Slashdot Mirror
Bomb Threats Via Twitter Partly Shut Down Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that "Credible" bomb threats were made Saturday against two flights bound for Atlanta, an airport spokesman said. The flights landed safely after being escorted into Atlanta by military fighter jets. Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport spokesman Reese McCrainie told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at 3 p.m. that both flights — Delta 1156 and Southwest 2492 — had landed and were sitting on a taxiway waiting to be swept by the Atlanta police Bomb Squad. ... Witnesses reported seeing multiple emergency vehicles on the tarmac, and the Federal Aviation Administration said just before 3 p.m. that departing flights were experiencing gate holds and delays of up to 30 minutes due to a bomb threat.
USA Today says that the flights were on their way to Atlanta from, respectively, Portland, Oregon and Milwaukee, and adds that "NORAD Media Relations Specialist Preston Schlachter confirmed that two F-16 jets launched from McIntire Air Force Base in South Carolina as a precautionary measure."
But this kind of thing could have us chasing our tails.
If there's even a 0.0000000001% chance that something is a credible threat, you can't take any chances. That's why you never see anyone get in a car; it's too dangerous.
... just what would the fighter escort hope to accomplish? Are we really ready to order fighter pilots to shoot down airliners over a phoned-in threat? I guess all it'll take now to spook passengers and completely disrupt air travel in the U.S. is a few bozos with bunch of pre-paid or stolen cellphones.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Someone saying something on the Internet is now somehow "credible?"
It worked, didn't it?
Terrorism in its general form is designed to undermine the state through fear. Its designed to paralyze, and restrict an otherwise free society through random small, infrequent acts of highly publicized violence and mayhem. It works because it exploits guerrilla tactics, something which no government can ever formally protect anyone against.
the solution to the US terror problem seems simple. stop treating third world countries like they're children. quit overthrowing elected leaders and installing dictators, stop propping up nation states with a history of violence, and start treating the people who live in these regions as more than "hearts and minds" that you have to "win." Understand and respect cultural differences, drop the 'world-police' shit and start realizing that just because you've moved on from $x war does not in fact mean the people living in that nation have forgiven or forgotten what you did. And if theyre living under one of your dismissive regimes, theyre likely to form their own regional extremist government predicated on the polar opposite of what they endured. For bonus points, knock off the axis of evil shit.
Good people go to bed earlier.
They spelt "bomb" correctly?
Yeah. If you make threats on Slashdot you get picked up by men in white coats instead of black helicopters.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
That is a losing strategy for the US administration. A population in fear is a great thing from an incompetent government (as they all are): People in fear are not rational anymore and look to somebody "strong" to "protect" them. If they actually where effective against terrorism (impossible), drugs (impossible), etc. they might be facing uncomfortable questions about real problems. This way, they can pretend there is some kind of state of war and everybody needs to support them.
This strategy if "governing" is really old and was perfected in the 3rd Reich. Of course it makes a country far more vulnerable to internal and external threats and hence is completely and utterly morally corrupt.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
my money is on a disgrunted passenger. Their employees are so angry and hateful that by the end of the flight, you want to bomb them. I just love six hours flights without even a snack. I've gotten free upgrades to first class a few times with my miles, and I think if I had just stomped someone's puppy to death in front of them they would have been less hostle than the last flight attendant I had in first class. Two flights before that there was vomit on the seat and the seat back in front of me that wasn't cleaned-up. I couldn't change seats because the flight was full, and I had to argue to get napkins. Fortunately a new mother near me had some wetwipes she let me have.
Bringing a fighter jet to a bomb threat. That makes sense!
TFA states that the guy posted to a twitter account stating that he put a bomb on a plane in Portland, and then posted again saying he placed one on a plane in Milwaukee. How the hell is that credible? He can be in two places at once? That didn't raise any flags about it being bogus? Airport spokesman Reese McCranie said "We believe the threats to be credible". Wow, just wow.
What is there on a fighter jet that could possibly help?
Eyeballs, and a brain.
This might have been harassment targeting one of the passengers.
That Finnish kid in lizardsquad grounded a plan with a Sony executive by making a false bomb threat.
What does the medium of the threat have to do with its credibility?
The threats were originally posted to Twitter by @kingZortic. At about 3:51 p.m. the account, which had earlier challenged the FBI, CIA and NSA, posted an address on the 4500 block of West Schubert Avenue in Chicago and issued another challenge to "come get me I got guns, COME AT ME."
Chicago Police went to the address listed on social media and determined that the person behind the threats did not actually reside at that address, said News Affairs Officer Bari Lemmon. Police did not find any weapons and did not arrest or detain anyone, Lemmon said.
The threats targeted Southwest Airlines Flight 2492, which arrived at Atlanta from Milwaukee, and Delta Air Lines Flight 1156, which arrived from Portland, Oregon, said Reese McCranie, a spokesman for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Both planes landed safely.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
If they think the threat is designed to secure passenger/crew compliance for another 9/11 style attack, yeah, I think they would shoot down a civilian aircraft if it didn't respond to their orders. Of course, passengers and crew these days expect any such threat to result in another 9/11 style attack and have proven repeatedly that they will beat the shit out of and quite possibly kill anyone trying to pull shit on their airplane. So the fighter jet is still just multi-million-dollar dick waving. It's probably more to let terrorist organizations know that we will shoot a plane down if we have to, rather than because we expect that we'd actually have to.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?