Let's hear it for the French . . .

[Witling]

Yes, "I've heard of "guilt by association." fortunately, it's not a valid legal principlal but rather it is folk wisdom. I've also heard of "birds of a feather" and "don't judge a book by it's cover." But, thanks for giving us a glimpse of your thought process.

 

[Genesys]

Originally posted by: Whitling
Yes, "I've heard of "guilt by association." fortunately, it's not a valid legal principlal but rather it is folk wisdom. I've also heard of "birds of a feather" and "don't judge a book by it's cover." But, thanks for giving us a glimpse of your thought process.

so, is it not reasonable to think by 'birds of a feather flock tother' and 'guilt by association'?

if people prone to violence gather together [gangs] to commit random acts of violence and are caught, is it not reasonable to haul all those involved in for their acts? or do you just arrest the one who actually commited the act and not those who had no part except to view or 'assist' [provide weapons, tools, insturments. etc...]

 

[chess9]

Genesys:

I thought birds of a feather were all "flocked" up. Sort of like GW's Iraq policy.

Anyway, don't you folks have anything better to do than trash talk the French? You are making most French very happy to show your displeasure with them. The more you complain the happier they are.

-Robert

 

[Gaard]

More info on this comes to light. Does Inspector Clouseau work for our FBI now?

Air France groundings reportedly a mistake

PARIS - Air France's grounding of three transatlantic flights over Christmas was a mistake, based on FBI information that in one case confused a child's name with a suspected terrorist, the Wall Street Journal Europe said on Friday.

...

French officials said that when French agents detained the passengers on the Paris-Los Angeles flights with names matching those on the list, Air France found the name matching that of the head of a Tunisian-based terror group was a child.

Another "terrorist" was a Welsh insurance agent while a third was an elderly Chinese woman who once ran a restaurant in Paris, the newspaper said. The other three on the list were French citizens.


But then in the same story...

Asked about the newspaper report, a source close to French investigating judges handling terror cases told Reuters it could not be true, because U.S. terrorism investigators had never given French authorities passenger names, only flight numbers.

"This story cannot be true. At no time did the United States give us names. We never had the names of passengers. They just gave us the numbers of the flights they believed were under threat," he said.


Hmmm, who ya gunna believe?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Gaard

Hmmm, who ya gunna believe?

I suspect that there were two types of information provided.
1) The US/FBI has provided the French with a list of potential suspect names that they are searching for in general. (worldwide)

2) The US agencies felt that a threat existed against a given flight number based on elint/humint information.
This was passed onto the French authorities.

The French then cross-checked the names on the wanted list with the passenger list and a list of petentials matched. Those matches later proved false.

I would think that on any flight from Europe and the US there may be some matches to the overall list.
If a John Smith was on the list and a John smith booked a flight, therre would be a flag to check on that person.

 

[chess9]

What good would flight numbers alone be to the French?

If I know the FBI and CIA they have way too many WRONG people on their terrorist list. I wouldn't be surprised if the Pope's on that list....

-Robert