TSA idiocy reaches meltdown levels

ZRH

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Mar 5, 2005
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http://www.aero-news.net/news/comma...D1731-75F4-4630-897A-67B910A81233&Dynamic=1#d

TSA "Terrorist" Turns Out To Be A Homeward-Bound Marine
by ANN Senior Correspondent Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

The Transportation Security Administration bagged a terrorist in Los Angeles International Airport Tuesday, or so they thought. Daniel Brown's name came up on their no-fly watchlist, so they dragged him into interrogation and grilled him, despite the protestations of Brown and his fellow travelers, who swore they could vouch for him.

The others in Brown's party went on their Northwest Airlines flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul, where they waited on a bus at the airport. You see, the detained man was Staff Sergeant Daniel Brown, USMC Reserve, and he was traveling with the other members of his Marine Reserve Military Police unit, which was heading home to Minnesota from eight months of combat in Iraq. The Marines were in full uniform and all, including Brown, had travel orders and military identification cards.

After attempts to stonewall under claims of "security," TSA spokesmen finally admitted that Staff Sergeant Daniel Brown was placed on the no-fly list, and ultimately detained, because they had detected gunpowder on his footgear -- not on this flight, but on a prior flight, which earned Brown a permanent place on the TSA's mysterious terrorist lists.

The footgear that had been exposed to gunpowder? Brown's combat boots, and the occasion of that flight was after his return from his first combat tour in Iraq. Gee... a combat Marine in Al-Anbar Province being exposed to gunpowder.

Exposure to gunpowder isn't something the TSA knows a lot about. Hey, who are you gonna believe, this here watchlist or your lyin' eyes?

Ultimately, the TSA screeners figured out that Brown really was a Marine, and no threat to his fellow passengers, and let him board a later flight. When he deplaned at MSP, his unit's bus was waiting -- his fellow Marines in it.

Marine 1st Sgt. Drew Benson explained why. "We don't leave anybody behind. We start together, and we finish together." All 26 Marines waited for Brown -- even though their families were waiting for them at a scheduled welcome-home bash at Fort Snelling.

Brown's mother Terry was glad they did. "They all come back together... no matter what it takes and I think that's very important," she told WCCO-TV.

Frequent TSA critic Richard A. Altomare, Founder and Chairman of the Coalition for Luggage Security -- and a former marine -- said, "I'm proud that Sergeant Dan Brown's Marine unit refused to report to their post until the 'man left behind' was permitted to get on a passenger plane. This TSA's bloated bureaucracy with documented insensitive treatment of countless Americans really rings home a need to dismantle their growing airport agency before all American freedoms are lost -- since now even the United States Marines can't help us."

The TSA watch lists are shrouded in such secrecy that it's impossible to tell if they have done any good. The TSA refuses to say how people get on the list or even how many are on. On the other hand, the absurdities of the list have been well publicized.

Senator Ted Kennedy, former child actor David Nelson, and other celebrities have turned up on the list. (TSA explained to Sen. Kennedy that there was a terrorist who once used "T. Kennedy" as an alias. "T" is not one of the Senator's initials; his full name is Edward Moore Kennedy).

Some of our own writers were placed on the list after we ran several Aero-Views critical of TSA management.

In the last few weeks, a DHS official originally recruited by TSA was in the news after being caught in a child sex sting; as Aero-News reported, before joining TSA he took early retirement from Time magazine after a porn scandal there.

Last month, a classified Government Accountability Office report leaked to NBC News reportedly revealed that security testers were able to bring bomb-making materials through TSA security at 21 of 21 airports tested.

But the TSA will not strike its colors; it has not yet begun to fight. Boston TSA head George Naccara told CSO Online, a magazine for security executives, last month that the TSA needed to extend its unique approach to security to other modes of transport: "subway stations, rail terminals, cruise ship and ferry docks, even special events like conventions."

"TSA was never clearly given a mandate to focus only on aviation," Naccara said. "I want to bring a sense of urgency to other modes and explain to them what we do and how it can be adapted to work in their environments."

