TSA Stupidity

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

The TSA was set up by the SAME individual agent that was the "agent in charge" during critical action development at both Aunt Janet's Waco BBQ yielding 80 citizen deaths, and the entrapment/framing of Randy Weaver, which just killed Randy's wife and son. The fact that TSA has no clue, doesn't work well, and costs us way more in both $s and time than it's worth should be no surprise. What we got was a pork barrel sop to federal union labor bosses pushed through under threat of filibuster by a couple of senior Democrat senators, one of which recently died. The entire system was set up to fail, on purpose. Do a bit of research into the debates setting it up, and the history of those involved in both the political side and the ATF/FBI side.

The following proposal was sent to all MS federal representatives in early October 2001. None ever replied, and nothing has changed since except there are now 48 states with CCW. The Federal answer is still "shoot down the plane."

This is why I prefer to fly "Chrysler." Last summer I dropped my wife at Ft Lauderdale for her flight home, then drove to the house in MS. I beat her home after a 12 hr drive by a bit over 20 minutes.
-----------
The discussion so far concerning terrorist protection on airlines has been concerning ineffective passenger “screening,” passenger disarmament, and the screening and hiring of government paid “air marshals” and their placement on commercial airliners. This last is an interesting concept considering that even my rough numbers show it will require between 25,000 and 100,000 of these individuals to maintain an effective protective force in the air at flight levels approaching that of Sept 10. The groups these “air marshals” could come from, and are actually being suggested by the politicians making noise about “ airline security”, are the US special forces, police SWAT teams, and the FBI. I expect all these “manpower reservoir” units are going to be too over committed for the next 3 or 4 years to do much in the way of “sky marshaling” or even training of LEO “sky marshals.” The last time we tried adding “100,000 cops” to the street we got billed for 100,000 and actually got less than 40,000 over a 5-year period.

I am also a bit concerned about placing government agents on airplanes with guns. History in the US has shown that civilians are more accurate and less likely to shoot the wrong person than police, by at least a 10:1 margin! ONLY by arming select civilian passengers will there ever be enough "sky marshals" to go around. That selection has already been done for us in the 32 states with concealed carry of weapons (CCW) permits. Each flight should have 4 or more “marshals” on board indistinguishable from normal passengers. If they ARE the normal passengers all bases are covered at little to no cost to the other passengers or airline. It may be prudent for the airline to offer discounted seats to those willing to serve as “air marshals” during their business travels, but it’s not critical to the success of the program

In my not so humble opinion using "non-lethal" weapons in any war is just plain stupid! It's time we stopped the fuzzy "emotional" arguments and started thinking clearly. Terrorists should die quickly and with minimal collateral damage. The current system requires the death of ALL passengers and crew on a flight to safeguard those on the ground. The Government now has only two options in response to a hijacking.

1. Shoot the plane down from high altitude over farm country.
2. Shoot the plane down from low altitude over cities and suburbs.

The ONLY play that saves the lives of the passengers involves the people on the plane when the door closes before take off. Why fight this war with both hands tied behind our back? Currently there are about 3.5 Million CCW holders in the US. In 6 months we could bring that up to 20 million, a lot of them being veterans and frequent business fliers. The cost of the operation goes down and the safety of airline passenger goes up through the roof!

Hoplophobes need to get over it! WE CANNOT PROTECT FREEDOM BY DENYING IT! We can best protect it by enhancing it!

Specific actions needed by Congress are:

1. Recognize CCW from ANY state in ALL states the same as any other local state or court ruling under the requirements of Article IV section 1 of the US Constitution.

2. Recognize the CCW in ALL locations! These must include airplanes, courthouses, other government property, stadiums, etc.

3. Enhance weapons safety training in all walks of life including Schools, Scouts, summer camps, after school programs, etc.

4. Void foolish "weapons bans" in all public and commercial buildings. These only create a “Safe Haven” for criminals and terrorists while providing a target rich environment for them!

5. Make available to all those who choose to fly armed the appropriate ammunition and training. Providing this training is the responsibility of Congress under Article I Section 8 clause 15 and 16 of the US Constitution. Many have trained themselves at their own expense, and it's foolish of Congress not to take advantage of that in this time of emergency. The frangible ammunition is a good choice even for most CCW locations NOT on airplanes. It is not commonly used for that now due to liability lawsuit issues. Because it dumps energy in a VERY fast manner it makes a really nasty wound plaintiff’s attorneys and misguided DAs love to hate.

6. Provide legal protection from liability similar to the "Good Samaritan" laws protecting first aid responders in other emergency situations if the CCW acted in good faith to protect him/her self and/or others. This should include the specific use of frangible ammunition similar to the Glaser “Safety Slugs”, Core-bon “Bee Safe”, and Remington “Disintegrator” lines.

