A 32-year old man was booted from his flight out of Seattle because he was overheard speaking a non-English language — Tamil — on his mobile phone while he waited in line, and again on the aircraft before takeoff. The language is widely spoken around the world, primarily in India, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. Snip from news report: "[The passenger] told officials that he would not speak in a foreign language on his cell phone at an airport in the future." Link (Thanks, Adam)
Reader comment: Vikki says,
This decision on the part of the airline and the passengers of the airline makes about as much sense as banning liquids.
He could be speaking English, albeit in code, and still planning to bomb the hell out of the place at any moment.
Everyone's paranoid. Time to break out the marijuana.
Ennis at SepiaMutiny blogs,
This is hardly the first time this something of this sort has happened. A man was detained for several hours for speaking Arabic on the phone at a bus station. Two britasians were kept off a flight for speaking Urdu (although there is some evidence that they may have been trying to provoke an incident). A flight was even diverted because passengers felt threatened by two orthodox jews praying in Hebrew! There are many more cases like this involving Sikhs immediately after 9/11, I'm just showcasing some non-Sikh examples so that the rest of you can relate.
