A "Non-Event" at Houston Hobby Airport

Take a look at this incident and see if you agree that it was a "non-event":

McCauley and Ready would not comment about the June 26 incident, but a confidential TSA report obtained by the Houston Chronicle details a dispute between screeners and a police officer on duty at the airport.

The report states that a man with a Middle Eastern name and a ticket for a Delta Airlines flight to Atlanta shook his head when screeners asked if he had a laptop computer in his baggage, but an X-ray machine operator detected a laptop.

A search of the man's baggage revealed a clock with a 9-volt battery taped to it and a copy of the Quran, the report said. A screener examined the man's shoes and determined that the "entire soles of both shoes were gutted out."

No explosive material was detected, the report states. A police officer was summoned and questioned the man, examined his identification, shoes and the clock, then cleared him for travel, according to the report.

A TSA screener disagreed with the officer, saying "the shoes had been tampered with and there were all the components of (a bomb) except the explosive itself," the report says.

The officer retorted, "I thought y'all were trained in this stuff," TSA officials reported.

The report says the TSA screener notified Delta Airlines and talked again with the officer, who said he had been unable to check the passenger's criminal background because of computer problems.

FBI involvement

The incident gained enough attention at higher levels of the TSA that the FBI was asked to investigate. The TSA issued a statement saying its screeners "acted in accordance with their training and protocols."

FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett in Atlanta said agents there investigated the passenger.

"It was looked at and deemed a non-event," Emmett said, declining to give further details.

There were enough red flags flying around this guy that he should never have been allowed to board that plane. How would the passengers have felt knowing that he had the materials he had, and yet was allowed to travel? I guarantee you that you would have had a passenger revolt if they knew what the screeners had found, and then heard that he was allowed to fly on their airplane.