Let me say, first up, I don’t take talkback as a reliable source of information, which is why I’m posting a query on this thing’s veracity.
Here’s the story (paraphrased from the radio):
“The FBI is seeking a carload of men stopped and then released by Florida (I think he said Florida) police. The men were of middle-Eastern appearance, held Israeli passports, had photographs of a nuclear power plant and the Alaskan gas pipeline.” I think he mentioned the police were making a common- or garden-variety traffic stop before 9/11.
The radio guy didn’t city any sources, no other media has reported it. That, combined with the story’s nebulosity, gives it the ring of an urban legend to me. Does anyone have anything confirming or debunking?
Sounds like UL to me, mainly because it isn’t logical and doesn’t take police procedures into account, but it sounds exactly like the sort of thing that someone who didn’t know anything about it would make up.
The police merely “stopped” this carload of Middle Eastern-appearing guys, for a routine traffic stop? I can see how the cops would notice that they had Israeli passports, but how would the fact that they had photos of nuclear power plants and the Alaskan gas pipeline come to their attention? If it was the kind of routine traffic stop I’m familiar with, they would only have looked at their driver’s licenses and not searched the entire car, and if they had searched the car, they would only have noticed things like drug paraphernalia, guns, liquor, etc. Not photos of large public works projects.
If they had made the kind of traffic stop that had required searching the car, then it would have generated paperwork. And if paperwork was filled out, the FBI would have a line on these guys. But if the UL goes, “They didn’t fill out any paperwork, because they let the guys go”, then how would a couple of cops remember a routine traffic stop that didn’t even generate any paperwork made at an earlier date? Oh, wait, because “that was the one where they had the photos of the Alaskan pipeline in the glove box…” :rolleyes:
And, if the four Middle Eastern guys really were members of Al Qaeda, why would they have been driving around with incriminating photos of possible targets in their car? In reality, they were incredibly quiet and careful, for years. Why would they have broken with that pattern?
Also, AFAIK none of the suspected terrorists who have been arrested so far have been traveling on Israeli passports. Why would members of Al Qaeda have Israeli passports? Why would the UL have them with Israeli passports? It actually sounds like an offshoot of the “the Jews bombed the WTC” conspiracy theory.
Boxcutters. Of course. :rolleyes: I’m betting that the next time you hear it, it’ll have “…and a diagram of the Golden Gate Bridge!” added onto it, too.
