several Muslim-looking passengers and warned the crew. The article she wrote about it for WomensWallStreet.com caused a minor sensation, with conservatives saying it proved that the government was falling down on the job of protecting air travelers, and liberals telling her to take a “chill pill.”
(Disclosure: in what seems another lifetime, Jacobson was a college acquaintance.)
Now the Department of Homeland Security has released its report on the incident (you can find it on Jacobson’s site, here) and, in the opinion of Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters, it “confirms that Annie Jacobsen accurately recounted suspicious activities on a Northwest flight from Detroit to Los Angeles in the summer of 2004, and that a number of Syrians attempted a dry run for a terror attack. Eight of the 12 had already been flagged for criminal or suspicious behavior, and the apparent leader was involved in a similar incident later as well.”
— Tobin Harshaw
For more details, you can read the 51-page declassified DHS report (USG, 2007) or read my book on the subject, "Terror in The Skies, Why 9/11 Could Happen Again" (Spence Publishing, 2005).