Student arrested for having arabic language flash card

[Irving]

I thought all the military people liked it. That's why I even checked it out in the first place.

[BuffCyclist]

So, having visa's in his passport which are required to travel, having flash cards and a book critical of US foreign policy are exactly the things I'd expect a student studying US foreign policy to have.

There's no way to become more knowledgeable about a subject than to address issues from both sides, including the negative side.

Should they have addressed why he had all that stuff? Sure.

Did they have to treat him like a terrorist and hold him for so long? Not necessarily.

Did they have to apologize after letting him go? Not required, but if I were doing the interrogating only to find out it's some poor college student scared out of his whits, I'd definitely apologize at the end.

edit: And The Hurt Locker is in the mail to me right now from Netflix, I get it today and am going to watch it tonight.

[SA Friday]

I thought all the military people liked it. That's why I even checked it out in the first place.

When you're there and pulling missions outside the wire a couple times a week, your "Oh Shit" file in your brain gets moved to the front of the filing cabinet. It takes a long time to refile that info back a little and relax. To this day, I sometimes see shit on the side of the road as I'm driving by and catch myself thinking about secondary identifiers, initiator markers, anyone by the road with a cell phone in their ear... Shit like that. It's not as bad as it was, but it's still there. It's how the high level of tension/stress at the time can rewire you so strong it's hard to get rid of. I really don't want a reminder of that level of tension.

[Irving]

Ahhh, I see. That makes sense. Then I agree that you might want to pass. Some pretty intense scenes in there. Well, intense for a doughy civilian like me.

[cowboykjohnson]

When you're there and pulling missions outside the wire a couple times a week, your "Oh Shit" file in your brain gets moved to the front of the filing cabinet. It takes a long time to refile that info back a little and relax. To this day, I sometimes see shit on the side of the road as I'm driving by and catch myself thinking about secondary identifiers, initiator markers, anyone by the road with a cell phone in their ear... Shit like that. It's not as bad as it was, but it's still there. It's how the high level of tension/stress at the time can rewire you so strong it's hard to get rid of. I really don't want a reminder of that level of tension.

My buddy in the Marines is like this to. He says they same things when were driving around, and he gets a little stressed when he notices something suspicious and sees some one on a cell phone.

[sniper7]

pretty much common sense to not carry anything or say anything that involves terrorism or bomb etc on the plane. It is called common sense, and IMO the TSA has the right to question the guy, not necessarily arrest him though. he does need questioning and interrogation.

sometime you just never know with people. who would have thought a high class guy would try to blow up a northwest A330. and who would have guessed a psychologist in the army would kill service members at Ft. Hood.

I mean if the pilots of your plane came on the PA and were announcing there is nothing to worry about, they have only crashed once, you might want off the plane right?

[theGinsue]

He also had high interest country visas in his passport and a book critical of US foreign policy. I can't blame them to taking a harder look at him after showing up to a TSA checkpoint. I can blame them for cuff and stuffing him for 4 hours... It doesn't take that long to determine if what they have is a college student studying foreign policy or a potential.

It will be interesting to see if we hear anything about this again in the news and where the lawsuit goes.

Side note: the arabic word for explosives is abwa.

pretty much common sense to not carry anything or say anything that involves terrorism or bomb etc on the plane. It is called common sense, and IMO the TSA has the right to question the guy, not necessarily arrest him though. he does need questioning and interrogation.

sometime you just never know with people. who would have thought a high class guy would try to blow up a northwest A330. and who would have guessed a psychologist in the army would kill service members at Ft. Hood.

I mean if the pilots of your plane came on the PA and were announcing there is nothing to worry about, they have only crashed once, you might want off the plane right?

I was thinking these exact things as I was reading through all of the posts on this thread. If this person had just had one of the red flag items I might say that they really over-reacted. Two red flag items is questionable. THREE red flag items is just asking for attention. Either this guy is just plain clueless or he was trying to get the atetention he ended up getting.

[Irving]

So is he not supposed to fly then?

[RobertB]

It's really more of an Iraqi thing as I understand it. It's like "come on, lets go".

Edited to add: "come on, let's go" as in go faster, or move your ass. Depends on the context.
Some times they would kinda mumble it under their breath as they were getting ready to head out some where too.

It's not just Iraqi dialect, but used across the Arab speaking world (and somewhat beyond). Like you said though, "yalla" is simply "let's go" or "come on" but repeated it's more like "hurry TFU".

[sniper7]

So is he not supposed to fly then?

in all reality there probably wouldn't be anything wrong with him flying, but he drew way too much attention to himself.

it would be like driving next to a cop drinking a bottle of root beer in a brown paper bag waving at him and giving him a cheers! You might just get pulled over!

I blame the guy for being a dumbass and drawing the attention to himself, which is probably want he wanted so he could have the chance to sue or get free flights from the airline etc. etc. people like that are out there always looking for a handout, to get their name in the paper or start a lawsuit.

just think about how many people go to a restaurant, say the food was shitty hoping they would get the food for free. My buddy used to work at TGI fridays as a bartender and said it happened all the time.