Frangible ammunition will generally not penetrate the first thing hit, be it a person or a seat back. Protecting airplane vitals from this stuff is child's play compared to defending it against the full metal jacket projectiles used by many police units and the military. The protection can be as relatively inexpensive as a new layer of Kevlar wallpaper on the cabins and bulkheads. Protecting people from it is another matter, so this ammunition type still is effective against terrorists without compromising the airframe.

These actions aren't PC, but they WILL WORK!

For further information on this proposal I can be contacted at:
ftagge@goldinc.com
or
228-452-3415

For more information see:

http://www.remington.com/ammo/PAGES/pistolrev/disintegrator.htm


http://www.safetyslug.com/FAQs.htm

The Constitution of the United States of America

and

http://www.m1911.org/ammo.htm#corbon
 
The TSA was set up by the SAME individual agent that was the "agent in charge" during critical action development at both Aunt Janet's Waco BBQ yielding 80 citizen deaths, and the entrapment/framing of Randy Weaver, which just killed Randy's wife and son.

Ummm, Jeff Jamar was the FBI AIC at Waco and Gene Glenn was AIC at Ruby Ridge.

I like the rest of your thinking, though.
 
In both cases the FBI only reacted to the setup and false information provided by the ATF.
In both cases the supervisor for ATF in direct line of command was Agent Minetta, the SAME one who was the first head of TSA.

When he screwed up in Boise costing 2 lives and the taxpayers a few million dollars he was transferred to the Dallas office, where he did it again to the tune of much more than a few millions of dollars and ultimately over 240 lives if you count the testimony of the Murrah bombers who insisted it was a result of the Davidian deaths and blatant white wash of the government's actions at the congressional hearings. If you watched the "hearings" ZERO attention was paid to the ATF setup in either case, but in both cases the setups were illegal on many counts. My congress critter was at those hearings. I still haven't forgiven him his dereliction of duty in that hearing room. In typical GS/GM fashion it was easier to promote him to the DC office than can him. However this thread is about TSA, not the pattern of criminal activity by ATF agents.
 
In both cases the supervisor for ATF in direct line of command was Agent Minetta, the SAME one who was the first head of TSA.

Ummm, no.

Mineta never had a badge and a gun, nor worked for the ATF. He was arguably much more dangerous than that- a career politician.....

Norman Mineta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I think you're getting all mixed up with John Magaw.

Facts. As in... Was the original ReBreather confiscated here snatched-up because it had sealed pressure cylinders inside of it?

We'll likely never know.
 
[

I'm still pissed about having to take off my shoes and walk around in a grimy airport.[/QUOTE]


I'm Pissed at seeing GI's taking off their combat boots while they are in full battle fatigues!! Buth this aint about bashing TSA, they make the rules and we have to live by them. I has a small snow globe confiscated because of the 4 oz. rule. That pissed me off. And things are the same way in other countries, contry to my beliefs.
 
my tsa story..

i am a pilot and took a local flight around the Salt Lake area. landed a few times at the salt lake airport. Finally, with the towers permission. taxied to the main terminal and waited at the general aviation transfer gate. waited for tsa/security (both required) for about 45 minutes. then the tower told me that this happened and gave me instructions on a secret route from the aircraft holding area to the front door. the route wen through a hidden hole in the security fence.

Entered the terminal area, and went through the security screening. went to a waiting area to await my flight. sitting there i was talking to someone in the eat next to me, and mentioned what i had just done. security overheard this, and pulled me aside. three hours later i was rescheduling my flight...

even after you have cleared security keep your mouth shut.
 
my tsa story..

i am a pilot and took a local flight around the Salt Lake area. landed a few times at the salt lake airport. Finally, with the towers permission. taxied to the main terminal and waited at the general aviation transfer gate. waited for tsa/security (both required) for about 45 minutes. then the tower told me that this happened and gave me instructions on a secret route from the aircraft holding area to the front door. the route wen through a hidden hole in the security fence.

Entered the terminal area, and went through the security screening. went to a waiting area to await my flight. sitting there i was talking to someone in the eat next to me, and mentioned what i had just done. security overheard this, and pulled me aside. three hours later i was rescheduling my flight...

even after you have cleared security keep your mouth shut.

Read "1984" by George Orwell, frightening.
Walls have ears. Big Brother sees all.
 
The LDS with whom I train told me that they had a lot of trouble with the LDS owner's sentinel rebreather when he was taking in to grand cayman from Houston. Granted he was probably one of the first people in the United states with that rebreather. I hear that he now has a few dive stickers on the thing and that he helped TSA with their rebreather guidance after the incident.

That is not to say that all TSA officials understand rebreathers or would know what one was anyway. I've even had a backplate heavily scrutinized in San Antonio on the way to Cayman and my VR3 has caused a few incidents.

Now I open up my scuba bags as they are going through the x-ray and tell them that it is scuba equipment and that they are welcome to check it. Some TSA people are cool and some are still paranoid.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom