Via BoingBoing comes news of a guy who was detained and missed his flight for “acting suspiciously” by speaking a mixture Tamil and English on his cell at Seattle’s cosmopolitan SeaTac airport:He told officials that he would not speak in a foreign language on his cell phone at an airport in the future
A 32-year-old man speaking Tamil and some English about a sporting rivalry was questioned at Sea-Tac Airport and missed his flight Saturday because at least one person thought he was suspicious.
The Port of Seattle dispatched its police officers to investigate the case, which occurred Saturday around noon, said Bob Parker, airport spokesman. The Chicago man was preparing to board an American Airlines flight to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
The man was speaking Tamil, a language largely used in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, on his cell phone at the departure gate and on the aircraft. An off-duty airline employee heard the conversation and informed the flight crew. [Link]
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p>The whole thing was cleared up once he promised to become monolingual at airports!
Parker said the man was cooperative and boarded a later flight to Texas. He told officials that he would not speak in a foreign language on his cell phone at an airport in the future. [Link]
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p>This is hardly the first time this something of this sort has happened. A man was detained for several hours for speaking Arabic on the phone at a bus station. Two britasians were kept off a flight for speaking Urdu (although there is some evidence that they may have been trying to provoke an incident). A flight was even diverted because passengers felt threatened by two orthodox jews praying in Hebrew! There are many more cases like this involving Sikhs immediately after 9/11, I’m just showcasing some non-Sikh examples so that the rest of you can relate.
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p>You don’t even have to open your mouth to have an incident. This Lt. Colonel in the US Army (formerly active service, now reserves) was detained for hours because US Air Marshals didn’t like the “way he looked” [He won a court case based on this incident]
So yeah, even 5 years after 9/11, I still only speak on my cell phone in English at airports, I always call or text somebody to tell them where I am in my journey, and I make extra sure to grin broadly and shuffle my feet while boarding. Nossah massah, I only speaks the english! You gots watermellon on this heah flight? I just love me some watahmellons!
There was an instance of a Spanish professor who hadnt shaved for a few days being arrested the other day too.
Boy, I’m really in trouble with that no-shaving thing!
Yeah, he must have looked dark skinned and with a beard, you know what these moorish Spaniards are like.
Seriously man, I know excatly what you mean, in the aftermath of the London bombings last year, things were really bad. Especially after the Brazilian guy was shot, you had all slightly brown looking white dudes, Greeks, Italians etc, and mixed race black guys, who were on edge, and looked at with fear, and you even absorbed some of that paranoia yourself. It was horrible, and I was on the end of abuse and suspicion. This I suppose is all part of what the terrorists want, and is a partial victory for them.
i appreciate you using the word “brownz.” wikipedia keeps deleting my article cuz it is a neologism.
“A flight was even diverted because passengers felt threatened by two orthodox jews praying in Hebrew!”
Both Hebrew and Arabic are semetic languages, link and sound similar. Maybe a blind guy was the one who thought he was amongst “suspicious” characters?
Hahahahahahahah.
I’m really disturbed by this. Can this be true? And these “inconveniences” need to start having consequences when Marshall John Smith is too stupid and ignorant and jumps the gun because he can’t tell the difference between terroristic behavior and normal behavior. WTF.
Loquacious Desi: Ille ma, ellam nalla poite iruke. (No mom, everything’s fine) Vigilant crimefighter: Dude, did he just say Allah a couple of times? Vigilant sidekick: Let’s roll…
holy beans… there goes my spanlishgujarahindi masala mix that i jabber in.. must be monolingual must be monolingual…and obviously english at that. pretty messed up.
a lot of brown people work at sea-tac btw. i know some ’em through my fam.
Like David Chappelle’s character from his show? The blind black KKK dude.
The guy was investigated and allowed to board the next flight which means authorities did not consider the guy a threat. However, when [person x] comes to the authorities and says something is suspicious, you almost have to investigate by default.
Investigation proceeded and the guy got on the next flight, which meant authorities did their jobs as per direction. Air Marshalls weren’t even involved, the SeaTac police were the responders.
They respond differently to different incidents, however. The way that they responded, and the fact that he promised only to speak english at airports in the future, shows that they viewed his actions as inherently suspicious. They could have just shown up and said, oh, you’re talking in Tamil and English about last night’s game? OK, you can go.
You are making assumptions here. Someone else, not airport security, flagged the guy down for supicious behavior. Now, put your self in Police shoes. A person comes up to you, informs you that he/she as observed something suspicious.
When talking about the English-Tamil thing, what you say is kosher, but authorities almost HAVE to check up other things, too because a person, not trained in the techniques of observation is feeding you info. Which means you’re getting very vague data. Doing what you said above sounds great, but even a routine police stop for speeding involves more than simply stopping you and giving you a ticket (Car registration is checked, insurance, plates are checked to see if vehicle is hot or not, etc.)
