[flyover]

There has been a lot of followup on this story. It seems to fal into two camps. People who believe that any racial profiling is wrong see this as one hysterical racist woman. Thos who don't see a suspicious incident here. The onboard FAM admitted that he understood why people were upset based on the activity. Jacobsen has received some support from fellow passengers:

"What bothered me the most was when we were coming in [to Los Angeles Airport], that last half-hour. My daughter was very upset. I think they should have told those men to sit down. My daughter kept asking me 'why aren't they sitting down?' I was just trying to keep her calm. I was wondering, 'what is going on? The seat belt light is on, get in your seats.' That's when I thought there was really something going on. I figured at that point, even if they weren't armed, there were enough of them standing that they could break through the cockpit door."

"Suspicious?! Absolutely I thought it was suspicious. I fly a lot. I've never seen a flight with so much suspicious activity. A couple of these guys stood up talking to their buddies almost the whole flight. The flight attendant kept telling them to sit down. At one point right before landing -- they had already made the announcement we'd been cleared for landing -- she yelled, 'Sir, you need to sit down, now!' She actually was yelling at him. I've never seen that happen before. When I got off the plane, the first thing I did was call my wife and my parents. I said, turn on the TV, this is going to be big news."

I never felt like you did, like I was going to die on the plane, but I was concerned," Mark explained.

"My husband and I were making a business trip to Santa Monica/LA and departed from Detroit and flew on Northwest Flight #327 on June 29. Normally we are upgraded to first class but the flight was so full that day, we were in economy near the front of the cabin. My husband has a long career of traveling via planes for his work (overseas and in the USA). He immediately sensed there was an eerie feeling of something 'not quite right,' and even though we don't believe in any racial profiling, we had to be blind not to notice the interesting seating arrangement of the passengers and the corresponding ethnicities. They were seated in an almost 'Z' format and constantly checking watches, getting up and crossing the aisles to speak in hushed tones with very obvious Arabic passports (thick ones) in hand. My husband spent a good part of this very long flight standing in the galley (in fact, he could have been mistaken for an Air Marshal), and I have flown enough with him to know we were thinking alike."

So far, eight passengers have thought something suspicious and disturbing occurred on flight 327.

Heather described how at one point during the flight, a passenger from first class got out of his seat and began to walk toward the lavatory at the front of the first class cabin. One of the Syrian men (the man wearing the track suit) rushed in from coach class and literally pushed the first class passenger out of the way to get into the lavatory before him. The man wearing the track suit stayed in the lavatory a long time. Right after he left the lavatory, a man who Heather thought was an air marshal went into the lavatory.

Heather also said that the constant foot traffic and strange behavior she witnessed in the front cabin frightened her. "I thought I was going to die," is how she described her entire experience to The Washington Times.

The irony in all this is that one of the ways we are supposed to fight domestic terrorism is for citizens to be alert and aware of their surroundings. This woman has been demonized for doing so. So far the sympathy seems to go to the Syrian band. Especially ironic since Syria is one of only a few countries that officially supports terrorism and one of the bands most popular numbers is an ode to martyrs. I think, at the very least, these guys knew they were causing concern and really enjored it. And I think the bureacrats are playing CYA.