Terror in the Skies, Again?

[Geoff_M]

Mystery Solved...

The Syrian Wayne Newton
The man inadvertently behind a scare in the skies.

By Clinton W. Taylor

Annie Jacobsen's recent piece for WomensWallStreet.Com made waves. Her account of flying with her family while 14 Middle Eastern passengers acted in a threatening and apparently coordinated manner makes for a terrifying read. Her article captures her sickening sense of both uncertainty and inevitability as what might possibly have been the next 9/11 unfolded around her.

Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened. On June 29, Northwest Airlines Flight 327 landed safely in Los Angeles and a phalanx of law enforcement greeted the suspicious passengers, whisking them away for some intense interviews. Jacobsen noted a pile of Syrian passports in the hand of a law-enforcement official.

But the men checked out, and Jacobsen was told that they were "hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert." She was not told the name of the band, nor the name of the casino. And as her story made the rounds through the Internet and beyond (the Dallas Morning News printed a condensed version earlier this week), a note of skepticism about her story crept in. Had she imagined the whole thing? Or was the government covering up a "dry run" for another terrorist attack?

Columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin confirmed some of the details of Jacobsen's story with the Federal Air Marshal's service, but the identity of the band remained the subject of much speculation. For a while the blogosphere settled on a Syrian band called Kulna Sawa as a likely candidate, but the gents at Powerline received a note from that group's tour manager explaining the band was still in Syria when all this happened. Even the mainstream media began to notice the story: New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey confirmed some of the details of the story today but admitted he, too, was unable to identify the band.

Well, I am nominally the "news director" for Stanford University's student radio station, KZSU, and I figured I'd help the Times out. There aren't that many casinos in southern California, so I had my research assistant, Mr. Google, take a look at some. An hour later I was talking to the nice folks at Sycuan Casino & Resort, near San Diego. Unlike most casinos where it's all Elvis impersonators, Paul Anka, and Linda Ronstadt — oh, wait, scratch that last one — Sycuan books the occasional "ethnic music" show, too. In August, for example, they'll have a Vietnamese night.

"Oh, do you mean Arab music?" inquired Angie, who answered Sycuan's phone. Yes, they had had an Arab act perform on July 1, an artist named Nour Mehana. Terry, Angie's supervisor at Sycuan, confirmed that he was there and that there was probably a backup band brought in, since there's no house band at Sycuan. In fractions of a second, Mr. Google found a website for Sycuan's event promoters, Anthem Artists, whose archive confirms Nour Mehana performed at Sycuan on 7/01/04.

And then I noticed something that was truly terrifying, something linking Nour Mehana to a figure of such repulsive evil that I felt a rush of prickly fear not unlike Jacobsen's: Just one week later, the same company that arranged Mehana's performance, also booked Carrot Top!

I talked to James Cullen of Anthem Artists who confirms that Nour Mehana's large band did arrive on Northwest Flight 327. Some of them came in from Detroit, and some from Lebanon. Cullen says they never said anything about a disturbance on the flight to him, even though "I stayed in the same hotel, they were nice, they stayed right above me." He said that they were fine musicians, put on a great show, and he would work with them again in the future.

Cullen did receive a follow-up e-mail from the Department of Homeland Security, asking him to confirm that the band had played their gig at Sycuan. He had read Jacobsen's article and concluded that some "people are just paranoid." A pilot himself, Cullen insisted that the patterns Jacobsen perceived wouldn't occur to him. "We should take pride in our system. We've got to trust our system." (Cullen made it clear that he opposes "this crazy Bush Iraq war crude," but it is important to bear in mind that Cullen also admitted to booking Carrot Top.)

Nour Mehana (a.k.a. Noor Mehanna, or Nour Mhanna, plus various permutations of those spellings) is, in fact, Syrian. He performs both "new-agey" hits and old sentimental Middle Eastern classics in a style called Tarab. In this catchy ten-minute video of Mehana on stage, (scroll down; the name is rendered Noor Mhanan this time ) you can see he has a rather large backup band helping him out. (The resolution is low, but Jacobsen might recognize some of the band members Mehanna is interacting with.) Followers of news from Iraq may have heard about the U.S. tour of the "Iraqi Elvis." Well, Mehana comes across not as an angry jihadi, but rather more like the Syrian Wayne Newton.

