Reagan Control Tower Goes Silent, Planes Forced to Land Solo

Editor's Note:  Unmanned Control Towers? Naked Body Scanners and Intrusive Pat Downs are necessary but apparently the TSA doesn't consider airport controllers as important.  Do you still think the TSA is concerned about your safety?

PAT PAPERS-Pilots heard nothing but silence coming from Reagan Airport yesterday says the Washington Post. Two late-night flights were forced to land on their own after determining the control tower was unmanned. It’s still unclear where the air traffic controller on duty was, but one theory is that he got locked out.


Video: The air traffic control tower was unmanned at Reagan National Airport as an American Airlines pilot approached for a landing. (March 23)

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Panel: Don't treat fliers like terrorists

Travelers at the Denver International Airport line up
at the TSA checkpoint

Editor's Note:  Laughable!!!  The recommendations put forth by the U.S. Travel Association are laughable in that they are obviously intended to create unnecessary divisions within our society.  They want you to provide them with the ability to more easily invade your privacy by granting permission to access "everything" about you, which, in the end, will NOT guarantee you a place at the front of the line.  If you choose to participate in these tyrannical measures, you are contributing to the demise of our nation; to the enslavement of it's people.  They begin by alienating segments of society, similar to what happened to the Jewish people during WWII.  Eventually you will qualify for elimination, as well.  During the Holocaust, people did not speak up until it was too late.  Millions of people suffered and died at the hands of tyrants.  Stereotyping, Preferential treatment, etc.  Is this the society we want?  Are you willing to stand by while your fellow citizens are treated like terrorists simply because they don't have a perfect credit score or employment history?  When will you stand up?  Will you wait until they come for you and your children? Boycott the airports.  Don't travel by airplane.  Organize protests.

It is time to Wake Up!  You too, can join the Global Political Awakening!

"First they came…" is a famous statement attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. The text of the quotation is usually presented roughly as follows:

First They came... - Pastor Martin Niemoller
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

CNN-Calling for an airport screening process that maximizes security but cuts down on passenger hassles, the U.S. Travel Association on Wednesday recommended key changes to the current system.

The group, along with a panel of experts, suggested creating a trusted traveler program that would allow fliers who volunteer certain information about themselves to go through less rigorous security before their flight.

It also proposed allowing each traveler to check one bag without a fee to reduce the amount of luggage going through security checkpoints.

"We need to do better," said Jim Turner, a former ranking Democratic member of the House Homeland Security Committee and co-chairman of the panel, during a news conference in Washington.

"We owe it to the traveling public to make the system make more sense."

Traveler frustration with the current routine -- which includes the familiar rules about taking off shoes, going through a metal detector or full-body scan (or both) and facing the possibility of a pat down -- prompted the report, titled "A Better Way," the U.S. Travel Association said.

What are the chances Congress would approve any portion of the plan? It's very difficult to get action in this area, Turner admitted.

But if implemented, the recommendations could shorten wait times at security checkpoints and allow the Transportation Security Administration to screen passengers based on risk, the report said.

'Shrink the haystack'

Right now, "everyone who checks in is treated as a potential terrorist," said Tom Ridge, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and co-chairman of the panel.

The group called it a "one-size-fits-all solution" in which children and the elderly can be pulled aside for extra screening. But having everyone go through the system isn't the way to eliminate risk, Ridge said.

"If you want to find a needle in a haystack, you shrink the haystack," he said.

That's where the trusted traveler program would come in, designating some passengers as low-risk based on information such as a background check, employment history, lack of criminal record and other factors.

Once travelers enroll in the program and their identity is confirmed at the airport with the help of biometric information, they would be subject to less security, Ridge said.

The program should be extended to qualified international passengers, the panel recommends.

The TSA screens more than 628 million airline passengers every year at U.S. airports, and the vast majority present little to no risk of committing an act of terrorism, TSA Administrator John Pistole said in a speech earlier this month.

In response to Wednesday's report, TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball said Pistole's vision for the future of airport security screening is "one that is more risk-based and intelligence-driven, shifting away from a one-size-fits-all approach at checkpoints."

"Last fall, [Pistole] directed the agency to explore ways to further develop this strategy, with plans to announce more details this year. We welcome dialogue with stakeholders and the traveling public as the process moves forward," he said.
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Man With 4th Amendment Written on Chest Sues Over Airport Arrest

Aaron Tobey/Government Image

David Kravets
Wired

A 21-year-old Virginia man who wrote an abbreviated version of the Fourth Amendment on his body and stripped to his shorts at an airport security screening area is demanding $250,000 in damages for being detained on a disorderly conduct charge.

Aaron Tobey claims in a civil rights lawsuit (.pdf)that in December he was handcuffed and held for about 90 minutes by the Transportation Security Administration at the Richmond International Airport after he began removing his clothing to display on his chest a magic-marker protest of airport security measures.

“Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated,” his chest and gut read.

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RELATED ARTICLE:
TSA Body Scanners Show 10X Higher Radiation Than Admitted
Jesse Ventura Sues TSA Over Body Scans, Pat Downs

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TSA to retest airport body scanners for radiation

Devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected

Wikimedia Commons

Alison Young and Blake Morrison
USA TODAY

The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

The TSA says that the records reflect math mistakes and that all the machines are safe. Indeed, even the highest readings listed on some of the records — the numbers that the TSA says were mistakes — appear to be many times less than what the agency says a person absorbs through one day of natural background radiation.

Even so, the TSA has ordered the new tests out of "an abundance of caution to reassure the public," spokesman Nicholas Kimball says. The tests will be finished by the end of the month, and the results will be released "as they are completed," the agency said on its website.

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RELATED ARTICLE:
Body scanners 'could give you cancer', warns expert

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