by TChris

If you need to be on time to your destination and you plan to fly, think about leaving a few days early. In this month of unwarranted panic, it's become common to hear about flights that return home, or land at the wrong destination, to investigate perceived threats.

Flights have been disturbed three times (so far) just today (update: there have been six reported incidents today) (second update: seven):

• A flight from England to Chicago was diverted to Bangor, Maine today to investigate a (so far unspecified) "security concern."

• A flight from Phoenix to North Carolina landed in Oklahoma City after "some kind of altercation between the passenger and a flight attendant." An air marshall subdued the passenger.

• A flight from New York to Dublin was evacuated after making a scheduled landing in Shannon as the result of a phone call that apparently conveyed a threat.

Bruce Schneier writes about how the U.S. is giving the terrorists what they want by reacting with fear.

I'd like everyone to take a deep breath and listen for a minute. The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act. And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

I made a similar argument here when discussing the London attacks and proposed racial profiling programs as a response.

Why do we need terrorists to destroy the cornerstones of democracy with bombs when governments are willing to do it themselves out of fear? Isn't that a sign that the terrorists have won? First the U.S. with its Patriot Act and warrantless NSA surveillance and now Britain, which is considering a new racial profiling program aimed at Muslims based on behavior, ethnicity, and religion.

Via Buzzflash: The head of a British airline has told the government it will sue unless terror restrictions are relaxed within seven days.

TERRORISTS are "rolling around the caves of Pakistan, laughing" at Britain's response to the terror threat, an airline boss said last night as he gave the government a seven-day deadline to relax restrictions or face legal action.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary described some of the security measures as "farcical, Keystone Kops-like and completely insane and ineffectual". ... Banning items such as water bottles and toothpaste was "nuts".... He said it was "complete horse manure" to infer that passengers either faced delays or death. Mr O'Leary said the people being subjected to intense security were "not terrorists and not fanatics ... they are actually called holidaymakers". He went on: "The best way to defeat terrorists and extremists is for ordinary people to continue to live their lives as normal.

"We are not in danger of dying at the hands of toiletries. Normal security measures have successfully prevented any terrorist attack on any British plane in the last 25 years."

Some pilots agree.

Lambert at CorrenteWire has a great post on the Michigan court's decision in the ACLU lawsuit challenging NSA warrantless surveillance. [Opinion text here pdf]

The good news: Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has courageously declared that Bush's warrantless program of domestic surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments, the separation of powers doctrine, and FISA, is not justified under the AUMF, and is not justified under the purported doctrine of "inherent authority."

Then, of course, there's not-so-good news:

I think the flight diversion to Boston of the London plane bound for Washington will turn out to be no big deal, and not related to a terror threat:

Naccara said he did not believe any items she was carrying were the cause of the outburst. An airport spokesman, Phil Orlandella, previously confirmed broadcast reports that the woman was carrying Vaseline, a screw driver, matches and a note referring to al-Qaida, but backed off the statement. Naccara said it wasn't true.

``I don't know what she had on board with her, but we have been told she did not have a screw driver, she did not have any liquids such as Vaseline, and any notebook she may have had, it did not contain an al-Qaida reference,'' Naccara said. ``This is still playing out, of course.'' ``There was speculation in the beginning of all those items, but those have been proven untrue,'' he said. He said he had no information about matches.

A CBS video is here.

(Apologies in advance, this is a long one.)

Why do we need terrorists to destroy the cornerstones of democracy with bombs when governments are willing to do it themselves out of fear? Isn't that a sign that the terrorists have won? First the U.S. with its Patriot Act and warrantless NSA surveillance and now Britain, which is considering a new racial profiling program aimed at Muslims based on behavior, ethnicity, and religion.

THE Government is discussing with airport operators plans to introduce a screening system that allows security staff to focus on those passengers who pose the greatest risk.

The passenger-profiling technique involves selecting people who are behaving suspiciously, have an unusual travel pattern or, most controversially, have a certain ethnic or religious background.

On the kids from Texas busted in Michigan Friday and being held by local Michigan prosecutors for terror offenses because they bought too many cell phonesat a Wal-Mart:

The FBI said Monday it had no information to indicate that the three Texas men arrested with about 1,000 cell phones in their van had any direct connection to known terrorist groups. Also, a prosecutor in a separate Ohio case said he can't prove a terrorism link to two men arrested after buying large numbers of cell phones and will drop terrorism charges against them.

Another case of racial profiling gone wild.

The experts say the Republicans are now facing a tough battle in the Northeast.

The Iraq war and Bush's low approval ratings have created trouble for Republicans in all regions. But nowhere is the GOP brand more scuffed than in the Northeast, where this year's circumstances are combining with long-term trends to endanger numerous incumbents.

.... A Washington-Post ABC News poll this month found Bush's approval rating at 28 percent in the Northeast -- 12 points below his national average. The Republican Congress fared no better.

Democrats need a plan, and they need to get off the defensive about being soft on the war on terror. In one month, it will be five years since the U.S. has been attacked. If the Republicans want to say it's because of newly strengthened laws, then fine, they don't need any more of them.

We all know now that the bumbling warriors in Great Britain weren't ready to proceed with whatever plan they had. Yet Michael Chertoff still wants to milk it for whatever it's worth and is saying he will substitute non-skilled and non-union traffic screeners with more experienced ones from the TSA.

The New York Times' public editor Bryan Calame examines the timing of the Times' NSA article and publisher Bill Keller's decision not to print it just before the 2004 election. The Times published the article on December 16, 2004. Would it have made a difference in the outcome of the election?

• Empty Wheel
• Obsidian Wings
• tlhliberal at Daily Kos

Via Patriot Daily, NBC reports that the UK didn't want to arrest the London Terror suspects this week, but the US did.

NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

This British official contradicts earlier reports that the threats were imminent.

Glenn Greenwald has a great post today, Legal surveillance, not illegal eavesdropping, stopped the U.K. terrorist attacks.

No one objects to electronic surveillance of terror suspects per se...it's surveillance without warrants and without court authorization that is objectionable -- particularly of Americans. Glenn writes,

From the very beginning of the NSA scandal, this has been the point -- the principal, overarching, never-answered point. There is no reason for the Bush administration to eavesdrop in secret, with no judicial oversight, and in violation of the law precisely because the legal framework that has been in place for the last 28 years empowers the government to eavesdrop aggressively on all of the terrorists they want, with ease.

As I noted yesterday , the Washington Post reports:

The London attacks were scheduled for August 16 according to British authorities.

Investigation by British intelligence agents has revealed that Wednesday, August 16, was D-Day for the foiled terror attacks. Flight tickets for that day were reportedly found at one of the suspects' houses.

Details are now available about the 19 suspects arrested and in British custody.

The list includes a security guard, a science student and a university drop-out who works for a music company.,,,One of the suspects has recently become a father and worked in security at Heathrow Airport.

There have been 7 arrests in Pakistan.