Remember the story about the passenger on a plane full of Middle Eastern Men? Annie has since interviewed another passenger on that flight who felt the same as she did. She has also talked to the Air Marshalls again.
A few days ago, I put a call in to Dave Adams, the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM) Head of Public Affairs. Some of you may remember that Adams and I spoke on July 9, several days before my first article was published. He and I did not speak again until a few days ago, on August 9 and August 10, when we had two rather heated phone conversations. During one of them, I asked Adams the question that Billie Jo Rodriguez had asked me: "Exactly how many other passengers on flight 327 have the FAM and/or the FBI been in contact with during the past month?"
Adams said that they had interviewed the Air Marshals on my flight as well as all the flight attendants from flight 327 -- several times.
I told Adams that wasn't my question. I specifically wanted to know how many other passengers the FAM and/or the FBI had been in contact with during the past month.
Adams said my husband and I were the only two to come forward.
I told him that wasn't true, that I now had the corroborative accounts of seven passengers in addition to my husband and myself.
This has all the earmarkings of an uncomfortable situation that the government is trying to downplay. It cuts to the heart of their flawed security policy and the danger therein.
And then, in the midst of arguing with Adams, I had an epiphany. I realized that Dave Adams is not the guy I should be focusing on. He's not the person I need to hear from. Adams' main concern is that the Air Marshals he represents are cleared of any wrong doing. All the information Adams has is second hand. He wasn't on the flight and he wasn't at the airport when the flight landed. Adams, I realized, is just a guy in an office somewhere in Virginia, whose job requires him to push forth a whole host of second-hand party lines.
It dawned on me that I need to hear from the FBI. So I asked Adams why the FBI has been silent about flight 327.
He said the FBI considered flight 327 an ongoing investigation.
If it is an ongoing investigation then the government downplayed the real danger on that flight for public relations. Now if Haliburton were in charge of the security of the United States and knew they would be run out of business if they failed, don't you think they'd be doing a better job than the justice and transportaion departments?
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