FBI will have anyone you call a terrorist detained
A man in Sweden didn't like the way his son-in-law was acting, so he sent a note to the FBI accusing the guy of being an Al Qaeda operative just before he took a trip to the USA. When he landed, the DHS held him in a cell for 11 hours, then deported him. Can't be too safe, dontcha know.
The wife didn't want him to travel since she was sick and wanted him to help care for their children, regional daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet said without disclosing the couple's names.Link (Thanks, Wellington!)When the husband refused to stay home, his father-in-law wrote an email to the FBI saying the son-in-law had links to al-Qaeda in Sweden and that he was travelling to the US to meet his contacts.
He provided information on the flight number and date of arrival in the US.
The son-in-law was arrested upon landing in Florida. He was placed in handcuffs, interrogated and placed in a cell for 11 hours before being put on a flight back to Europe, the paper said.
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The article says the idiotic father-in-law is being charged with libel - the fact that there are serious consequences for making this sort of baseless accusation should, you might have hoped, have stopped him from doing it in the first place.
Apparently he "said he did not think the US authorities would stupid enough to believe him". He's obviously not flown to America in the last six years - I got put in a small room and shouted at for half an hour two years ago merely for being non-Caucasian and in charge of a poster tube. ("People might think you have a weapon in that." What I actually had was a poster.)
I think the father-in-law did the right thing. Just what was so important that he left his family, while sick, to go to FLA?
I agree with Corey:
"Can't be too safe, dontcha know."
Okay, it seems to me that is the FBI is given a tip they should follow up...but why was the guy deported? If there were ultimately no links to Al Queida, shouldn't he be free to go about his business, possibly with a tail?
D-
>Just what was so important that he left his family, while sick, to go to FLA?
Er...the Haunted Mansion?
Don't piss me off or I'll inform on you.
Dear FBI -
I have it on good authority that Vice President Dick Cheney is an Al Qaeda operative..........
What an awesome holiday prank! I'm going to start drafting letters today! I'll be passing out criminal records for merry crhistmas this year!
Ah, the Rein of Terror--the gift that never stops giving.
Well, in some ways it has stopped giving. When they called off the Communism scare people were relieved, but the threat was much more believeable because there was a Soviet empire and they really did have nasty weapons.
The terror mongers would be loathe to call off the terrorism scare, but without any terrorism it is going to be hard to sustain. So, c'mmon Yousef, Iqbal, Muhammad et. al--The USA needs you! Do your patriotic duty!
So what's the FBI shop-a-terrorist email address?
I think the best strategy is to report people to the authorities at every available opportunity. Report everyone you know, or don't know. Swamp the bastards with useless information. Then who knows what will happen - perhaps they might have to come up with some new method of detecting terrorists. Perhaps a system using that new fangled 'evidence' stuff I've heard so much about.
This immediately made me think of Mann's "Mephisto". Everything old is new again.
Quarreling family members have been doing this crap for years with the Department of Children and Family Services-- trust me, I'd rather deal with Homeland Security any day.
"The 40-year-old son-in-law and his wife were in the process of divorcing when the husband had to travel to the United States for business."
Going through a nasty divorce? The war on terror makes separation easier than ever. Just have family or friends inform on your once significant other!
Bonus: No need to pay alimony when they're squared away safely at Gitmo.
Holy crap! I've traveled with a poster tube, too. I'm a middle-aged caucasian woman, though. I also discovered after the last time I flew that I had forgotten and left one of those metal nail files in my purse. TSA didn't even bat an eye. It seems like there's no consistency, or sanity, involved in this system.
Kobe, that is a SUPERB idea. I am just worried about getting my circle of friends/families/acquaintances into real trouble. Otherwise I would do it...
Donopolis @3: They deported him because they could find no evidence that he isn't a terrorist. Somebody should inform these guys about the fallacy of trying to prove a negative.
I wonder if this will work on an US citizen trying to get back into the country?
Libel? I don't think that's right. Doesn't libel refer to public statements in print? I should think that making a false statement to the police would cover this, and would be easier to prosecute, too.
That's not funny, the kid could have gotten tortured!! He could also have gotten detained indefinitely, Maher Arar style.
This is playing with fire, I hope the father realizes this.
Harlanh - that was my thought too, but then I'm not at all familiar with Swedish law. Apparently it's 'aggravated libel', an offence which I don't think exists here in the UK.
There are two men calling themselves the President and the Vice-President...they are terrorists!
Please have them detained, rendered and waterboarded for the security of all Americans and Liberty herself!