Much more like Wayne Newton:

Anyway, this is good news. Nour Mehana's band might have acted like jerks on the plane, but it appears safe to say they were not casing Northwest Airlines for a suicidal assault, and we can quit worrying about this being a "dry run" or an aborted attack. And if Jacobsen was wondering why one man in a dark suit and sunglasses sat in first class while everyone else flew coach, well, it seems pretty clear that this was the Big Mehana himself.

Which is definitely not the same as saying Jacobsen was wrong to worry. The proven existence of this band confirms one of the last details of her story, and her story confirms some of our worst fears about airline security. The mindset of passengers, of the crew, and even of the law-enforcement personnel (Jacobsen said a flight attendant reassured her husband by pointing out that air marshals were on the flight), and decision makers higher up the ladder was reactive, not proactive.

Now, by that I certainly don't mean that the interceptors should have scrambled or the passengers should have started swinging Chardonnay bottles as soon as the oud player took too long in the john. But evidently no one even engaged these guys in a conversation, and no one, not the flight crew, and not the air marshals, challenged their egregious violations of protocols about congregating near restrooms or standing up in unison as the plane started its descent. Nothing was done to alleviate the terror Jacobsen, and probably a lot of the other passengers, felt.

Liberals will likely decry the suspicion and interrogation the musicians faced on Flight 327. And the principled Right will regret that that was necessary. If the band's English wasn't very good they might not have understood the instructions. But a polite word and some helpful gestures earlier on, rather than a guilty PC silence, might have saved them some embarrassment. In any case, the police-state parallels fade quickly: In a real police state, like, oh, Syria, you are not even allowed inside the country with an Israeli stamp in your passport.

June 29 was no ordinary day in the skies. That day, Department of Homeland Security officials issued an "unusually specific internal warning," urging customs officials to watch out for Pakistanis with physical signs of rough training in the al Qaeda training camps. The warning specifically mentioned Detroit and Los Angeles's LAX airports, the origin and terminus of NWA flight 327.

That means that our air-traffic system was expecting trouble. But rather than land the plane in Las Vegas or Omaha, it was allowed to continue on to Los Angeles without interruption, as if everything were hunky-dory on board. It certainly wasn't. If this had been the real thing, and the musicians had instead been terrorists, nothing was stopping them from taking control of the plane or assembling a bomb in the restroom. Given the information they were working with at the time, almost everyone should have reacted differently than they did.

Jacobsen's fear was quite natural under these circumstances, and she has done us a service by pointing out some egregious shortfalls in our airline security. Danke Schoen, Darling. Let's hope the right people are listening.

— Clinton W. Taylor is a lawyer and a Ph.D. student in political science at Stanford. He's also news co-director and an intermittent classic-country DJ for KZSU, Stanford.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/taylor200407211921.asp

 

[Eeyore1954]

Interesting that Snopes has determined this to be FALSE. This is their assessment (any emphasis is added by me)

The "Terror in the Skies, Again?" article written by Annie Jacobsen and published on WomensWallStreet.com, in which she details her experience with passengers (whom she viewed as terrorists) on a 29 June 2004 flight from Detroit to Los Angeles, caused quite a stir, to say the least. That article contained a good deal of supposition, and a follow-up article, identified as an "Opinion Piece," didn't offer much to validate author's assumptions.

As things turned out, although the events Ms. Jacobsen claims to have witnessed on her flight did occur (more or less), her interpretation of them (that they involved a group of terrrorists making a dry run for building a bomb in-flight) was erroneous. The men she observed on her flight were exactly what authorities told her they were: a group of Syrian musicians who had been hired to play at the Sycuan Casino & Resort near San Diego. Like any other group of passengers, the men in musical ensemble talked to each other, moved around, ate food, and used the restrooms while the flight was in progress.

A number of writers have thoroughly analyzed Ms. Jacobsen's article, trying to separate fact from supposition (and, perhaps, fact from fiction), and we really don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said by someone else.

