My take is that this is a facile analysis that harms the credibility of its source; I am less likely to take this person seriously in the future after reading this.
I appreciate that they took the time to do actual "reporting" by contacting officials involved with the story.
However, a couple things worth keeping in mind as you read it:
* We can reasonably be convinced that Mukerjee wasn't hiding anything. The concern evinced by TSA, NY PAPD, and JetBlue was that Mukerjee was a danger to the flight he was trying to board. We know he wasn't! This article routinely supplies innuendo about Mukerjee's evasiveness during screening. But we know he had nothing to be evasive about, and thus that the signals TSA picked up on were false; the article's framing puts the onus for that on Mukerjee, incorrectly.
* TSA's rationale for detaining Mukerjee doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. The reasoning supplied by this article could be applied just as effectively to an 85 year old grandmother or a 10 year old boy. It's not falsifiable and not relevant to what happened.
* The analysis glosses over the pivotal moment in the story. The problem wasn't that Mukerjee was denied water or questioned by people that don't know anything about the world's third largest religion. The problem happened when TSA refused to escort Mukerjee, with his carryon, out of the airport, as they are required to do when a passenger refuses screening. Mukerjee's own account has him trying to leave, but put in a position where doing so would cost him his bag and computer. That's the problem here.
There's a worthwhile case to be made for skepticism about some elements of Mukerjee's story. I agree with the article that it seems unlikely for PAPD to have searched his house. It's interesting that Mukerjee claims he was interviewed by an FBI agent when no record seems to have existed of that. I buy the analysis that says that a coherent rebuttal to Mukerjee's story could not easily have self-assembled from 3 different security agencies in the span of a couple days.
Unfortunately, it's hard to take skepticism seriously when it's framed in an article that seems hellbent on taking TSA's claims at face value.
My take is that this is a facile analysis that harms the credibility of its source; I am less likely to take this person seriously in the future after reading this.
I appreciate that they took the time to do actual "reporting" by contacting officials involved with the story.
However, a couple things worth keeping in mind as you read it:
* We can reasonably be convinced that Mukerjee wasn't hiding anything. The concern evinced by TSA, NY PAPD, and JetBlue was that Mukerjee was a danger to the flight he was trying to board. We know he wasn't! This article routinely supplies innuendo about Mukerjee's evasiveness during screening. But we know he had nothing to be evasive about, and thus that the signals TSA picked up on were false; the article's framing puts the onus for that on Mukerjee, incorrectly.
* TSA's rationale for detaining Mukerjee doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. The reasoning supplied by this article could be applied just as effectively to an 85 year old grandmother or a 10 year old boy. It's not falsifiable and not relevant to what happened.
* The analysis glosses over the pivotal moment in the story. The problem wasn't that Mukerjee was denied water or questioned by people that don't know anything about the world's third largest religion. The problem happened when TSA refused to escort Mukerjee, with his carryon, out of the airport, as they are required to do when a passenger refuses screening. Mukerjee's own account has him trying to leave, but put in a position where doing so would cost him his bag and computer. That's the problem here.
There's a worthwhile case to be made for skepticism about some elements of Mukerjee's story. I agree with the article that it seems unlikely for PAPD to have searched his house. It's interesting that Mukerjee claims he was interviewed by an FBI agent when no record seems to have existed of that. I buy the analysis that says that a coherent rebuttal to Mukerjee's story could not easily have self-assembled from 3 different security agencies in the span of a couple days.
Unfortunately, it's hard to take skepticism seriously when it's framed in an article that seems hellbent on taking TSA's claims at face value.