Muslim Family Kicked Off Airliner
KAYE: Here in New York, there's an anti-terror ad campaign with the tag line "If you see something, say something." Is that the kind of thinking that got a Muslim American family booted off a flight from Washington to Orlando, Florida yesterday? Nine members of the Irfan family, including three young children, were removed from an AirTran flight after other passengers reported what they thought was a suspicious remark. The family was eventually cleared by FBI agents. Earlier I talked to Kashif Irfan and his wife, Inayet Sahin. They explained what happened.</s>INAYET SAHIN, KICKED OFF AIRTRAN FLIGHT: We were walking to our seats and, you know, waiting for people in front of us to put their baggage overhead, and we were just commenting -- someone commented that oh, why are we in the back by the bathrooms. And I mentioned, oh, those are the safest seats. And that led to a whole conversation of where the safest part of the airplane is, whether it's over the wing or next to the engines or the engine's the most dangerous part.</s>KASHIF IRFAN, KICKED OFF AIRTRAN FLIGHT: And the words bomb, explosion, terror plot, assassination or I don't know what else you can think of, none of those words were ever said by any of us.</s>KAYE: Now, AirTran issued a statement this afternoon saying, "We regret that the issue escalated to the heightened security level it did on new year's day, but we trust everyone understands that the security and the safety of our passengers is paramount and cannot be compromised. We apologize to all of the passengers, to the nine who had to undergo extensive interviews from the authorities, and to the 95 who ultimately made the flight." There is a lot to talk about here, and we want to hear from all sides. So let's bring in Edina Lekovic, communications director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a policy advocacy organization, and Cliff May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an anti-terrorism think tank. Welcome to both of you.</s>CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Thank you.</s>KAYE: Cliff, we have a family here innocently discussing airplane security, as concerned as any of us are when we travel, and all of a sudden that becomes a security threat to the entire flight. Does that seem right to you?</s>MAY: No, it's not right. And I think that's why it's good that the airline has apologized to them. They were inconvenienced and they were delayed. But you have to expect this kind of thing will happen. As I understand the story, and it's a misunderstanding that can happen, they were talking about where it's safest to sit on the plane in case something should happen. Now somebody heard all of that or part of that, and I think you don't want to discourage people from raising concerns. Better to be inconvenienced, better to be delayed, than to have one's life threatened. That family doesn't want its life threatened and neither do any other passengers. So this is unfortunate. An apology was in order. An apology's been delivered. I think it should be left right there.</s>KAYE: But, Cliff, do you admit that this family was profiled because they're Muslim. They were wearing their traditional Muslim clothing?</s>MAY: It sounds like what sparked the concern was something that they said about security and where it may be safer to sit on an airline that is under attack --</s>KAYE: But you think it would have sparked the same concern for anyone?</s>MAY: Is it possible? Look, the fact that they are Muslims, that should not be a reason for them to get special scrutiny. But when you couple that with remarks about airline safety, it's going to set off alarms for some people. There are two things -- let me say this very candidly. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists, do not support terrorism, and do not approve of terrorism. That is true. It is equally true that most of the terrorism taking place in the world is being carried out by Muslims who say they act in the name of their religion. That also is a truth, and it's an uncomfortable one, but we have to acknowledge it.</s>KAYE: Let's give Edina a chance to weigh in here. What do you think about what Cliff has just said?</s>EDINA LEKOVIC, MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS COUNCIL: Well, look, we have a situation here where these passengers are jittery and everybody flying these days is jittery, and they followed their instincts. They followed the rules of if you see something say something. And in this case they got it wrong. I don't blame the passengers and I don't think the passengers should be held accountable, but I think the airline needs to be held accountable for a quick and just sort of solution to this sort of mistake that takes place. The airline apologized just today after all this media attention quite understandably. It would have been much better, though, had they quickly rebooked these passengers so that they could just, you know, continue to go about their daily lives. And as to the last assertion that Mr. May just made, you know, I think the reality is that profiling doesn't work. The director of the FBI has said so. The attorney general has said so. And I think that they certainly have better credentials than we do on this case. Smart policing involves following suspicious behavior, and nobody would be against that. People like Jose Padilla and John Walker Lindh would have slipped through the cracks if they had been, you know, subjected to just racial profiling. So I think we've got smarter means that we need to be using here. And again, I think that the bottom line here is we've got to hold the airline accountable so that there can be quick resolutions here.</s>KAYE: Cliff, jump in.</s>MAY: Yes, I was going to say, I don't think I made a case for racial or ethnic or religious profiling. I wouldn't do so. It would be stupid to do that because I think Edina's exactly right. The terrorists will try to use somebody who does not fit that profile. They have done that in the past. They will do that in the future. On 9/11, the 19 hijackers took pains to look -- try to look like anybody else as best they could. Now, on 9/11, we didn't do enough for airline security. Sometimes, like in this case, we may do too much. It is not easy to strike a balance.</s>KAYE: All right, Cliff, Edina, we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you both very much. Coming up, got an extra 50 grand lying around? That's how much some Hollywood bigwigs are handing over to help pay for the Obama inauguration. We'll tell you who's opening their checkbooks in tonight's "Welcome to the White House."