Ed Morrissey
HotAir.com
7/2/2011
It may be the most infamous mug shot in American history. Did security at Logan Airport miss a chance five months before the 9/11 attacks to have it at every airport checkpoint in the US? According to depositions taken in a lawsuit against the Boston airport and the state troopers that provided security, Atta had been spotted in May 2001 videotaping and photographing security procedures in the airport — and the troopers never stopped him:
Months before the horrific 9/11 attacks, lackadaisical state troopers specially assigned to protect Logan International Airport failed to act on tips that Middle Eastern men were casing security checkpoints armed with cameras, explosive new court documents allege.
One of the suspected terrorists whom troopers could have cornered was later identified as al- Qaeda 9/11 leader Mohammed Atta, according to lawyers for a Boston woman who is suing over the loss of her son. The lawyers took depositions from an airline employee and other witnesses.
Troopers were told the Middle Eastern men were “acting suspiciously” and videotaping airport security in May 2001, according to the filing in a New York court.
“When Mohammad Atta went through the security checkpoint after being reported to F Troop that he was photographing, videotaping and surveilling the checkpoints, Massport F Troop did nothing,” the documents state.
Massport offered a weak and ambiguous defense yesterday, stating that there is “no evidence” that Massport “breached any duty owed by the airport” to the plaintiff. That’s hardly the same thing as saying, “We followed up vigorously on every lead.”…
The article continues at HotAir.com
In the comments section at HotAir:
we’re stripping adult diapers off of 95-year-old women and groping toddlers to avoid the very appearance of profiling.
Meanwhile, a Nigerian muslim is traveling all over the U.S. with a phony passport and expired and stolen boarding passes (with somebody else’s name on them), and nobody at any of the multiple TSA checkpoints says boo to him.
AZCoyote on July 2, 2011 at 12:34 PM
AZCoyote is referring to this story: Nigerian man sneaks on plane with invalid pass. Let’s admit it: the TSA is basically kabuki theatre designed to strip you of your 4th amendment rights in exchange for the promise of greater security.