All that hysteria wasted over nothing. All the calls for expanded profiling ... another waste of time. Imagine that ... a group of musicians of Syrian descent decide to fly someplace together where they are to perform together.

This just shows what happens when unfounded paranoia and prejudice are combined and the results exploited for someone's 15 minutes of fame. I hope the perpetrator of this hoax and her family enjoyed their moment in the spotlight. I also hope that WomensWallStreet does a little better job of vetting their stories in the future or at least tagging their FICTION appropriately.

 

[phorsenuf]

This was in the Washington Times today

Scouting jetliners for new attacks


By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Flight crews and air marshals say Middle Eastern men are staking out airports, probing security measures and conducting test runs aboard airplanes for a terrorist attack.
At least two midflight incidents have involved numerous men of Middle Eastern descent behaving in what one pilot called "stereotypical" behavior of an organized attempt to attack a plane.

"No doubt these are dry runs for a terrorist attack," an air marshal said.
Pilots and air marshals who asked to remain anonymous told The Washington Times that surveillance by terrorists is rampant, using different probing methods.
"It's happening, and it's a sad state of affairs," a pilot said.
A June 29 incident aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles is similar to a Feb. 15 incident on American Airlines Flight 1732 from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport.
The Northwest flight involved 14 Syrian men and the American Airlines flight involved six men of Middle Eastern descent.
"I've never been in a situation where I have felt that afraid," said Annie Jacobsen, a business and finance feature writer for the online magazine Women's Wall Street who was aboard the Northwest flight.
The men were seated throughout the plane pretending to be strangers. Once airborne, they began congregating in groups of two or three, stood nearly the entire flight, and consecutively filed in and out of bathrooms at different intervals, raising concern among passengers and flight attendants, Mrs. Jacobsen said.
One man took a McDonald's bag into the bathroom, then passed it off to another passenger upon returning to his seat. When the pilot announced the plane was cleared for landing and to fasten seat belts, seven men jumped up in unison and went to different bathrooms.
Her account was confirmed by David Adams, spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), who said officers were on board and checked the bathrooms several times during the flight, but nothing was found.
"The FAMS never broke their cover, but monitored" the activity, Mr. Adams said. "Given the facts, they had no legal basis to take an enforcement action. But there was enough of a suspicious nature for the FAMS, passengers and crew to take notice."
A January FBI memo says suicide terrorists are plotting to hijack trans-Atlantic planes by smuggling "ready-to-build" bomb kits past airport security, and later assembling the explosives in aircraft bathrooms.
On many overseas flights, airlines have issued rules prohibiting loitering near the lavatory.
"After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together and eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified," Mrs. Jacobsen said.
"One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves ... one of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down."
In an interview yesterday with The Washington Times, Mrs. Jacobsen said she was surprised to learn afterward that flight attendants are not trained to handle terrorist attacks or the situation that happened on her flight.
"I absolutely empathize with the flight attendants. They are acting with no clear protocol," she said.
Other passengers were distraught and one woman was even crying as the events unfolded.
The plane was met by officials from the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Federal Air Marshal Service and Transportation Security Administration. The Syrians, who were traveling on one-way tickets, were taken into custody.
The men, who were not on terrorist watch lists, were released, although their information and fingerprints were added to a database. The group had been hired as musicians to play at a casino, and the booking, hotel accommodations and return flight to New York from Long Beach, Calif., also checked out, Mr. Adams said.
"We don't know if it was a dry run, that's why we are working together with intelligence and investigative agencies to help protect the homeland," he said.
Mrs. Jacobsen, however, is skeptical the 14 passengers were innocent musicians.
"If 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?" she asked in the article.
The pilot confirmed Mrs. Jacobsen's experience was "terribly alike" what flight attendants reported on the San Juan flight.
He said there is "widespread knowledge" among crew members these probes are taking place.
A Middle Eastern passenger attempted to videotape out the window as the plane taxied on takeoff and, when told by a flight attendant it was not permitted, "gave her a mean look and stopped taping," said a written report of the San Juan incident by a flight attendant.
The group of six men sat near one another, pretended to be strangers, but after careful observation from flight attendants, it was apparent "all six knew each other," the report said.
"They were very careful when we were in their area to seem separate and pretended to be sleeping, but when we were out of the twilight area, they were watching and communicating," the report said.
The men made several trips to the bathroom and congregated in that area, and were told at least twice by a flight attendant to return to their seats. The suspicious behavior was relayed to airline officials in midflight and additional background checks were conducted.
A second pilot said that, on one of his recent flights, an air marshal forced his way into the lavatory at the front of his plane after a man of Middle Eastern descent locked himself in for a long period.
The marshal found the mirror had been removed and the man was attempting to break through the wall. The cockpit was on the other side.
The second pilot said terrorists are "absolutely" testing security.
"There is a great degree of concern in the airline industry that not only are these dry runs for a terrorist attack, but that there is absolutely no defense capabilities on a vast majority of airlines," the second pilot said.
Dawn Deeks, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said there is no "central clearinghouse" for them to learn of suspicious incidents, and flight crews are not told how issues are resolved.
She said a flight attendant reported that a passenger was using a telephoto lens to take sequential photos of the cockpit door.
The passenger was stopped, and the incident, which happened two months ago, was reported to officials. But when the attendant checked back last week on the outcome, she was told her report had been lost.
Recent incidents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport have also alarmed flight crews. Earlier this month, a passenger from Syria was taken into custody while carrying anti-American materials and a note suggesting he intended to commit a public suicide.
A third pilot reported watching a man of Middle Eastern descent at the same airport using binoculars to get airplane tail numbers and writing the numbers in a notebook to correspond with flight numbers.
"It's a probe. They are probing us," said a second air marshal, who confirmed that Middle Eastern men try to flush out marshals by rushing the cockpit and stopping suddenly.