With regards to the man promising NOT to speak Tamil at airports, well, he probably got scared, understandably so. There is no legal precedent from prohibiting him from speaking Tamil. If he wanted to push it, he could have allowed authorities to check up (which he did), and move along without promising anything.
NOW, if was let go on the condition he spoke ONLY English, his legal rights were violated because authorities cannot do that.
having been through a similar situation in the past when i was made to msis my flight – i believe the official policy is to disrupt flight patterns of the suspicious person – it isnt hard to do – but there is so much potential for abuse here – the person who files frivolous or unfounded complaints should be held accountable. you have these air marshalls who got rajcoomar because he looked funny!!! or the german guys who nailed the spanish prof because of his beard!!! or the bigot (!!!) who claimed to be speaking arabic and called the police on an arab guy… I just wish there was an organizational framework to penalize these guys.
i was once in a situation in which a person i was boarding with called the police on me on something like i am playing with the water supply… because i told him to clean up the place!! at moments like this – one feels so drained, one doesnt have the energy to argue or contest. police officers arent exactly thinking people. the best way is to answer the questions promptly and without indecision. another what aclu, what charter of rights… one just wants to get it out of the way – which pretty much explains why our man promised never to speak tamil at an airport. I just wish they would nail the sons of bitches who abuse the system out of malice or ignorance.
Agreed.
This has positive and negative consequences because in most cases ignorant folk aren’t consciously filing frivolous complaints. They actually belive what they are saying is true. Educating the person when complaint has no merit would provide better long term results. As in, Sir, person X was speaking Tamil. It’s a language from India…. Next time around hopefully he/she knows more than they did before.
Again, if there is malicious intent involved, one should be penalized. But in most cases people are dumb and stupid. Educating them would provide longer term benefits. Penalty? You stay back, miss your flight, receive an ‘education’ and move along. Next time around you’ll think twice whether you really believe if a threat exists (at the cost of not boarding the flight if you’re wrong). If you’re belief is strong enough that you still choose to risk your own flight, good for you, atleast you’re willing to take the responsibility and consequences that come along if you’re wrong.
No argument here. The best way is cooperation. There should be a pranoid meter before boarding a flight. If anyone is that parnoid, they shouldn’t board a flight. Most people lack the situation awareness and emotional stability to sort through a threat assessment logically. It sucks, but like I said, the penalty can be not boarding your flight. It is a simple, yet effective way of filtering poeple just complaining because their panties are bunched up or if they have a real concern.
Because you’ve been directly observed breaking the law. However, when “suspicious behavior” is called in, the first thing they do is assess whether the behavior is suspicious. If a white woman speaking swedish is called in, I’ll bet they wont bother to detain her, make her miss her flight, and check her. Nor will she ever (on her own or to resolve the situation) agree to not speak Swedish in an airport again. As a matter of fact, the police might even go to the person making the report and warn them about making spurious claims.
On a related note, I once reported to the gate officials that there was some unacompanied baggage left behind by an asian woman. They couldn’t even be bothered to call security.
In this case an airline employee told the flight crew who called the police. When I saw unaccompanied baggage left behind for more than 10 minutes, they yawned.
Those people should be fired ASAP. I’m not out to defend incompetance. I would except the same treatment when suspicious activity is flagged, regardless of what the reason was. Unaccompanied baggage is one of the biggest no-nos.
Its funny -> After Sep 11 2001 I used to always get “randomly” (the random distribution they used had a 100% probability) checked by TSA at the boarding gate. Nowdays (since the transatlantic scare), I do still get selected for “random” search (they started doing random search at the boarding gate at smaller airports). But now, I use my airline badge to get away with it.
The system seems to be vulnerable to abuse by people with malicious intent. False complaints like the ones cited in the comments including the case in discussion could be used to divert attention! I hope the authorities do consider such scenarios and have a solution for it.
As far as detained person in the above case I wonder what would have happened if he had insisted on his right to speak in his language of choice. The system is sure getting fragile.
Which is why if the claim is false, said person should board the next flight available while trained personnel show where the person went wrong. A simple deterrant of missing the flight (which will prevent frivolous complaints) if they’re wrong will go a long way, too. Again, if someone, knowing that they’ll miss their flight but are still willing to go ahead and register their complaint, wishes to do so good for them. They’re willing to take some responsibility for their words/actions.
IMO that would be half of JFK & LGA airport staff. I don’t know what’s worse. That the ignorant baboons who are running the airport include the lady who’s checking my baggage being worried more about breaking her “inappropriate for the job” longass nails or the 3 TSA guys standing around and flirting with the female TSA neither paying attention to their jobs or the lady at the counter who barks at you to get in line if you attempt to go up and tell her about unattended luggage. Except for the K9 unit I find most of the airport employees completely incompetent. And this incompetence seems heightened if it’s a flight going to India.
