When investigative journalism goes bad (or terror attack thwarted)
Or good rather, just bad for the journalists:
Earlier today two Middle Eastern men attempted to penetrate our security. They telephoned one of my helicopter FBOs and asked about a charter flight. After discussion of price and directions to the business, they arrived an hour later. When the office agent asked how they were going to pay for the flight they produced cash. When asked for ID, they produced driver’s licenses from two different states and they were driving a car licensed in a third state.
Things didn’t smell right so the mechanic took them into the hangar to see the aircraft while the office person called the FBI and local police. The helicopter they were going to fly was blocked in by other aircraft so the mechanic was able to stall them by having to slowly shuffle the blocking planes. Meanwhile the two men got their backpacks and odd-shaped luggage out of their car. Soon the local police arrived and they were hauled off to jail in handcuffs.
After a little time behind bars, the FBI verified that the two men were employed by NBC New York and were on assignment to get a story of how easy it is to charter a helicopter for a terrorist attack. The men had stayed in a local hotel and purchased box cutters, leather-man knives, and other potential weapons at the local Wal-Mart using a credit card. The box cutters had been hidden in the lining at the bottom of the back packs and the other weapons were hidden throughout their baggage. They had audiotaped the telephone conversation with Arlene and were going to use it as part of a national news story about how easy it is to get information and directions to the location of the helicopter and then hijack it to commit a terrorist attack.
So, in an attempt to create a sensationalistic story (instead of like, you know, reporting) a couple of morons decide to charter an aircraft while fitting the near perfect description of a terrorist. They got busted. And jailed.
As the site says, the story won’t be seen much since they were caught. No sensationalism = no story.
Via Fark, whose Farklanche shut down the original story.
August 13th, 2004 at 3:37 pm
to me this is what happens when the FBI makes big announments. People who are in the industries pay attention and start asking questions.
That guy should bet a few cool thousand to reward his alertness (and to encourage others to do the same)