Annie Jacobsen will not let the
story of Northwest Flight 327
go. Good for her. She’s back today with another
on-the-record interview with a fellow passenger, who brings important — and
disturbing — new details to light. She’s also been on the phone arguing
with Dave Adams of the Federal Air Marshals service, who says that the FBI
considers this matter an “ongoing investigation.” Hmm.
I accept that the Syrians were, as Clinton Taylor first reported in
NRO, a
legitimate band of musicians hired to play at a casino. But does that mean
that at least some of them weren’t up to no good? I’m still bothered by a
few things here. First, I don’t like the way the government authorities are
handling this. When I spoke personally to Dave Adams right after Jacobsen’s
initial story broke, he was very polite and thorough, and confirmed that the
Syrian behavior Jacobsen says she saw on the flight really took place — he
only disputed the dire conclusions she drew from it. A couple of weeks
later, after Jacobsen’s story became a national sensation, the FAMS marched
out an anonymous air marshal who claimed to have been on the flight, making
this person available to Time magazine for an interview in which the marshal
painted Jacobsen as some sort of hysteric. I don’t buy it at all — and if
she was a hysteric, then so were the others on that flight who have now come
forward with detailed, corroborative accounts of Jacobsen’s initial story.
Second, if this is such and open-and-shut case, why is the FBI still
investigating it? Why did the booking agent for the concert refuse to answer
media queries about it after Taylor’s article ran, saying that Homeland
Security had told his people not to talk to the press ( here and
here)?