3 ms·

Did you even read the article? He had a stack of common flash cards in his pocket. He needed to know words like "bomb" and "terrorism" to understand arabic news

• gojomo 17y ago
  I read the article very carefully. Did you? It did not give any indication of how 'common' the cards were, or whether there was a 'stack' or just a few. You are sympathetically imagining those details. Did you read what I wrote carefully? I said the interpretation depends on details not available in the story, and my scenarios were hypotheticals to reflect how much was left out of the LATimes account. We don't know how the cards were noticed. I've gone through security often, and sometimes had 'extra attention', but they've never lingered over the contents of my pockets or carry-on enough to read the titles of my books, or writing on my note cards. Yet, for Mr. George, 2 flashcards (of an unknown number, perhaps just 2) that were "in his pocket" were (a) touchy words for the TSA; (b) somehow observed by them. It makes a difference whether they were in the middle of a deep deck in his carry-on, or he fished exactly those two out of his pocket and dropped them into the x-ray tray. One is perfectly innocent; the other suggests he was trying to test the limits or provoke a reaction. I don't know what actually happened and unless you've read a more detailed source than the LATimes article, neither do you.