Personally, I fully expect another attack. How can you not???
I think they are waiting for America to get complacent, just like we were before.
JMHO

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Originally posted by Eeyore1954
Nope, this is just prejudice on a larger scale, IMO. Sure you would as would everyone else. It's easy to say that now, because you are not in a group that is being scrutinized. I dare say that when the day comes, we will be hearing loud wailing and loads of "righteous indignation" at the unjustified profiling of a group of people based solely on their appearance. It's always easier to do that when it involves some other group of people. Irrational paranoia is always a solid justification for prejudice.

No, it's not easy to say that now. I assure you 100% that if a group of women who looked like me were causing trouble, I'd understand fully that rationale behind needing to look closely at me, and it would not bother me in the slightest.

Hmmmm. You do not know my ethnic background, but I will tell you my great grandparents were part of an ethnic group that was once largely predjudiced against in Eastern Europe. And while part of me wants to say it was for no good reason, I know that alot of my people were doing things they should not have (stealing, causing trouble etc.)

This is not an irrational paranoia. If you can't see that most of the people who have tried to blow up our airlines for fanatical Islamic purposes were of middle eastern descent, I don't even know how to convince you otherwise.

 

[OceanAnnie]

Originally posted by EsmeraldaX
No, it's not easy to say that now. I assure you 100% that if a group of women who looked like me were causing trouble, I'd understand fully that rationale behind needing to look closely at me, and it would not bother me in the slightest.

Hmmmm. You do not know my ethnic background, but I will tell you my great grandparents were part of an ethnic group that was once largely predjudiced against in Eastern Europe. And while part of me wants to say it was for no good reason, I know that alot of my people were doing things they should not have (stealing, causing trouble etc.)

This is not an irrational paranoia. If you can't see that most of the people who have tried to blow up our airlines for fanatical Islamic purposes were of middle eastern descent, I don't even know how to convince you otherwise.

ITA!!

 

[Eeyore1954]

Originally posted by phorsenuf
This was in the Washington Times today

Scouting jetliners for new attacks

By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

(snip article for brevity)

Personally, I fully expect another attack. How can you not???
I think they are waiting for America to get complacent, just like we were before.
JMHO

*YAWN* The majority of this article is based on the FICTIONAL account offered by Ms. Jacobsen on WomensWallStreet.com. In case you missed it, it's been determined that this account is false. Maybe in the future WWS.com can do a better job of labeling their fiction section.