Well, I was transitting through London Heathrow and the airport staff (cleaner and her manager, I guess) were talking in a ‘brown’ language (i can’t figure out if it’s punjabi/hindi/urdu).. I don’t think you’ll run into these kinds of problems in European airports.. It is better to stick to English in American airports..
I am going to speak in tamil next time i am in the airport. I would like to know what happens to me.
Don’t even get me started on the incompetance of TSA. As a quality assurance dude, it astounds me how poorly people train their own personnel for tasks they are given. This is across the board and shows poor leadership, IMHO.
Working in a military envirnoment, the one thing the military, overall as an instutution, does well is a good flow down of training. You have procedures for every and anything. When people lack the appropriate training or demeanor, it is leadership’s fault for not providing enough trainers (an analogy from the military would be a strong Non-Commisioned Officer’s corp) to make sure you personnel that do the heavy lifting, grunt work, have the right tools to do the job.
TSA is a joke. Give someone a shiny badge and tell them,”YOU”RE KING OF THIS HILL, NO ONE SHALL CHALLENGE YOUR AUTHORITY HERE, YOU HAVE THE SHINY GUBMENT BADGE, LOLZ!!!”
If being pulled over and brown feels bad, think about Marines as a part of an honor guard (for someone killed in action) being pulled over, seperately frisked, being held back from their flight, etc. by TSA. Brown, white, black, whatever. I think everyone agrees the TSA hasn’t done much of a good job.
I won’t defend incompetance because there is nothing to defend. I’m just sayin in this case, malicious intent from authorties or gross incompetance doesn’t seem to be the case. Misunderstanding, sure. Lack of good information. Maybe. Does that mean abuse does not occur? No. It does, but more often than not its some old grandma, some dude with his family who got scurred by them foreign looking folks, or some person out looking to be a hero or cool that gives shitty intel. It is biased.
Regarding aiport screeing, a 100% manual/visual inspection (xray) is at best 80% effective. Adding a high sampling rate after the 100% inspection (one in four) would help validate how poorly the 100% screening is, but won’t add much value. Two 100% inspections are also not 100% effective. That is why I agreed with one of Manish’s earlier posts that more technology (automated systems) is the only reliable way of reducing error and removing human incompetance out of the equation.
Sad to say, but I’d take a well trained K9 dog for sniffin out trouble over any current system in place ANY DAY. Man’s best friend can be trained well and they are damn consistent at doing it, too.
This is infuriating, naturally, but also extremely funny and ironic given the conversation I had a few hours ago with a white American who’s visiting India for the first time. He told me that Tamil is very beautiful, and sounds to him a lot like a Romance language.
To both I say, wtf?
sidg – i wouldnt go out and prodding people – it isnt the secrity personnel but the average dude in the corner who’s going to get his/her hackles up. dont get me wrong. my dad or mum calls me on the phone at an airport, i would be so embarassed talking to them in english (it’d feel like i’ve sold them out).
one can be proud – but doesnt mean that you need to stand in the aisles mumbling, gesticulating and mouthing obscenities in tamil – not that you implied that… just making sure 🙂
As long as they’re banning non-English languages at airports, can they go ahead and do that on the train too? I’m getting really annoyed with the daily banter in everything from Hindi to Tamil on the train every morning, especially when it can be heard on the opposite end of the train car.
@ hairy_d. Agreed. All this time I have always been a strong proponent of speaking in English whenever a non-Tamil speaker is present near me. But that guy going to the extent of promising to speak only in english whenever in the airport is kind of insulting.
I sometimes speak to my parents in tamil from airports, but usually lower my voice (couple that with crappy phone cards to India, and its a recipe for disaster)…..because it’s often uncomfortable not speaking in english at a public place.
sucks, doesn’t it?
GujuDude – I completely agree with your comments in #14. In this day and age, security officials have to respond to each and every complaint that they receive. There should however be some checks and balances to keep out frivolous complaints.
I’m always singled out for the “random” baggage check just before boarding the flight. I usually don’t have any problems with this..other than the fact that they label it “random”!!
the uncouth bastards. off with their heads.
Every time you hear somebody talking loudly in a brown language, go up and offer to sell them Amway. They’ll quiet down when they see you in the car alright ….
I strongly disagree. I am Tamil and in the words of Russell Peters, I think Tamil speakers sound like auctioneers and pinball machines.
my dad works for the port of seattle @ seatac (focused on their $1B renovation project). i’ll see if i can get any more details from him….
I usually don’t get pulled over and I travel for work. A lot. Funny thing is my boss, who has the most anglo name ever, has his name on the ‘watch list’ so he gets flak.
