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TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws
stewart_maximus writes "The TSA is investigating a TSA deputized pilot who posted videos to YouTube pointing out security flaws. Flaws exposed include ground crew clearing security with just a card swipe while pilots have to go through metal detectors, and a 'medieval-looking rescue ax' being available on the flight deck. Three days after posting the video, 6 government officials arrived at his door to question him and confiscated his federal firearm (and his concealed weapon permit)."
As long as you should the fuck up.
that the correct spelling is 'axe'.
Before turning to the outside world?
If not, I'ld go after him too.
Otherwise, it's just another bad example of shooting the messenger.
Granted, I haven't seen all the videos this pilot made, but from what I have seen and read so far it sounds like what this pilot was pointing out was things that were already publicly known. Things like airport ground crews having access to restricted areas without themselves having to go through screening, no TSA agents searching them or anything they carry prior to having access to aircraft, etc. Anybody with an ounce of intelligence could have figured out what this pilot documented by just sitting at an airport and watching for a little while, or by getting chummy with airport employees at a nearby bar and asking a few basic questions.
And I certainly don't think this pilot was the first one to point out these flaws. It just sounds to me like the TSA is trying to make a scapegoat out of him.
...keeping us safe from all those pilots!
but I did not catch the terroriiists.
(c) 2010, the TSA.
The Nazi government of US of A has turned completely bat-shit insane. All it does is taking away personal freedoms from people:
Freedoms to speak (wikileaks), freedoms to think (public schools funded and guided by the dep't of education), freedoms to fair trial (Irwin Schiff, Guantanamo, private Manning...), freedoms to do business without harassment (Patriot Act, IRS, CIA, all the regulations and rules and subsidies and taxes), freedoms to deal in real money (Fed printing, 0% interest setting, destruction of currency).
The entire thing is rotten to the core, whether you agree with me on every point or not, but I am not interested in any consensus. My consensus is simple: gov't is cancer and it's killing the society through killing the economy and taking away people's freedoms.
Some justify the US federal gov't in what it does by bringing up the commerce clause, the general welfare clause etc., but since the gov't can justify anything it wants with those clauses right now it's time to ask yourself a question:
Is there a PURPOSE to the Constitution and what IS the purpose? Isn't the purpose of the Constitution to LIMIT the gov't in what it can do? If the commerce/welfare clauses allow the gov't to do whatever it wants, what is then the real purpose of the Constitution and why not just say: gov't can do whatever the fuck it wants and be done with the pretenses?
You can't handle the truth.
The TSA is clearly a firm believer in security through obscurity.
What would you expect if you purposefully published the flaws in your company's security? "Oh, you silly goose!"
Other countries take note: this is what happens when your country just rolls over and lets the terrorists win.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
It's a good thing those terrorists are stupid enough to document all of their pre-attack planning on Youtube, otherwise we'd never catch them...
Security through absurdity, America's greatest weapon again terrorism!
I was unable to locate the video in question, so I assume it's been taken down, and, sadly, and somewhat surprisingly, appears not to have been reuploaded.
Yet another example of that old saying:
Question authority and Authority will question you!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Ground crew have privileged access to secure areas of the airport that demands more security, not less. Make them do an iris scan and enter a passcode in addition to swiping their badge.
Wow. Airport 'security' is a joke, and almost everyone knows it; a Google search for "security theater" turns up over a half-million results. Yet this guy tells us something that we're all aware of already, and gets put throught the mill because of it. It's bad enough when people get crucified for revealing some hidden truth, but when it happens to someone who is simply stating the obvious, that's just sad.
Just what ARE we paying these clowns for anyway? They should go back to allowing knitting needles on planes; pissed off Grandmas would probably deal with terrorists a whole lot more effectively than these clueless idiots.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
What are you going to DO about this
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
For the new US national sport: Shooting the messenger.
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
How much of this security theater can be solved with a bomb-sniffing dog? Instead of checking each new thing for a bomb and still not being able to find them, a dog can just smell the explosive wherever it happens to be hidden. But no, we don't want to do that, that's too obvious, cheap, and easy. We'd much rather have a 1000x more expensive, incomplete and cumbersome solution.
stuff |
You don't need to bend over, Jack. Why don't you just secede? It's perfectly legal, and there's plenty of poeple already moving along that road: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession_in_the_United_States#Recent_efforts_in_the_United_States
As a foreigner, I believe this is the only possible road for redemption of the former "land of the free and home of the brave" - the Russian Soviet Confederation was dismantled, the Chinese Confederation will be broken up too eventually, but the USA is the one most badly in need of an enema.
And just think, you don't even need to take up arms to do it...