As for another attack, sure it'll probably happen. But irrational fear and prejudice does not yield perfect security. That's JMHO.

 

[Eeyore1954]

Originally posted by EsmeraldaX
No, it's not easy to say that now. I assure you 100% that if a group of women who looked like me were causing trouble, I'd understand fully that rationale behind needing to look closely at me, and it would not bother me in the slightest.

As I said before, it's easy to say that now because it's not being done.

Hmmmm. You do not know my ethnic background, but I will tell you my great grandparents were part of an ethnic group that was once largely predjudiced against in Eastern Europe. And while part of me wants to say it was for no good reason, I know that alot of my people were doing things they should not have (stealing, causing trouble etc.)

Everyone's a descendant from some group of people and I don't know of any group that has not suffered some form of prejudice at some point in time. There's no one group that has a stranglehold on suffering.

This is not an irrational paranoia. If you can't see that most of the people who have tried to blow up our airlines for fanatical Islamic purposes were of middle eastern descent, I don't even know how to convince you otherwise.

When people start supporting racial profiling of any kind, I see that as irrational paranoia. Not everyone of Middle Eastern descent intends us harm. Assuming that they do is irrational and paranoid. But that's JMHO.

 

[OceanAnnie]

Originally posted by Eeyore1954
....When people start supporting racial profiling of any kind, I see that as irrational paranoia. Not everyone of Middle Eastern descent intends us harm. Assuming that they do is irrational and paranoid. But that's JMHO.

The Jihad that has been declared on our country was made by Middle Easterners. Granted it isn't all Middle Easterners, but how do you go about finding out who intends us harm? Just discount the threat? Treat everyone the same?

 

[Nancy]

.nevermind..just reread my post and it sounded stupid even to me!

 

[JPN4265]

Originally posted by Eeyore1954
As I said before, it's easy to say that now because it's not being done. Everyone's a descendant from some group of people and I don't know of any group that has not suffered some form of prejudice at some point in time. There's no one group that has a stranglehold on suffering. When people start supporting racial profiling of any kind, I see that as irrational paranoia. Not everyone of Middle Eastern descent intends us harm. Assuming that they do is irrational and paranoid. But that's JMHO.

Just a thought, people are attacked in your community, women are raped. They know what the person looks like, he is 6'-0" tall, about 200#, but we can't give the skin color or nationality because that would be profiling. So another 6 women are raped. Do we ever say the color of the person or his nationality? You would say no, its not PC. You are the problem, not the solution!

 

[Eeyore1954]

Originally posted by OceanAnnie
The Jihad that has been declared on our country was made by Middle Easterners. Granted it isn't all Middle Easterners, but how do you go about finding out who intends us harm? Just discount the threat? Treat everyone the same?

I don't believe we should discount any threat. However, I do not support or condone racial profiling. We condemn that practice elsewhere in America, so why is it OK to use at airports? Is your or my safety in our homes, offices, streets any less important than when we are flying in a pressurized steel & aluminum tube at 33,000 feet?

I don't claim to have all the answers, but the solution to airline security is not in a quick & dirty fix of racial profiling. The country needs to take airline security seriously and invest in what is needed to guarantee some level of safety. Those who choose to fly also need to realize they are accepting some degree to risk by travelling that way. Nothing is 100% safe all the time. I don't believe for a second that racial profiling is going to make flying any safer tomorrow than it is today.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Originally posted by OceanAnnie
The Jihad that has been declared on our country was made by Middle Easterners. Granted it isn't all Middle Easterners, but how do you go about finding out who intends us harm? Just discount the threat? Treat everyone the same?

ITA. Some people just refuse to accept that. I wonder if they are just afraid people will think they are racists or something. I really don't know. I don't really care what people say about me. I know I'm not a racist. I have friends from all ethnic groups and religions and quite frankly, I'm sick of being told I'm paranoid by the paranoid people who are so afraid they will be called racists that they fail to see the danger.

