"Jeb" wrote in message
om...
Flight Sim enquiry raises terror alert
By Andrew Orlowski in Las Vegas
Posted: 08/01/2004 at 22:39 GMT
A mother's enquiry about buying Microsoft Flight Simulator for her
ten-year-old son prompted a night-time visit to her home from a state
trooper.

Julie Olearcek, a USAF Reserve pilot made the enquiry at a Staples
store in Massachusetts, home to an earlier bout of hysteria, during
the Salem witch trials.

So alarmed was the Staples clerk at the prospect of the ten year old
learning to fly, that he informed the police, the Greenfield Recorder
reports. The authorities moved into action, leaving nothing to chance.
A few days later, Olearcek was alarmed to discover a state trooper
flashing a torch into to her home through a sliding glass door at 8:30
pm on a rainy night.

Olearcek is a regular Staples customer and schools her son at home.
The Staples manager simply explained that staff were obeying advice.
Shortly before Christmas, the FBI issued a terror alert to beware of
drivers with maps, or reference books.

At one time it was rare to find US citizens, in the safest and most
prosperous country in the world, jumping at their own shadows. Now we
only note how high.

It could also be noted that incidents like this are isolated rather than the
general norm. This specific incident was overplayed because the person
involved on the receiving end was a pilot. People are not jumping at their
own shadows in America. If anything, there's a huge problem with people
generally beginning to take on a "relaxed" attitude about the country being
hit again.
These incidents are going to happen, and they're going to happen again, so
you better get used to it. When you have retail store managers with good
intentions but absolutely no training in security matters at all calling
meetings and "briefing" young impressionable sales clerks on the importance
of reporting "anything suspicious" because they have received a flyer from
"headquarters" or seen something on the nightly news, this kind of thing is
going to happen.
The bottom line is that we're caught between what we should be doing to be
secure, and what we're actually doing to be secure. It's a mess out there.
There's some security, but not nearly enough has been done. We're caught
between our freedom and how much of that freedom we're willing to give up
for security. It's a HUGE problem that's filled with pot holes. We have
every faction with an agenda to grind flailing away at every attempt to make
the nation more secure. In fact, I think it's safe to say, from what I've
seen so far at least, that we're as afraid and suspicious of our own
government as we are of the terrorist situation, perhaps with reason,
perhaps not...who the hell knows?
The bottom line is that along with these security warnings going up and
down, and the agendas floating around trying to tear the country apart with
conspiracy theories, you're going to have little old ladies hassled at the
airport for their nail clippers; old men of 96 taken aside and made to strip
down to their shorts; clerks at Staples showing the boss that they are
"contributing" to the overall "concerns" of their employers; and young
middle eastern looking men passed by security because no one wants to look
like their profiling.
Hell, all you have to do is take a good look at the posts that might follow
mine here to see how absolutely divided we all are on this issue :-)))
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt