Innocent man suspected of terrorism- Eleni Loving p1

A passenger on an American Airlines flight reported another passenger to the flight crew when she saw him scribbling in a notebook and she thought it looked suspicious. The flight crew returned to the gate to investigate, and the flight was delayed for an hour and a half before they decided that everything was okay and there was no threat.

The man was really just an Ivy League educated economist and professor, working on math equations. The article doesn't  specifically say what made him writing in a notebook look suspicious to the other passenger. But his name was Guido Menzio, and it seems like his appearance might have led the woman to think he was a threat.

The Department of Homeland Security  runs commercials and ads telling people, "see something, say something." This means they are encouraging people to report other people or situations that they think look dangerous or like they could be part of a terrorist plot. The ads give the idea that anything we see that seems like it's a little out of the ordinary should be reported. However in many cases people take this advice too far and end up discriminating against people based on a guess about their appearance, race, or nationality.

Menzio says he which is the woman had just asked him what he was doing, and he could have told her and avoided the whole situation. He said that even the flight crew decided to turn the plane around before even talking to him directly at all. It is ironic that some of Menzio's research actually involves something called "search theory", which researches how much information a person should use to base a decision on. He thinks the decision-making process about airport and flight security should be redesigned to better balance the rights of individuals and all passengers with concerns about safety.

 http://www.npr.org/2016/05/08/477257942/a-man-scribbles-in-a-notepad-terrorist-plot-or-simple-math-problem