BTW, no one thinks ALL middle easterners wish us harm. But lets face it. Many of them do.

 

[Eeyore1954]

Originally posted by JPN4265
Just a thought, people are attacked in your community, women are raped. They know what the person looks like, he is 6'-0" tall, about 200#, but we can't give the skin color or nationality because that would be profiling. So another 6 women are raped. Do we ever say the color of the person or his nationality? You would say no, its not PC. You are the problem, not the solution!

This is such an absurd illustration because it has absolutely nothing to do with racial profiling. Identification of a criminal suspect is not the same thing as pulling aside airline passengers based on their country of origin or ethnicity. On the one hand, you have someone who is legitimately suspected of already having committed a crime. OTOH, you have a group of people being prejudged as having the potential of committing a crime without any legal or moral basis for that suspicion. Your attempt to equate apples to oranges is humorous, but completely wrong. However, thanks for the !

(BTW, if I'm the "problem," you'd do better to alert the FAA, TSA, and Dept. of Homeland Security. I'm sure they'd appreciate your heads-up! )

 

[wvrevy]

Originally posted by Eeyore1954
I don't believe for a second that racial profiling is going to make flying any safer tomorrow than it is today.

And, setting aside the racial stereotyping issue for a second, this is the final reason why profiling shouldn't be done: It just doesn't work.

Last time I checked, it wasn't just young "muslim looking" (still can't figure out that term...does it mean everyone with a middle-eastern appearance ? How about Italians ? Greeks ? Anyone with slightly darker skin than, say, Nichole Kidman ? How about Jamie Farr, should he get extra security checks ?) men that were doing all the suicide bombings in Israel...It was young men...young women...kids...Pregnant mothers-to-be....Older men and women that have lost children to Israeli bombs....There IS no profile that would catch them before it happens, so what makes everyone think that using a profile in airports is going to work ?

 

[Eeyore1954]

Originally posted by EsmeraldaX
I know I'm not a racist. I have friends from all ethnic groups and religions and quite frankly, I'm sick of being told I'm paranoid by the paranoid people who are so afraid they will be called racists that they fail to see the danger.

Yeah, some of my best friends are (fill in the blank).

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Originally posted by Eeyore1954
Yeah, some of my best friends are (fill in the blank).

My best friend is a young black woman and my cousins husband is hispanic...

Do you want to see photos? Grow up.

 

[Eeyore1954]

Originally posted by EsmeraldaX
My best friend is a young black woman and my cousins husband is hispanic...

Do you want to see photos? Grow up.

So this makes it OK to condone prejudice against a group of people simply because of their race/origin/nationality. And I'm the one who needs to grow up???

 

[Patch'sD]

Profiling, If it prevents another attack I am all for it. Can that be considered Prejudice, yes in certain definitions. However you seem to infer that this based upon a deep hatred rather than caution.

On a return flight from Florida. Two middle eastern men were using buddy passes to board the flight. One was not cleared on the flight and was supposed to take another flight. Another Middle Eastern man was flying standby. Did this make me uncomfortable flying, Yes. Did anything happen no. Would I have felt better if Security Walked over to these men and Question them. Yes. I to am not a bigot, but welcome the effort to enhance me and mine's security

 

[KarenC]

Am I the only one who remembers our national embarassment over interring US citizens of Japanese descent during World War II? When I learned about that in US History I couldn't understand how we could have done that. I got my answer after September 11, but it doesn't make treating a certain class of people differently, because we happen to be at war with people who look like them, morally acceptable.

 

[Maleficent13]

Fear is a very powerful emotion, and it has the ability to make normally rational people behave in very irrational ways. I think that is why articles such as this one raise such a panic, and I also think that it is very, very important that we think about the situation as a whole.

FDR said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and he was right. Any terrorist group knows that too. In order to truly combat terrorism we have to be courageous enough to understand the risks and still act according to our principles. Yes, something bad may happen to a plane, a building, a train, and that is tragic (believe me, I am not trying to downplay it AT ALL), but sometimes a risk must be taken to ensure freedom. JMO, FWIW. I know it's not a very popular one.