I do make sure the shoes I wear when working onsite are cleaned and packed away. If they ever swab those things, they may flag everything from gun powder, plastic explosive, to TNT residue. It would make for an interesting scenario.
TSA: Sir, you have residue from, uh, every explosive known to man. Me: Yea, I know. I work ammo. TSA: [Silence] Me: Here are my travel orders and my gubment ID TSA: [Silence] Me: Great. Ok, just be gentle. TSA: Sir, please put your hand where we can see them and lay flat on the ground. The FBI is on its way.
In all seriousness, some collegues did get flagged, but when presented with the right documentation, they were allowed to go through. Personally, I’m prepared and accept the risk that I may undergo a more extensive search. I just gotta keep my cool and a nice smile. Patience is a virtue of the wise, I guess.
i’ve flown about 10 times since 9/11. the main issue i’ve had is that people looked really closely at my baggage in small airports.
🙂 my thoughts precisely. i like kohnondacob myself.
hey vivek – that sounded like a thinking man’s pick-up line to me. he was totally Romancing you machang. 😉
I wonder how many people have been told to stop speaking German or French? Oh wait, Germans and French are mostly white. Just absolutely ridiculous.
Actually Spanish grates more to me no the train than anything else. Along with Hebrew. And while we are requesting bans on the train I’d prefer that they just ban all loudass people period. I don’t care what language you speak including English.
Were they white? From the incidents I’ve read – Arab Secret Service Agent, Desi Officer, etc – having a government ID didn’t help at all, given that they were travelling alone and didn’t have a white person by their side to vouch for them.
BTW, I disagree about the TSA – I find them a substantial improvement over their predecessors, even if they are still far short of what they should be. I’d write more but I have a meeting in 40 minutes 🙂
amen to that… ban not only on the train..but on a plane…automobiles.. 🙂 and a very special request to all manicurists to please keep their jabbering to a minimum with their fellow co-workers while with a client..maybe it’s only the place i go to..where they chatter it up in LOUD vietnamese
I prefer to go against the predefined “rule” of not speaking in anything but English when in a public place. My mom will yell at me about this often and then I remind her that the Hispanics are doing this so why can’t we? It’s too hard for me to not speak in Bengali when on the phone with my parents especially if I get angry about something. So due to this incident of speaking monolingual I await the day when my flight will be delayed due to arguing with my parents in Bengali. Perhaps I will even sport a t-shirt in Arabic writing (would put a link but too lazy to)
I’m not that ballsy =)
haha .. this can ruin an entire appointment! I rarely treat myself to a pedicure, but when I do, I usualy regret not bringing headphones.
JOAT ~ Nice article in ABCD Lady by the way!
White and latino. For the instances you mention is the reason why I’m prepared and accept the risk that I may undergo more stringet evaluations. The more calm and collected I present myself, the more ease it puts folks screeing at (and faster I get out). It may not help, but I’ll get on the next flight. Since it’s a govt. fare, I have no issues on getting on flights I need and I’m not paying for it. Makes a big difference in how peeved off I get. After all, I am guju.
It’s not that improvements haven’t come around (better X-Ray equipment, standardized procedures, new magnetometers, etc), its the fact that the exectations are higher and they don’t meet the mark. With shiny badges, uniforms, and federal government dollar, I expect more – better training, more compentant personnel from being pleasant, not jumpy, no a ‘king of the hill’ complex, etc.
Two months ago, I was flying back from Chicago and the TSA lady freaked out as I was placing my laptop and carryon the x-ray belt, but was first in line to walk through the mangetometer. “SIR, WHERE IS YOUR BOARDING CARD????”. Jesus lady, if you give me a chance to free my hands, I can present one before walking through since its in my pocket.
I now make sure I wear a shirt/polo with a pocket so they can see it sticking out.
Because Latinos have already established that they aren’t the “real terrorists.” Desis, however, have yet to parade themselves in the streets with similar signs. Hence the security threat for desi languages.
does this ‘no foreign language’ statute apply to us kannada peeps? i mean, no one really knows who we are or what we speak anyway. can i just drop a ‘ayyooo raama, sumne iri” on some airlines executives??
and on a random note, i’m 25 today so i feel like i should be allowed to speak freely at an airport in my more-than-adorable mother tongue.
anyone else out there a mysore magu/magalu born in the u-s-of-a??
OMG I thought I was the only one. Hahahahaha. I go to these Russian ladies in midtown. And they talk the entire time and continuously. Here you are paying a shit load of money trying to find a half hour of relaxation during a mani-pedi and the verbal diarrhea is insane.
Thanx but dude I’m a little embarrassed especially by the animal print picture used.
Well Happy Birthday. How does it feel to be a quarter of a century old?