This is how all police states work, you get the people to inform on each other. It's like pouring battery acid on society but it does give power to the authorities.
Flooding DHS with fake reports would probably not work. They would just use that as an opportunity to expand their power. "Halp! we're flooded with terrorists! We need more unconstitutional power and more brutish thugs to enforce them!"
Monkfishy:
"I'm a middle-aged caucasian woman... TSA didn't even bat an eye. It seems like there's no consistency"
Well, the father-in-law didn't do it anonymously, so the FBI agents could at least assume there's some truth to it, coming from someone clearly risking his real identity's credibility (and legal liability). It wasn't the FBI, but the father-in-law who was stupid sending that e-mail. And a guy's also a bit insincere after the fact, I might say -- if he didn't think FBI will be "stupid enough" to act on his lies, then why did he bother sending them in e-mail in the first place? No, I think the old bastard really wished FBI to trouble his son-in-law.
OTOH, FBI definitely made a mistake deporting the poor guy. They should've let him in the country and thoroughly apologized after the situation cleared up. It's this sort of stuff that makes you think twice before going to US. I could understand and live with (not that I'd enjoy it) being pulled aside for few hours for a security check, but not being let in the country *after* it became evident you've been innocently framed? Hell, no.
Yeah... those blond haired, blue-eyed, Nordic terrorists are the worst.
Is it just me, or is being from the middle east the new MacCarthyism?
This is a nice detail from the original Swedish article that was left out of the American account:
"He was examined upon arrival before being taken in handcuffs to a cell covered in blood and feces."
Note, he was also a member of a Vespa club and likes to grow a "police mustache" before coming to the US.
Welcome to America!
Sure...sure...laugh and make fun of the FBI, TSA, Homeland Security...BUT...there really IS a terrorist hiding under each bed in America just waiting for us to go to sleep.
Be vwewy, vwewy caewful...huhuhuh...we're hunting wabbits!
Unfortunately, regardless of what the Swedish courts do the the father-in-law, the DHS will never permit his son-in-law to travel to (or across) the U.S. again.
I hope he wasn't relying on doing business in the U.S. on a regular basis. If so, his father-in-law just destroyed his livelihood.
What is truly odd to me is that every comment I read at several sites seems to absolutely believe that this story is true.
Basically, the bloggers and the commenters all seem to being doing exactly what the FBI supposedly did. Get some info. It fits with mindset. Act accordingly.
First, all the stories that I see are merely reporting what another newspaper (which I certainly can't translate) supposedly said. This is bit of a red flag.
The traveler was arrested? What charge? I can believe someone is detained, but arrested?
Email was received and acted upon quickly. Hmmm. That certainly matches my interaction with the US government.
I understand the Europe has pretty strict confidentiality laws, but there is not one single name mentioned in any of these articles.
Further, these are some pretty explicit quotes from a man who supposedly denied any involvement and now seemingly been charged with crime.
I'm sorry, but until there is a tad more information about this story, I'm going to assume that it is hoax.
Now if after the son-in-law arrived and he went to the library and checked out certain books...
Tonye,
In this case, it seems the same story is being reported by other (Swedish) sources, with additional details from the Swedish police and courts being added to the original Sydsvenska Dagbladet report.
But... your point is taken. If Fox News can make stuff up, so can other media puppets. And they don't have to be neocons to lie, especially if they believe it's for a good cause.
Holy crap! I've traveled with a poster tube, too. I'm a middle-aged caucasian woman, though. I also discovered after the last time I flew that I had forgotten and left one of those metal nail files in my purse. TSA didn't even bat an eye. It seems like there's no consistency, or sanity, involved in this system.
Heh. I flew from NYC to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Miami, and the same way back, with pepper spray in my purse. (I had forgotten it was there.) Not a peep from the TSA.
But I was stopped once for carrying a latch hook that I used to weave in the ends of my knitting. Go figure.
This kind of thing happened all the time in the Soviet Union, neighbor rats out neighbor for "anti-Revolutionary speech", and of course if the KGB arrested you, well by definition you must be guilty (or are you calling the KGB "liars"?)-- neighbor ends up in prison for months/years, his (much nicer) apartment becomes available, the "whistleblower" moves into nicer apartment.
Admittedly it's not the exact same scenario (though in both cases the "whistleblower" did it for his own personal gain), but the idea that a citizen can report another for heinous crimes (that can't be effectively proven or dismissed) and the authorities pounce on him, well, it ain't the America they taught me in school.
