Confusion over terrorist airline warnings
French government says FBI made mistakes over identifying "suspicious" names on passenger lists.
What's in a name? Quite a bit these days, as flight delays caused by terror alerts continue to pile up on both sides of the Atlantic. But the French government is now saying that some of those cancellations came about because the FBI made mistakes identifying suspicious passengers on Air France Flights. The
BBC reports that France confirmed that particular fears
about Paris-Los Angeles flights, which led to six cancellations over the Christmas holidays, were groundless.
"A check was carried out in each case and in each case it turned out to be negative," a spokesman for the Interior Minister told AFP. "The FBI worked with family names and some family names sound alike. The difficulty is compounded when you have no first name or date of birth," he said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that a child was among the
passengers singled out, because its name was similar to that of a wanted Tunisian. The other "suspects" turned out to be an elderly Chinese ex-restaurateur, a Welsh insurance salesman and three French nationals, the paper alleged.
The FBI did not consult the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) – recently created by the US to create, maintain and control a database of suspected terrorists – before giving the names to French police, law enforcement and congressional sources quoted by the WSJ said. The TSC opened its doors just a month ago and is so far "a hollow box," one congressional aide told the paper. US officials have no less than 12 separate – and sometimes incompatible – terrorist watch lists, the newspaper said.
USA Today reports the FBI defended its actions. "We had a name connected with terror plot and it showed up on the manifest and we didn't have a full biographical information, so we take those precautions until you can assure yourself things are OK," a senior FBI official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
United Press International looks at the TSC (which Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge says will not have its terrorist watch lists merged for
several months yet), and the other new government entity created a year ago, the
Terrorist Threat Integration Center. It was the TTIC that who made the recommendation recently for the Bush administration to raise its color-coded terrorist warning system to orange.
France's deputy transport minister also said French officials had okayed a flight
earlier this week despite warning from US authorities. "We thought that all security measures had been taken, that the verifications of passengers had been such that this flight had every reason to fly," he said. Canadian officials say another Air France flight from New York to Paris was diverted to Gander, Newfoundland in Canada because of fears of possible
explosives being on board. The flight resumed after nothing was found.
French authorities
have also confirmed that French jets have been accompanying some passenger jets over French airspace.
Armed guards are now flying on some Air France flights.
Meanwhile, flights from Britain and Mexico have also been cancelled. On Wednesday night, passengers on a British Airways (BA) Flight that landed at Dulles International Airport in Washington were
detained for questioning, and had their luggage searched. Security personnel kept the plane several hundred feet from the terminal during the questioning.
The Associated Press reports that FBI agents
questioned a woman who appeared to be from the Middle East, asking her repeatedly why she was not traveling with her husband. The FBI called the check "routine."
Two BA flights from Dulles to London were cancelled on Thursday. And on Friday, a London to Dulles flight was cancelled.
Reuters reports that BA did not give
detailed reasons for suspending Flight 223. "It has been cancelled, that was based on advice from the UK government for a security reason," a BA spokeswoman said on Friday.
The Scotsman reports intelligence experts say the flight cancellation was cause by a "
real and definite threat," centered around a plan to destroy the plane over Washington or to "fly it into something."
The Financial Times reports that BA has
agreed in principle with the UK government to carry armed marshals on certain flights. But the
Times notes that BA officials privately admit they share the concern of many in the industry over allowing guns on board and would consider cancelling any service that required a marshal.
Phllip Baum, editor of
Aviation Security International magazine, says air marshals should only be seen as a "last line" of defense. "There is no evidence to suggest that they are
a real deterrent," Mr Baum told the
BBC, as they can only be deployed on a tiny number of flights. Security ought to be tightened around airports in the first place, he said.
The cancellation of some AeroMexico flights into Los Angeles has also
led to some tension between the US and Mexico. When a flight was cancelled earlier this week, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said it was a decision by the Mexican government. However Agustin Gutierrez, Mexico's presidential spokesman, said the flight was cancelled after US authorities said they would refuse to allow it to land. He also said Mexico did not receive information of convincing cause for the cancellation.
"The question is what threat?" Mr. Gutierrez said. "This question must be answered by Homeland Security. If we are going to have a good climate of cooperation, the least that we can hope for are reasons." When the flight was cancelled for a second day, Mexican officials said it had been
made in cooperation with the US, but said they still had not received an explanation for the cancellation of the first flight.
Finally, In a bit of
security measure tit-for-tat, Brazil began fingerprinting and photographing Americans when they arrived in Sao Paulo Thursday. Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva ordered the measure Monday in response to the new US anti-terror regulation requiring citizens from 27 nations, including Brazil, to be fingerprinted and photographed when entering America. "I consider this act totally brutal,
a threat to human rights, a violation of human dignity, xenophobic and comparable to the worse horrors committed by the Nazis," Judge Sebastiao da Silva said Tuesday.
"At first, most of the Americans were angered at having to go through all this, but they were usually more understanding once they learned that Brazilians are subjected to the same treatment in the US," Wagner Castilho, press officer for the federal police in Sao Paulo, said of those arriving at Sao Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport.
But the measure may not last for long.
News 24 reports that the Estado news agency quoted a source at the Brazilian attorney general's office as saying they would likely move to have the judge's order overturned, alleging it was
beyond his competence to influence foreign policy.
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Liberty test failed (
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