www.turnto10.com/news/4806362/detail.html

Passengers Report Suspicious Activity NEWPORT, R.I. -- Activity aboard a Newport dinner cruise Tuesday night led to a homeland security check, during which four men were questioned and detained. The incident happened on the Harbor Queen after passengers talked to the captain. It was the 6:30 p.m. tour of Newport Harbor that was cut short -- just a half hour into the trip. About 55 passengers were on board the brand new Harbor Queen when some of them thought that four men in their 20s of Middle Eastern descent were not acting right. "They weren't taking scenic pictures," said Bob Dahmer, of Spirit of Newport. "They were taking pictures of different parts of the boat." And the other activity, Dahmer said, raised the red flag. "The captain said that one of them had unhooked the chain here (pointing to the chain on the boat)," Dahmer added. According to Dahmer, the captain said there were two other breaches of secured areas. One down a stairwell and another down another stairwell, where one of the men had his hand on the door marked "Crew Only." "When the captain went and challenged the fellow that was going downstairs, he said, 'what are you doing? what are you doing down here?'" But according to Dahmer, the captain did not get a response. Dahmer reported that one of the four men asked why they weren't going under the bridge when the captain started turning the boat around. The boat was diverted to Fort Adams after the captain called the Coast Guard, after passengers reported suspicious activity. State police who searched the boat for unattended baggage found one bag from The Gap, which only contained clothes. Background checks on the men turned up nothing. Maj. Steven O'Donnell concluded that the four men were sightseeing on their day off from work at a casino in Connecticut and spoke limited English. "When people are on board a vessel, if they see something suspicious, since 9/11 we need to report it and we need to carry it through and just make sure that there is no threat or anything," said Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Guthlein, of the U.S. Coast Guard. "And if there is no threat, then that's fine and they go off on their merry way and everything's safe." State police said they found no reason to believe there were security breaches. They also looked at the cell phone pictures the men took and found nothing unusual there. The men were released at 8 p.m. Tuesday. They could not be reached for comment.

But hey, it's 'only a tiny minority of extremists', right. Right?

Gathering intel.

Diversion tactic by some fat guy who wanted to glom all the shrimp on the buffet line.

Can I call things or what? This is my post a couple weeks ago on another board where we were discussing border security-

"Preventative measures are what it's going to take to combat terrorism. See: planes hijacked at knife point so we confiscate tweezers; whacko tries to blow up shoes so we go barefoot through airport security; suicide bombers on busses and subways, armed guards posted afterwards; next it's going to be a mall shooting or cafe explosion or attack of a cruise liner or amusement park that will all of a sudden warrant increase police presence at those locations. The only major news story I've seen about combating a threat before an incident occurs is the plans to develop countermeasures for civilian airliners from surface-to-air missile attacks. The problem is everyone's complaining about the monetary cost. What are they going to do when a missile attack really does occur? If they have any money left after they get their asses sued off, they'll install the systems. But by then the terrorists will have moved on to another unprotected target and ignore the one with reactionary increased security. Call me crazy, but I'm all for trying to stop a problem before it starts (or gets worse)."

Damn I hate being right all the time.