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By Brooks A. Mick, M.D.
July 11, 2006 From Chron.com: "McCauley and Ready would not comment about the June 26 incident, but a confidential TSA report obtained by the Houston Chronicle details a dispute between screeners and a police officer on duty at the airport. The report states that a man with a Middle Eastern name and a ticket for a Delta Airlines flight to Atlanta shook his head when screeners asked if he had a laptop computer in his baggage, but an X-ray machine operator detected a laptop. A search of the man's baggage revealed a clock with a 9-volt battery taped to it and a copy of the Quran, the report said. A screener examined the man's shoes and determined that the "entire soles of both shoes were gutted out." No explosive material was detected, the report states. A police officer was summoned and questioned the man, examined his identification, shoes and the clock, then cleared him for travel, according to the report. A TSA screener disagreed with the officer, saying "the shoes had been tampered with and there were all the components of (a bomb) except the explosive itself," the report says. The officer retorted, "I thought y'all were trained in this stuff," TSA officials reported. The report says the TSA screener notified Delta Airlines and talked again with the officer, who said he had been unable to check the passenger's criminal background because of computer problems." I wonder what that was all about? Now why would anyone hollow out the soles of his shoes? Why would he lie about having a computer in his luggage? Why would he possess a nine-volt battery taped to a clock? Was he going to run the wires to his toe so he got a shock to help him wake up i the morning? Did he just need more room in his shoes for big feet and couldn't afford a new pair? Did he just happen to forget about that laptop in his baggage? Maybe his shoes just felt too heavy and so he hollowed them out to make himself feel light on his feet. You don't suppose, do you, that the Middle Eastern man could have been conducting a practice run to see if his bomb-smuggling methods would escape the scrutiny of the airport screeners, do you? I wonder if they noted his name so they could watch for him on future flights. Perhaps the hollowed shoes were meant to contain explosives next trip. Or perhaps they are merely misdirection and the explosives are to be carried in a different fashion. Perhaps the bomb-battery combination was just a mockup of a timing device and their detection means that a different sort of timing device must be used next time. Hmmm...laptop computers have a clock built in, don't they? What amazes me is that they actually checked out a Middle Eastern man. Wouldn't want to be thought to be profiling, would they? ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: Physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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