Seems like the internet is the perfect forum for attention whores. Because, that's all this is, another asshole looking for his 15 minutes. I' m sure there was a better way of going about this, but he just could resist the call of seeing his face on the interwebs. He is now probably now fucked for life in the US as he may be put on some sort of "list" making his traveling life more difficult, and his job no more. Oh well, the world needs ditch diggers also.
The purpose of the theater is to make the public fearful, not protected. Our government needs a fearful public to enable the erosion of public rights. We gave up a bunch of rights with the Patriot Act that we would never have tolerated the loss of without the "it's for your protection" lie. TSA is part of the cover for this lie and others.
The point is not about the information being public. The point is about the public being aware of it. The TSA exists so that the general public will feel like they are being protected from dangerous terrorists when they travel.
If you are in a big city, take a look around, especially in busy areas. On one side, you see the things the public is supposed to see: storefronts, public transportation, police officers, SWAT teams that just sort of stand around, etc. On the other side, you see service entrances, maintenance corridors, and unlocked doors labeled "DO NOT ENTER." The general public is kept on their toes by constantly having reminders that they need to be protected pushed in their faces, and scary-looking people with guns and dogs do a good job of that (as do enhanced pat-downs, apparently). The fact that a determined terrorist could sneak past all the security is pretty much irrelevant.
Palm trees and 8
What is there to stop him from giving that weapon to someone else on a different flight? Particularly a bomb or bombs. So the pilot crashes one plane and another plane (or multiple planes) explode.
No expense or effort must be spared in burying the truth. The truth must be obscured under all conditions. There is nothing worse than truth bursting out. Freedom of suppression, the right to suppress the truth, must reign supreme.
Bomb sniffing dogs are effective, efficient and can be trained by many different companies/organizations.
Scanners are expensive, inefficient but can only be supplied by a few companies.
Follow the money.
Somewhere in all this talk about tERRORism there is a larger, hidden problem. It's plain before our faces, but most of the prominent stakeholders in the debate seem oblivious to it. But it is of capital importance that we find ways to bring this root problem out in the open and deal with it.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The response of former American Airlines CEO Bob Crandall is beacon of sensibility: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q--wMv0FAc8
FTFA: "Late last month a 50-year-old pilot, who asked that his name and the airline he works for not be made public, took a series of videos with his cell phone to show major flaws he says still exist in airport security systems."
Who wants to take bets that cell phones will now be required to be stowed in checked baggage, due to the "security threat" the camera phones pose?
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
I would love to see a true cost / benefit analysis of the TSA.
Costs $ billions.
Cuts productivity of business travelers.
Dissuades casual travelers from taking vacations.
Increases airfare.
Decreases the flight hours of cockpit crews.
Degrades morale of customer-facing airline workers.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
that something be done. I wonder just who those people are.
let's see
The sad part is it's probably more likely that two pilots have the same name then that same set of credentials.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The law states that a person is innocent until proven guilty. WHAT he is guilty of is beyond me. Since he's NOT proven to be guilty of anything, yet, the confiscation of his personal firearms and permits are a breach of his constitutional rights. The government has broken constitutional law by doing this, and the persons involved need to be prosecuted and jailed for doing so. Also, the items must be returned immediately.
The impression I get from what has been said about the tapes is that he will have hit his goal once the USA is seen as something that the Saudi rulers and possibly others in the region can not associate with if they want to retain power.
He may be happy if the USA were to disintegrate as a side effect, but pretending that was his initial goal as many opportunists have is just a stupid exercise in adding a long list of manufactured evil traits to something that is already a monster.
She doesn't take criticism constructively... she gets defensive.
What about his concealed carry permit?
Is it typical in the USA to 'shoot the messenger'?
Why is security theater so unavoidable, even when they are made to be ashamed?
Why don't they fix the issues he pointed out?
It is all so childish, as seen from here: no security even though they pretend to all the time.
Why do I see parallels to the Assange so-called-case? (various entities try to punish him when there isn't even an official complaint, let alone case)
There are usually two or three people in the cockpit- Pilot, copilot, sometimes navigator (Or whatever that third guy is- flight engineer, maybe?). If the pilot starts going off-course, the other two are going to start asking questions. If he goes into a crazy dive or aims at a building, the other two are going to try to relieve him of command as quickly as possible. Eliminate those other two quickly, and the cabin door is locked, so nobody can do anything about it and Mr. Pilot has the plane all to himself.
I believe it happened once on a FedEx flight- Flight crew attacked the pilot and copilot with a claw hammer. He failed, thankfully.
Sent from my CR-48
Here and again here.
you had me at #!
This country is getting so paranoid... you do know that is a contagious disease?
The TSA is the scariest organization in the USA. It is huge. The regulations it seeks to enforce are classified for national security. It highers only low wage under-educated people. The belligerence you encounter dealing with the TSA is astounding.
