Terrorist

Factual Questions
1

Re: the guy who got arrested for having bomb-making materials.

What did he do that raised suspicions that got his car searched? Did dogs smell explosives? Did he say something un-American? Was it because he was Middle-Eastern? Was there a tip-off that he was coming?

I looked in the mirror today/My eyes just didn’t seem so bright
I’ve lost a few more hairs/I think I’m going bald - Rush

2

From what I understand, there were two main reasons for suspicion:

  1. Travel itinerary. The two suspected terrorists had travelled from Vancouver by ferry to Vancouver Island, then immediately on arrival here in Victoria (which is on Vancouver Island), got on the “Coho” ferry which runs from Victoria to Port Angeles, WA. This is nonsensical for a real tourist: Vancouver is about 25 minutes from a land border crossing into the USA, no ferry trip required. Why add two ferry trips in one day which are completely un-necessary? The roundabout route would have added approx. 90 minutes for the Vancouver-Vancouver Island ferry (actually Twassen to Swartz Bay), another 35 minutes from the drive into Victoria, a couple of hours waiting time for the “Coho” sailing, then another 45 minutes or to sail the 20 miles from Victoria to Port Angeles (I can see the entire route from my office window). This little adventure would also have cost them about $70 US for both ferry rides. “Normal” tourists spend a night or two in Victoria, and see the many sights. I think the two suspects believed that since Port Angeles is a fairly small town, the US Customs might be slacker than the main crossing on the mainland. Of course, they were very wrong!

Here’s the ferry routes in question: http://www.islands.bc.ca/

  1. According to local media, who interviewed the “Coho” crew and other passengers, the individuals were visibly nervous on the crossing (as well they might be with big jars of nitro, etc.! Customs agents all over the world are very adept at spotting nervous people: it’s their job.

The real question is: who’s behind this, how many more are there, and what was their intended target?

Launcher may train without warning.

3

Anyone who got caught by the Port Angeles customs crew had to be wearing a bright red flag with a bullseye on it.

Not that the customs agents who work there aren’t the sharpest arrows in the Treasury Department’s quiver, but it’s a sleepy little touristy crossing mostly concerned with people trying to skip paying duty on Canadian goods.

This guy was sweating, shaking, pants-wetting nervous during routine questioning by bored border guards. When they decided to take a peek in his trunk he jumped out of the car and ran!

(If you had nitroglycerin in your trunk you’d probably run too.)

“If ignorance were corn flakes, you’d be General Mills.”
Cecil Adams
The Straight Dope

4

Rodd, I’ve done the one-day Victoria trip, going from Vancouver to Victoria via ferry, then another ferry trip back to WA. Now, I did spend a few hours in Victoria, so maybe that threw off the border guards. :slight_smile:

I didn’t stay not because I didn’t think it was a lovely city, but that my sister lives aross the sound in Everett, WA.

I looked in the mirror today/My eyes just didn’t seem so bright
I’ve lost a few more hairs/I think I’m going bald - Rush

5

I would like to suggest that this one instance where I do not believe that publicity about how/why he was caught serves any useful purpose other than to alert other terrorists what to avoid.

[sarcasm]“Well, he was caught because the lock on the suitcase was not airtight, if he had been smart enough to wrap the whole suitcase in a large plastic baggie, we’d never have got him,” said the proud customs official. [/sarcasm]

Freedom of the press is great, don’t get me wrong. The public’s right to know is also important. But this is an instance where, IMHO, the public doesn’t have the right to know every tiny detail, at the expense of destroying the effectiveness of a law-enforcement technique.

6

Although I agree that there may be times when all the facts of a case need not be disclosed to the public, I don’t believe that discussing how we think the guy got himself caught is going to help any future suspected Algerian terrorists from sneaking past any border guards.

If their boss wants to find out what went wrong he’ll turn on CNN rather than ask Cecil !