A federal appeals court ruled today that MBTA cops had the right to arrest a Mexican man at the Sullivan Square T stop after the Madrid bombings because he and other "Middle Eastern" men in his van seemed to be doing the same things terrorists might do before trying to blow up the station.
J.M. Lawrence reports on a hearing in US District Court yesterday for Tarek Mehanna, a Sudbury man charged with terrorism:
... There were so many supporters for Mehanna, who is accused of providing material support to a terrorist organization, that an overflow courtroom was created where they could view the brief proceedings on closed circuit television.
MBTA police were busy making sweeps this morning through trains at Maverick and Park Street (Red Line toward Alewife). Mediacrity tweets she saw T cops in every station on the Red Line from Porter to South Station and at the Silver Line stop at South Station.
Associated Press explains the system and its connection to yesterday's raids.
Geoff Edgers talks to one of those guys detained at Logan despite not being a terrorist, and now he's vowing to fight the T over the whole mess. The T basically says: Tough, that's the price of freedom in a post-9/11 world.
Earlier:
The man who wasn't a terrorist.
If you do something stupid like stand in front of the Federal Reserve Bank in this post-9/11 world and aim a camera at the building, don't be surprised if some angry federale leaps out at you and demands you stop immediately. That's why God gave us Google Street View:
Mark Baard has posted a bunch of Google Street View photos of local federal offices.
Earlier:
But where are the incriminating photos?
Marilora lives close enough to the harbor to be able to take pictures of the giant LNG tankers from her bedroom window. So she takes great interest in reports on the damage a terrorist attack on one could do, like incinerating everybody within a one-mile radius:
Rob Bellinger ponders last week's Phoenix front page o' doom (in which the immolation of the entire waterfront at the hands of a jihadi blowing up an LNG tanker is gleefully described) and other indications of our terrorism obsession and he wonders:
... As Boston tries to find its terror target significance, I have to wonder: is it envy or is it really just guilt? Perhaps a mix of both.
Sushiesque reports a security guard at the federal Volpe transportation building ordered her to delete a photo she'd just taken of Mr. Gobbles, the wild turkey that hangs around there.
The photos they don't want you to see (by somebody else).
The Boston Tea Party for 9/11 Truth is an effort to call for a new inquiry into the supposed real story behind the 9/11 attacks, rather than continuing the "preposterous fiction" that a bunch of backward Arabs could topple the World Trade Center. On Dec. 16th, they will meet at Faneuil Hall:
Lino's Line watches today as a black-jumpsuited police officer interrogates a guy at South Station:
... The police man wanted to know what that man was doing there. He responded, "nothing." The policeman said that he had been observed sitting there with the baby carriage on two successive days. It seemed rather suspicious as why he would be there two days in a row. ...
Gary McGath ponders why nobody seems to be protesting the T's new random-search policy:
... It's bizarre, but many people trust the government simply because it is the government, because it tells them what to do. Maybe the explanation is that we're descended from apes who gained an evolutionary advantage by obeying the head ape.
Gary, meet Jeff:
BadTransit takes a look at the possible reasons for instituting random bag searches when there's no apparent imminent threat against local public transit. You'll be shocked to learn that politics might be involved. But not just a certain governor's bid to show how tough he is on Godless heathens on subway trains terrorists. Might T Police Chief Joseph Carter have had reason to institute searches now?
While T police were busy wrestling deadly asthma inhalers to the ground in Woburn, something at South Acton held up four trains. Gary McGath, who takes that line, wonders what it was and why there wasn't anything in the papers about it:
... Probably the MBTA is too embarrassed to admit what the "suspicious package" turned out to be.
Mac Daniel gets to watch the T's first random bag searches - conducted this morning in Woburn. He reports:
In the end, there was nothing major to report, except for one man who missed his train after his carry-on issued the morning's only positive test for explosive residue. Transit Police said it may have been his asthma medication.
So memo to asthma-suffering T commuters: Leave for work early. Oh, what was it the T said last week about holding trains for anybody snared in one of their inspections?
Kicky Jen Stewart ponders how to have some fun with the searches. She recalls when her bag was searched during the Democratic convention and the Black Uniform pulled out the bra she'd just bought:
... You should've seen the look on the face of the guard who put his hand into THAT bag. Bwahahahahahahaha. *snort* Maybe I'll just carry a bag full of bras and feminine hygiene around! My own form of protest. Heh. ...
Amy vows to not let the roving T inspectors off easy:
... Fuck off, Mitt Romney. Do we really have to get into the "no probable cause" T searches again? This means I'm going to have to start carrying around Planned Parenthood literature, lubricant, gay porn, a large package of AA batteries, and a vibrator again when I ride the T. If they're going to violate my civil liberties, I'm going to make them sorry they bothered. ...
Remember those fun days of downtown subway travel during the DNC? They're back!
Via Lis, who wonders why she had to learn this from nytimes.com rather than from boston.com or bostonherald.com.
We have some real daredevils in our midst:
Flying to and from Long Beach, Calif., Tim Jarrett brings a 4-oz. bottle of contact solution instead of the 3-oz. size the TSA allows:
... Both times a supervisor had to step out and verify that my contact solution was OK. ...
Rod Begbie gets to the airport with a full-size tube of toothpaste, but volunteers to squeeze all but 3 ounces out:
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
