Head Strong | See suspicious acts? Feel free to report them

Don't be deterred by political correctness or the fear of a lawsuit. Put safety and security first.

April 8, 2007

By Michael Smerconish

Suspicion - n. partial or unconfirmed belief that something is wrong.

I flew to California and back last weekend. Sitting at LAX waiting to board my return flight, I heard the usual announcement, advising me to be attentive to my luggage and to report any suspicious behavior.

Suspicious was never defined.

Nor do I think it needs to be. To me, suspicious would include anything reminiscent of 9/11, the day that 19 young Muslim men cut throats and crashed airplanes.

Were I to have seen a half-dozen Muslim men praying and chanting before boarding, then speaking angrily about the United States and George Bush, and making references to Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, I'd have thought it suspicious. And if I then saw those individuals request seat-belt extensions without being overweight, or conferring in the cabin before dispersing to seats near each of the plane's entry and exit points, I'd certainly have flagged a flight attendant. That's exactly what some passengers claim to have observed on Nov. 20, 2006, as they boarded a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix. They thought it suspicious. They reported it. And now those folks find themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit.

That led Congress to vote, 304-121, to add language to the Rail and Public Transportation Act to protect public-transportation passengers - including airline passengers - from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior. All 121 dissenting votes were from Democrats.

A memo circulated among Republicans before the vote specifically cited the Nov. 20 events in Minneapolis as evidence for the necessity of such an amendment.

It turns out that the six men who raised suspicion were returning from a conference of Islamic clerics held in Minneapolis. These imams were interrogated for several hours, missed their flight, and were then released. Their attorney denies the reports of their behavior. He says it's a case of "flying while Muslim."

Me? I think the lawsuit increases the risk of "flying while American." Why? It will decrease the odds that people will report suspicious behavior.

Terrorism comes in many forms, including preying on American fears that are grounded in the reality of who threatens us. Surely the imams knew they were scaring the passengers. And yet they persisted.

Just like the five praying Muslims in the Meadowlands in September 2005. When the Giants hosted the New Orleans Saints in a game that doubled as a Hurricane Katrina fund-raiser, with President George H.W. Bush in attendance, several Muslim men found it necessary to conduct their daily prayers in an area near food preparation and air-duct work.

I say that Muslim men doing that in a stadium filled with 80,000 Americans a close distance from Ground Zero is, at a minimum, a case of mind-blank.

That's a form of terrorism in itself.

Another example happened on June 29, 2004, when a California woman went public with what she saw on a Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Los Angeles.

She was traveling with her husband and young son. Also on board were 14 Middle Eastern men whom she said she believed to be between 20 and 50 years old. She said she saw the men making eye contact with one another, nodding in apparent agreement, and one man taking a McDonald's bag to the lavatory and then returning with it near empty while giving a "thumbs up" sign to a colleague. Several of the men began using the forward lavatory consecutively. And then they periodically congregated in the rear of the airplane in small groups. The behavior continued for the better part of a four-hour flight.

By her account, when the airplane was cleared for landing, seven of the men stood up in unison and walked to the front and back lavatories. One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending a few minutes inside. One man pulled a small red book from inside his shirt, read a few pages, then put the book back inside his shirt. Then he pulled the book out again, read again, and put it back.

Suspicious? Only someone angling for a lawsuit would argue otherwise.

Questioned by the FBI and air marshals after the plane landed, the men said they were members of a band heading to a gig in San Diego. They were not further detained.

But that is not the point. This week brought news that U.S. intelligence officials are tracking a new generation of al-Qaeda leaders: Egyptian militant Abu Jihad al-Masri, Qaeda emissary Atiyah Abd al-Rahman and Khalid Habib, a militia commander.

I say so long as the FBI's Most Wanted List continues to be dominated by surnames like Masri, Rahman and Habib, behavior like that observed in these three instances will continue to be suspicious, and Americans should feel free to report it as such.

---

Michael Smerconish's column also appears Thursdays in the Daily News. He can be heard from 5:30 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM (1210). Contact him via the Web at www.mastalk.com.