It is a recipe for violations of civil rights and suppression of freedom and expression.
The TSA is, in itself, an anathema to freedom and the constitution.
They are not linked from the article nor do I see them on youtube...
How do you think the Nazi party seize power in Germany? Dumb-Ass! Read a fucking history book your stupid, slavish, ignorant, unamerican, unpatriotic, terroristic, vile prick!
I joined all excited, I'll start in screening like everyone else and move in to one of the more obscure TSA roles (undercover security testing, behavior interpretation, EDO,etc) . After 5 months it was clear the only seniority was considered for advancement, not prior experience or intelligence. Top heavy and poor performance (saw a screener put his hand on a gun in a bag and pass it though without finding it in the training environment) Having to do pat downs at the gate of active military members because they had a one-way ticket. Not doing background checks on screeners for months after they started (8 weeks in I was informed they lost my SF86 and I had to do another one!?!), the list is huge and there is the pages of documents of stuff I signed saying I wouldn't ever mention.
I do not play in the middle of the road
Replace "TSA" with "Microsoft", and "security vulnerability" with "software exploit". Now we're back to the discussion about posting live vulnerabilities to the net. If we have a problem with that, we should certainly have a problem with this pilot.
The real reason is that dogs get tired, and sniffing for weird chemicals all the time tends to wear them out. Plus you need to house them somewhere, train them, feed them, and care for them. Basically, dogs don't scale -- it would take thousands of them to properly cover all of the airports in the U.S. (Note that they do use bomb-sniffing dogs on random checks throughout the airports, but they would need like 50x as many of them to actually use them for security screening).
With the rape-scanners on the other hand, they can just buy as many as they want of them. It costs nothing except (1) huge amounts of taxpayer money, and (2) a huge loss of personal dignity and privacy for all air passengers in the U.S. No big deal, obviously. /sarcasm
He made a fatal mistake. Doesn't he know that people shouldn't know there is no security whilst the TSA is sticking its hands up their daughters skirts in the name of security? Big Brother is come, but we don't see his face... we're too busy looking up in the sky for terrorists and looking at all the pretty pictures on our HD TVs.
it's brett farve, and everywhere it's wensday, febyouary and noo-kular...ah, english the living language;-)
Politicians are limited in their power to do what they want, so they crave MORE power to do what they want (good or bad, selfish or selfless.)
To get this, they need to MOVE UPWARD to HIGHER positions not merely maintain their current position.
Naturally, the greedy corrupt ones will want more money which is usually related to how high they can get; but not necessarily. The higher up the less likely your crimes will be punished or prevented...
Term limits would encourage MORE upward movement than we already have; it wouldn't stop all the problems we have.
Sometimes we have a GREAT politician who isn't killed (or dies in an "accident") and I do not think it is worth losing them just to stop a few entrenched crooks. If you haven't noticed, its easy for crooks to win in our system and honest people are not likely to even get elected in the 1st place.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Since terrorism seems to be all the rage nowadays, I give you this very simple plot:
1. A guy wants to blow up a plane, maybe even more than one.
2. He hires some other dudes who have the same ideas.
3. He gets one or more of his recruits to become TSA agents. The plot becomes a long one, but so what, if it takes a couple of years to implement even, as long as there is money...
4. Some of the people he hired do make it and become TSA agents.
5. The fake TSA agents bring weapons through the security check points themselves.
that's it, the rest is details left to imagination.
You can't handle the truth.
TSA should immediatly apologize for harboring an additude that reduces flight safety.
Security by obscurity not only does not work in this context it presents real dangers by masking real problems. There are a shitload of people who make up ground crews and my guess their turnover rate is about average. The procedures for ground crew at airports is NOT A SECRET no matter how hard the TSA wishes to consider otherwise.
The existance of axes in the cockpit is not a secret. Google 'cockpit axe' if you don't believe me. People were talking about this days after 9/11.
A terrorist in the cockpit could just as easily go for the flight controls or the pilots sidearm. It is rediculous. It would be useful to analyze the exact positioning and levers necessary to break it free to ensure should a terrorist gain access to the cockpit obtaining the axe would not be the weakest link.
There is a problem with this article in that it refrences 6 clips but only two issues. Were there other issues? Could those have perhaps referenced other...possibly legitimate concerns? Does anyone still have the origional videos?
Can anyone give a link to the YouTube videos?
Don't you dare tell the emperor that he's stark raving naked... or you'll get your head chopped off.
don't you know if you upload anything to youtube to use tor and a fake account. relly the case if your gonna expose are rights killing tsa to the stupid theater they are.
Pitty Pitty dis nigger.
Nobody gona find him in 36 hrs.
Hees bees scattered across da earth.
