Student hand-cuffed and detained at airport for having Arabic flashcards sues TSA, FBI...

Nicholas George was just trying to get to college for his senior year. It was August 29, 2009, and he was attempting to fly from Philadelphia to Southern California to start up his senior year at Pomona College.

While he was going through the security line at Philadelphia International Airport, TSA agents put him through extra screening, according to his lawsuit, filed by the ACLU.

They asked him to empty his pockets, and he had some English-Arabic flashcards in them, as he’d been learning Arabic for three years and was a Middle-Eastern Studies major. After discovering the flashcards, the TSA agents kept him in the screening area for a half hour. More...