After London arrests, false alarms ring loudly in US.
By Tom Regan | August 17, 2006
In the week since British police conducted a major counterterrorism operation against an alleged plot to blow up airline flights between Britain and the US, a series of false alarms has shown how tense people have become about the threat of a terrorist attack in America. While all of the events were originally described, or considered, possible terrorist activities, none of them has been shown to have any connection with terrorism.
The Washington Post reports that Seattle authorities evacuated dozens of workers and set up a half-mile perimeter around part of the city's port, after two sniffer dogs seemed to indicate that a container from Pakistan might contain explosives.
Customs agents used a "gamma-ray" device at Terminal 18, south of downtown, to peer through the containers' steel walls, and detected items inside that did not match the containers' manifest, agency spokesman Mike Milne said.
The containers were then subjected to the dogs' attention, which raised concerns about explosives. A bomb squad that searched the containers found nothing dangerous. Officials said the containers were supposed to contain oily rags, which are often shipped internationally for recycling or for use in packaging. Authorities continued to examine the cargo Wednesday afternoon.
Also on Wednesday, a woman's odd behavior on a transtlantic flight from London to Dulles airport in Washington D.C. caused the pilot to make an emergency landing in Boston, accompanied by US Air Force jets. The woman was arrested, the passengers interrogated and their luggage searched. The Boston Globe reports that early media accounts on cable news channels, based on information from law enforcement officials, said the woman had a note mentioning Al Qaeda. This turned out to be false. There are also conflicting reports from transportation officials and the FBI whether the woman, Catherine Mayo of Vermont, was carrying hand lotion, a Phillips-head screwdriver, lighters and matches. Some of those items are banned from flights.
About an hour into the flight, passengers said in interviews, Mayo began nervously pacing up and down the aisle while wearing an oversized sweatshirt and muttering to herself. At different times, she told passengers that she suffered from claustrophobia and that she was an undercover reporter testing flight security ...
Then, Mayo began screaming at flight attendants who were trying to calm her. Two male passengers stepped in, subdued her, and restrained her with handcuffs provided by a flight crew member. The two passengers, a corrections officer and a federal air marshal in training, took the woman to the back of the plane and sat beside her until the plane landed, authorities said. She continued mumbling to herself but seemed calm by the time the plane touched down at Logan, passengers said. "It was scary, especially after the terrorist thing last week," said passenger Katie Bartko of Manassas, Va.
Mayo's former husband said she has "emotional issues," and that she had been on her way home from visiting Pakistan when the incident occurred. Authorities say Mayo will probably be charged with interfering with a flight crew.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reports the local prosecutor in Caro, Mich. reluctantly dropped terrorism charges against three Palestinian-Americans from Texas. Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark E. Reene had filed the charges against the men after they had bought dozens of cell phones at a Wal-Mart in Caro last Friday.
When the Texans were originally arrested, Mr. Reene said they had been targeting the Mackinac Bridge because they had pictures of it on their digital camera. On Monday, the FBI and state officials said the men had no relation to any terrorist group or terrorist activity, and that the photos on the camera came from "apparently wide-eyed tourists rather than would-be terrorists."
Instead, Maruan Muhareb, 18, Adham Othman, 21, and Louai Othman, 23, all of Mesquite, Texas, now face federal charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit fraud by trafficking in counterfeit goods. They were arraigned on the new charges Wednesday in US District Court in Bay City, following a brief hearing in Caro at which a judge dismissed the state charges. The conspiracy charge is punishable by up to five years in prison. Money laundering carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Magistrate Judge Charles Binder ordered the men held at least until a detention hearing Friday. Nabih Ayad, an attorney for the accused trio, called the new charges "outrageous."
"This is a clear indication of racial profiling: picking someone up and holding them for days and trying to find something to charge them with. It's supposed to be the other way around," he said. Ayad accused state and federal officials of "scratching each other's backs" by shifting jurisdictions.
But The Christian Science Monitor reports that cellphones clearly have become a tool for anyone wanting to avoid detection by the government.
In that Associated Press story, Reene said he was "deeply troubled" by the FBI's statements on Monday, which contradicted the charges he had filed. But the Los Angeles Times reports that supporters of the men claim the arrests in Ohio and Michigan raise questions "about the role of state and local authorities when it comes to prosecuting terrorists, a function that has been the exclusive province of the federal government since the Sept. 11 attacks." Supporters of the men charged say they were only arrested because of their ethnicity.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune editorial board this week, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez acknowledged the difficulty in balancing civil rights with national security.
"You hear some members of Congress say we shouldn't be searching everyone at the airport the same. If someone's an 80-year-old little woman, she shouldn't be searched the same way a 20-something-year-old Arab-looking man is searched. Well, you know, that's something that concerns the Arab community," Gonzales said.
"And I think we have an obligation to protect our country, no question about it, but to do it in the right way," he added, noting that "having a dialogue and reaching out to the Muslim community is very, very important."
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