Lucky he hadn't handed them a dictionary then. That has all the bad words.
By the way, given you seem to agree with the TSA that it is suspicious for a traveler to be learning certain words, how would you plan on reading the news in a foreign language without learning words like bomb and kidnap?
To the point of another poster re "security theater" terrorists don't come with name cards. TSA is not supposed to just check you're not carrying any liquids. The agents need to be able to question people who trigger that gut feeling. The questioning should be professional, respectful, but curt and effective.
A guy going through airport security, recently in the middle east, not familiar with key aspects airport protocol (take out electronics, empty pockets), carrying cards with those words. Yeah, talk to him for a few minutes. I'd rather that than spending their time patting down kids and grannies.
Ideally get him through the full eval without even missing the flight. Don't handcuff a non-violent suspect, etc. The process here was imperfect but simply not as insane as the blog post made it out to be.
As for myself, I'd much rather support someone who provides all facts than conveniently leaves out stuff that could damage his cause. What happened to him was bad and this extra details would not have made much of a difference. By leaving them out he gave them far more importance than they would have been before…