Constipation, not terrorism, to blame for plane scare

The mystery of the 14 Syrian men who terrified the passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight last week has been solved. The men, it appears, genuinely did belong to a Syrian musical band performing in a casino in Los Angeles and were not terrorists trying to build a bomb in the airplane bathroom, as Annie Jacobsen feared.
As Clinton Taylor points out in NRO, however, this does not mean there is nothing to worry about. No one knew at the time who the men were, and no one bothered finding out or confronting them in any way:

"If this had been the real thing, and the musicians had instead been terrorists, nothing was stopping them from taking control of the plane or assembling a bomb in the restroom. Given the information they were working with at the time, almost everyone should have reacted differently than they did.
"Jacobsen's fear was quite natural under these circumstances, and she has done us a service by pointing out some egregious shortfalls in our airline security. Danke Schoen, Darling. Let's hope the right people are listening."

Unfortunately, it's unlikely they are. It's not like the shoddy state of airport security after 9/11 is any great secret.