Freedom to Travel Event, Part 4

[Michael Fisher]

Whew, I finally have time to send it out.  I'll send it out now, but it probably won't make the news until Thursday.

[Michael Fisher]

Sent the press release out to my contacts at:
-AP
-Boston Globe
-Drudge Report
-Exeter Newsletter
-Union Leader
-Fosters
-Portsmouth Herald
-The Wire
-Concord Monitor
-Keene Sentinel

[Dreepa]

Got this in the mail:

http://www.soulawakenings.com/underground/TSA1.jpg
http://www.soulawakenings.com/underground/TSA2.jpg

And disclosing them to "persons without a "need to know"" will expose you to further charges. Did anyone else read the "Sensitive Security Information" warniong at the bottom of each page?

If someone sends me a letter I should be able to publish it or do anything I see fit with it.

This might make a good case.  Russell I know you probably won't fight it but if (and you know they will) they charge you for showing the letter I wonder what the courts (and or juries) would think of it.

In fact the original charge as well would be interesting because how can you break a law if they are 'secret'.

[Michael Fisher]

If someone sends me a letter I should be able to publish it or do anything I see fit with it.

This might make a good case.? Russell I know you probably won't fight it but if (and you know they will) they charge you for showing the letter I wonder what the courts (and or juries) would think of it.

In fact the original charge as well would be interesting because how can you break a law if they are 'secret'.

I hope this receives vast press coverage.  It will be very interesting if and when it does.   

[Russell Kanning]

This might make a good case.? Russell I know you probably won't fight it but if (and you know they will) they charge you for showing the letter I wonder what the courts (and or juries) would think of it.

I wouldn't go to court unless they drag me there. I might plea my case or be quiet like Lauren .... oh who am I kidding .... I could never be silent.

[Michael Fisher]

Well, when they come knocking on your door for violating their "need to know" rules...are you gonna shoot first?

You don't know Russell very well if you ask this question.

He talks about violence sometimes, but he's one of the most nonviolent guys I know. 

[Russell Kanning]

Well, when they come knocking on your door for violating their "need to know" rules...are you gonna shoot first?

No .... if they arrest me .... I will go with them ..... but I won't like it.

[Kat Kanning]

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=406051&category=BUSINESS&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=10/6/2005
Airport eyes scanner security
System will move registrants more quickly through checkpoints at Albany

By ERIC ANDERSON, Deputy business editor
First published: Thursday, October 6, 2005

COLONIE -- Eye scans and fingerprint readers could be part of a new effort to shorten the wait at security checkpoints for travelers at Albany International Airport and dozens of other terminals nationwide.

Albany International is one of more than 50 airports seeking to establish a registered traveler program with compatible equipment, procedures and a networked computer database. They've joined the Registered Traveler Interoperability Consortium of the American Association of Airport Executives, which is seeking a coordinated security screening approach for frequent travelers.
   
      
The Transportation Security Administration, established to improve airport screening after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has been operating a pilot program involving five airports. The program recently concluded, but it was extended through January at Orlando International Airport in Florida.

TSA spokeswoman Tara Uselding said response to the program had been positive.

Airports would create a dedicated line for travelers who registered and paid a fee to help cover the program's costs. While anyone could participate, planners expect the program would be most attractive to frequent fliers. Participants would undergo a background check and be provided with an identity card that might include biometric information.

Travelers would still go through a metal detector and be subject to additional searches if they triggered it. Absent that, however, they wouldn't be subject to a secondary security check, as some now are.

A traveler registered in Albany could go through the line at any other participating airport.

"We want the person also to be able to go through the registered traveler line at the returning airport," said Paul Varville, federal security director for the TSA at Albany International Airport.

Varville estimates the program wouldn't be launched for at least six months, and it would be phased in over time. It's not clear how much the effort might cost.

Airports in the registered traveler network include Boston's Logan, Dallas Fort Worth, Denver, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

Smaller airports, including Bangor in Maine and Tupelo Regional in Mississippi, also are part of the network. And while the nation's two busiest airports, Atlanta Hartsfield and Chicago O'Hare, aren't yet members, a spokeswoman said she expects they will participate.

"We had a meeting this past weekend, and there were representatives from Atlanta at that meeting who spoke very strongly of a national program," said Colleen Chamberlain, director of transportation security policy for the American Association of Airport Executives.

Albany International already has equipment in place that scans the irises of employees' eyes for positive identification. Under a $189,000 pilot program funded by the federal government, it installed three scanners, at the terminal's security checkpoint, the airport operations center and in the baggage claim area, where workers move out to the airport apron.

Airport officials say the iris scan is more accurate than fingerprints and can be used in inclement weather when airport employees are wearing gloves.

Employees swipe their ID card in a reader, then look into the iris scanner, which matches the iris image to one in its database, a process that takes 2 to 3 seconds.

One traveler who flies between 50,000 and 100,000 miles a year said he's all for the program if it's consistent across airports and truly saves him time.

"I like the idea," said Steve Cosgrove, vice president of technical sales and support at Acusim Software Inc. in Glenville. "Would I pay $100? Maybe. $50? Definitely, if this will allow me to squeeze more minutes out of my day."

[Russell Kanning]

arghhhh

[Russell Kanning]

Are we having fun yet?

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/051006/480/nyjm10210062254

[Michael Fisher]

Free fed grants for the gov.  Free overtime for the cops.  Treating people like you are their god.

What's not to like about this?   

[Kat Kanning]

TSA impresses with their thoroughness!