Tonye, TUS-
The original report is from a respected newspaper from southern Sweden (i.e., not a tabloid). It's also journalistic protocol in Sweden not to use actual names when reporting on sensitive issues. The Swedish article gives many more details about the broader context of antagonism between the guy and his wife's family. The American article was pretty anemic in comparison.
Personally, I'm surprised this hasn't happened before.
I can see how it would be libel - here in South Australia (where libel and slander were rolled into one under the Defamation Act 2005), defamation occurs when one person communicates to another material which adversely affects the reputation of a third person, or causes them to be shunned or avoided in circumstances where there is no proper defence. Publication of defamatory material in any way is actionable per se. Under s40 of the Act, defamatory material must be published in the sense that it is communicated by word, conduct or other means to at least one person other than the plaintiff. Therefore, by writing and sending the letter, publication of the - clearly defamatory - material has occurred. Even though Sweden would be a civil law jurisdiction, there is probably little gross difference. Peolpe need to remember that the law is often not literal in the day to day sense that non-lawyers may be - 'published' doesn't necessarily mean printed in a newspaper.
It probably has happened before, even if it didn't happen this time.
Wasn't it This American Life, that did the story on "detainees" at "Gitmo" who were in large part fingered by associates who disliked them, or even by strangers who could care less, as settlement of old grudges or simply for reward money offered by coalition forces, regardless of innocence.
About 10 years ago when i arrived i calgary, i was the only one of 200 who had to go to the "immigration room". They interviewed me 1.5 hours, all because i had put a GSG 9 sticker on my passport (GSG 9 is germanys anti terror unit).
Actually, i pulled the sticker off before i went to fly to canada, but somehow GSG 9 was still visible on the passports surface, like it was lasered or bleached in there.
Weird that i had to answer all those weird questions because of a anti terror unit sticker on my passport.
I think the TSA REALLY needs to get their act together...and quickly. I flew from Detroit to Vegas a little while ago. I wish I had gotten pictures of this... The signage at the check-in desks for both places were different. As in, one asks you to CHECK you laptop (what's the point...so you can't use it on the plane, or so that baggage handlers can steal them??), But it ALSO tells you to keep you keys (for what reason??). Vegas is exactly opposite to that. They tell you to keep your laptop (BECAUSE it might be stolen) but check your keys. I didn't. So I had my knife (keychain knife) taken away. I hadn't used it in years, and basically forgot it was there. Lovely TSA agent though...even tried to take my KitKat. I informed her that she was also being watched by the cameras...and that taking it would only provide a few minutes of chocolate pleasure. All fun and games until someone is ACTUALLY suspicious. They also don't seem to be able to follow their own guidlines of putting a label on the OUTSIDE of a bag that hadbeen opened and checked. *note...do NOT put all of your electronics in a single bag... I found the tag that should have been on the outside, buried in the bottom of my bag...and my alarm clock missing. Wouldn't you feel safer if the same rules applied to EVERY agent...
Someone joked on blond haired, blue eyed Nordic terrorists to be the worst. I'd just like to say that (while I'm not 100% sure) it sounds like this family is not ethnic Swedish, which would better explain why it would seem possible for the man to be connected to Al Quada. So it's probable safe to assume they were of middle eastern decent. But I'd like to read the original paper to be sure.
Blackbird, #37: If you're concerned for the security of your checked electronics, maybe you should consider flying with a gun for extra baggage safety: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/24/secure-your-checked-.html
Tonye, Unusual Suspect, I see no reason to call this a hoax. There's corroborating evidence, and it isn't coming from Fox News.
Tonye:
There are plenty of Swedish-speakers here, surely someone would've called hoax already if the English wrap-up didn't match the Swedish sources.
There's no way a Swedish paper could publish names in a case like this, it'd be against a bunch of privacy laws.
The father-in-law's email to the FBI was anonymous, but he was tracked through his IP. He denied sending the email at first, but confessed later, saying that his son-in-law had pissed him off. He also said that the guy's lifestyle and computer games had led him to suspect involvement with al-Qaeda.
During the interrogation, the son-in-law realised that the tip-off couldn't come from anyone in the US: he had a habit of growing a "cop moustache" as a joke whenever he prepared for a trip to the states, but the photo attached to the tip-off showed no moustache. He suspected the parents-in-law, since they had threatened him before, but thought that they wouldn't be stupid enough to send false tip-offs from their home computer. Turned out they were.
The Swedish stories come with plenty of background info, including quotes from both the guy and his father-in-law; I see no reason to call things a hoax just because you don't understand the language of the original documents.