Some time last August, Martin Norén left his house in Lund, southern Sweden, and got on Iceland Air flight 689 from Copenhagen to Orlando, Florida, where he was scheduled to take part in a conference for computer technicians. He missed this conference as he was ordered to stay in his seat as the other passengers disembarked upon landing in Florida. Mr. Norén, a thin quiet man with no particular political affiliations, had never been in any world hot spots nor had anything at all to do with areas of particular concern to the US border authorities, and therefore had no idea why he was asked to stay seated as the others left for their destinations. His Swedish passport and all travel documents were in order, but he alone was soon escorted from the plane and deposited into the hands of six armed guards who escorted him to an interrogation room.
There all of his documents were taken from him along with his belt and watch. He was bombarded for four hours with questions about his knowledge of Arabic (none), his affiliations with Al-Qaida (none), his religious beliefs (none), his reasons for his hatred of the US (none), and his reasons for wanting to go to Afghanistan (none). His repeated answer was that he was simply a computer technician from Lund and had no idea what they were asking about. Despite his complete inability to answer any of their questions, since none applied to him, he was then escorted to the Seminole State Prison in handcuffs and put into a filthy, cold cell. After six hours he was taken back to the plane and returned to Sweden.
Upon his return to Sweden he laid charges against unknown criminals and the Swedish police were able to trace his misadventures to a FBI website in which citizens are asked to denounce people they suspect to be Al Qaida terrorists or at least sympathizers. Mr. Norén’s father-in-law does not like him and therefore typed in Norén’s name on the website and the rest is history. So that’s how easy it is, as Mr. Norén put it, to think you are on your way to Disneyland and to end up in handcuffs in a cold dirty cell.