Toy, Cookie Are Mistaken for Bomb Parts

1 hour, 12 minutes ago

SAN DIEGO - A terminal at San Diego International Airport was evacuated Tuesday after luggage screeners mistook a child's toy and a cookie for bomb-making components, officials said.
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A screening machine at the Commuter Terminal detected what appeared to be bomb-making material in a carryon bag around 7:45 a.m., said Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Jennifer Peppin.

A bomb squad was called to the terminal, which serves regional flights, and investigators determined the bag did not contain any "IED," or improvised explosive devices, Peppin said.

"Essentially what they did find was a child's toy and some organic material in a bag that turned out to be a cookie," Peppin said. "Those two items combined on-screen, they very much appeared to be an IED, and it turned out not to be."

The terminal was reopened about 9:20 a.m. and passengers were allowed back in, Melendez said. Five commuter flights to Los Angeles and one flight to Salt Lake City were delayed, said Steve Shultz, an airport spokesman.

The discovery followed bomb threats called in earlier Tuesday to airports in Long Beach and Orange County. The calls triggered massive searches of both facilities but no explosive devices were found.

[Dreepa]

"Essentially what they did find was a child's toy and some organic material in a bag that turned out to be a cookie,"

'organic' material too funny!

[Kat Kanning]

 Slaying Lyons

by Becky Akers

If it came to a choice between your family and the career enabling you to feed and support that family, which would you choose?

That devilish dilemma confronted Christopher Lyons of Oxford, Connecticut, when he, his wife, Karen, and their two-year-old boy, Spencer, fell into the clutches of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last February. Screeners who unearthed a penknife in the Lyons' carry-on bag decided it was "artfully concealed" and called the cops. The stunned and shaken couple agreed that she would take the rap lest his job as a corporate pilot be threatened. While her son sobbed and her husband watched helplessly, this 34-year-old mother was marched away in handcuffs to be fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated. Presumably, arresting Mrs. Lyons struck some sort of blow against terrorism, but I'm a bit fuzzy on exactly how.

The Lyons' saga began when they set off on what was supposed to be a vacation to sunny Disney World in the pre-dawn blackness of a winter's day. Federalized airport security does its best to turn travel into torment, and the Lyons' attempt to board their 7 AM flight on Southwest Airlines was no exception. Screeners rifling their belongings found a Swiss Army knife with ? horrors! ? a 2-inch blade nestled midway through a container of "Huggies" diaper wipes.

The TSA wants us to believe the couple deliberately concealed the $15 penknife so it can fine them up to $10,000 each. That Mrs. Lyons used to work as a flight attendant while Mr. Lyons is a pilot and former Marine and that both of them are, therefore, familiar with airports and security and much cleverer ways to hide "weapons" ? yes, the TSA persists in calling a 2-inch blade a "weapon" ? doesn't faze Our Rulers. Nor does the glaring absence of any motive or criminal record.

The Lyons have a reasonable theory for why the knife was lurking in the Huggies, though they can't say for sure ("I have no idea...," Mr. Lyons, 43, told the Hartford Courant, while his wife added, "We didn't even know it had fallen out of his pocket"). To minimize the overwhelming stresses the government now inflicts on travellers, the Lyons drove the 65 miles from their home to Bradley International Airport the night before their flight. They slept at a neighboring hotel. Mr. Lyons thinks he had the penknife in his pocket when he changed his son's diaper around 5 that morning before checking out of the room. Because he didn't turn on a light, he didn't see the knife when it slipped from his pocket into the Huggies container. Nor did his wife, who replenished the canister, thereby "concealing" the knife, in preparation for long checkpoint lines and a flight with a two-year-old. They say it's also possible the "weapon" fell on the bed and one or the other inadvertently scooped it up with the extra Huggies in their rush to leave.

But a knife so innocuous neither parent worried over its proximity to their son alarmed those courageous dipsticks at the TSA. Never known for their smarts or speed, the screeners ran the diaper bag through their X-ray gizmo time and again while the Lyons' anxiety mounted. Then came a quarter-hour consultation with screening supervisors. Bradley's TSA honchos are at the same moronic level as those in the rest of the country: their response to this insane sunrise scene was to call the Connecticut State Police. Good bureaucrats all, the cops told the Lyons, "We have to arrest someone." And, by jingo, though lacking any crime, these whizzes still managed to come up with a charge: the Lyons were "circumventing airport security." Husband and wife conferred. Knowing an arrest could badly injure or even kill his career, the couple agreed that Mrs. Lyons would sacrifice herself. Troopers cuffed her and dragged her off, not to Disney World but to a holding cell.

A hearing on this criminally absurd case was scheduled for this week. "Any and all attempts to purposefully conceal a prohibited item at a passenger security checkpoint will result in the issuance of a civil penalty," sniffed TSA spokes-stooge Ann Davis. Apparently, neither she nor the other bullies at the TSA lose sleep over destroying their fellow-citizens' lives, impoverishing them, or persecuting sincere, hard-working parents trapped in a silly web of events. But never let it be said the TSA has no heart: it has magnanimously recommended the Lyons be fined only $6000 apiece, rather than the full $10,000 allowed by its regulations. I suppose the hearing will feature endless testimony about dim hotel rooms, penknives ? excuse me, "weapons" ? and Huggies. Let's hope the diaper in question is submitted for evidence so the court stinks as badly as the rest of this tyrannical charade.

Mr. Lyons made the obligatory obeisance to the TSA by telling the Courant that he "appreciates the need for strict airport security." But "this is my career, and it's not something to be taken lightly and mess around with."

Then he cut to the heart of the matter. "I was in the military and I hate to say this, but I just don't trust the government."

Welcome to the club, Mr. Lyons.

October 29, 2005

Becky Akers [send her mail] writes primarily about the American Revolution.

[Pat McCotter]

I am going to have to stop reading this thread and anything to do with TSA.