Meanwhile, does the Marine of the hour have any words? Turns out he does. "As somebody who has served 16 months over in Iraq for the U.S. Marine Corps and come home and get hassled by TSA, it's kind of a major disappointment," Daniel Brown told TV station WCCO. "I've been fighting terrorism for the last 16 months in Iraq. I don't think I should have to come home and deal with this."

Brown's father Carey echoed his son's sentiments. "For an individual who spent two tours over in Iraq fighting for his country, I think it's one of the biggest bogus things they could ever come up with."

WIth luck, no one at TSA will take that as a challenge.
FMI: www.tsa.gov
 
This makes me very sad. How on earth is anything that the TSA performs benificial to the US? Here we go, I'll tell you: it makes our security system appear as a joke.

This man has been putting his life on the line for us and what does he get? Tossed on a list by a pork-laden beurocracy and detained for gunpowder on combat boots? Yeah, I bet that makes him feel appreciated.

I don't know if I should cry, tremble in anger, or go to bed. I'll do all three.
 
djduquet said:
I don't know if I should cry, tremble in anger, or go to bed. I'll do all three.
Don;t worry their new at being a government agency. With time Im sure they'll aspire to DMV levels of civil service hell.

I'm wasted. kekeke
 
I would be so pissed if they detained my boyfriend (currently in the Air force) on his way back from Iraq. Last time he was coming back home it took him over 24 hrs to get back, could you imagine being detained before or after 24 hours of travel?
 
I walked through a metal detector with my knife in my back pocket at DFW airport and nothing went off.
I'd forgotten I had it.
 
wr3kt said:
I walked through a metal detector with my knife in my back pocket at DFW airport and nothing went off.
I'd forgotten I had it.
Yeah coming back the Philly they confiscated my Maglite out of my carryon even though I'd already traveled 6000 some odd miles with it but they didnt notice the 5 lighters and 1/4 of weed that was in the same bag :tard:
 
On my way back to GA from NJ I watched a little girl (maybe 8 years old) get pulled aside for a random search. Oh yea in Jersey they have a sign when you get off the plane not to make jokes about bombs.

Zach, a guy I used to work with, goes hunting a lot all over the US. Usally after he checks his guns he gets searched in the not so good way.
 
xoblivion said:
Zach, a guy I used to work with, goes hunting a lot all over the US. Usally after he checks his guns he gets searched in the not so good way.
Eh, I get the speshul search everytime they blow me for residue. Then they take you to the little room and hand search all your bags, look at your passport stamps etc. Strangely in European airports they dont even pat me down, I make it through in like 3 minutes.
 
i some how set off security with all the bobby pins in my hair once. it had never happened before, or since. seeing as that my hair was almost long enough to reach my ass there were probably close to a hundred bobby pins for the bastards to check out.

and that's my completely pointless contribution to this thread.
 
Those security people are just on a power trip. They shut down Atl Intl yesterday for 2+ hours over a computer glitch in the xray. Yesterday the TSA official said that Securty thought they saw 'something' in a carry-on bag, but when they hand checked the bag there wasn't anything bad in it. So at that point they decided to just shut down the security checkpoint while they hand searched every bag. TODAY they're saying something different. That they were just running a test on the system and there was some kind of error and that's why they shut everything down. :wtf:
 
0752866540.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
 
Galen said:
[ig]http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0752866540.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg[/img]
Ah sorry for some reason Sgt. Dan Brown and a no talent author didnt click.
 
FlamingGlory said:
Yeah coming back the Philly they confiscated my Maglite out of my carryon even though I'd already traveled 6000 some odd miles with it but they didnt notice the 5 lighters and 1/4 of weed that was in the same bag :tard:
I bet you shit a brick while they went through it...
 
fly said:
I bet you shit a brick while they went through it...
I wouldve if I had known it was there. It was in a bag of rolling tobacco that someone gave me for the trip...