-308
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/1224/Thermoses-coffee-cups-added-to-list-of-possible-terrorist-weapons
America, TSA esp., has gone off the deep end ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw
He's in trouble for not following proper security procedure of reporting all problems to the appropriate place, /dev/null.
They confiscated his gun for pointing out safety flaws? I guess constitutional rights don't apply to people who embarrass a government? Can you imagine if they said you weren't allowed to go to church or vote because you embarrassed the government? But it's okay if it's the 2nd amendment? What the fuck, america. Pussies.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Standard MO: don't fix the flaws, "fix" the person who exposes them. I feel more secure already!
Replace the whole body scanners with BS detectors and the TSA folds by New Year's. One billion dollars for intimidation machines that don't work as advertised and may be causing cancer.
The ground crew is screened, its called ADASP Aviation Direct Access Screening Program. As a Older pilot and FFDO (federal flight deck officer) He should be aware of this practice and seen it in progress at least a few times. The problem is ADASP is at a random time and location (there are specifications to the randomness I will not go into).
The pilots should be exempt from screening however. I know a pilot who is glad he went through screening. after purchasing lunch at the newly renovated restaurant in the airport. he came through the checkpoint and passed his food through the xray. The X-ray operator noticed a screw in the xray image of the takeout box. Though it might have fallen out of the previous persons bag and been under the box (2d image could not indicate depth). The pilot was told he should check his food for a screw. He Did and found a screw in the middle of his sandwich.
I know of a flight attendant caught with a bullet in carry on, honest mistake, might have been fired or suspended though.
I chose to remain anonymous, as I am a coward, and would like to keep any gov job.
At 50 yrs old and an FFDO I guess he's worked enough and made enough money to not care about that career anymore, He should have suspected he would have gotten into trouble.
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Except for Mr Kessing. In case you have not heard, Mr Kessing was found guilty just over a week ago of leaking the contents of two classified reports that detailed serious security lapses at our airports. Those reports, one of which was buried for two years and never made it onto the desk of a senior bureaucrat or minister, were published in The Australian. Public concern over the exposé forced the Government to commission the Wheeler Review, which in turn led to one of the biggest security upgrades of airport security. If ever there was a case of a whistleblower deserving our eternal praise, this is it. Instead, he is facing prison.
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More concerned about controlling information than encouraging whistleblowers to expose department inertia and ineptitude over issues of national importance, the Howard Government made sure that Mr Kessing was punished for his efforts. Prosecuted under the Commonwealth Crimes Act, forced to rely on superannuation to defend himself against a Government miffed at a leak, Mr Kessing may end up behind bars for up to two years.
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There are leaks and then there are leaks. Some are right. Some are wrong. But for a Government obsessed with controlling every bit of information, there are no distinctions. Only stiff penalties for those who leak, no matter how beneficial the consequences of the leak.
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As much as governments would prefer the media to simply regurgitate carefully crafted ministerial media releases, spinning the government’s daily message, that is not the role of a robust media in a healthy democracy. The very best journalism is a check on government, exposing matters of national significance. Doing what The Australian did when it forced, with the help of a whistleblower, the government to secure our airports, which sit as frontline defences against terrorism.
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Protecting deserving whistleblowers such as Mr Kessing ought to be seen as a public good. Government departments will lift their game if they understand there are laws that recognise that leaks serving a genuine public interest may be justified.
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http://www.psnews.com.au/ArchivesApril07.html
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3 April, 2007 Jail Shrill Prospect For Whistleblower
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A former Customs Officer who leaked a classified report is facing up to two years in jail. Allan Robert Kessing, 59, was found guilty by a Sydney jury of the unlawful disclosure of information by a former Commonwealth officer. Judge James Bennett bailed Mr Kessing to appear on May 25 for sentencing. Mr Kessing - who had left Customs by the time the report was leaked – sparked a major enquiry into airport security by leaking the report and his legal representative planned to use that as evidence his actions were justified. Sweeping improvements were made to airport security arrangements following an enquiry into the reports claims by English expert Sir John Wheeler. The leaked report was seized on by journalists from The Australian newspaper to blow the whistle on airport security but the journalists have not revealed their sources and were not called to give evidence. Mr Kessing’s lawyer said the case was a matter of public importance but it had attracted little attention. “One of the things that will be very important will be how beneficial the leak of the information was about security for Sydney airport and everyone who travels through it,” the lawyer told the newspaper. “The Wheeler report will vindicate in a substantial degree the fact that the leak itself, the contents of the reports that were leaked, had a very significant beneficial effect.” The enquiry led to the expenditu
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Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
In Australia, the drug and bomb sniffing dogs are rather cute medium-sized beagles. You can bet if the US TSA deployed dogs they'd be something fierce and attack enabled, because damnit, you shouldn't deploy a dog with a good sense of smell! You should deploy a dog to intimidate!