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August 16, 2004

Friendly Skies

If this is correct, it is outrageous.

Federal air marshals protect less than 5 percent of daily U.S. flights, and the numbers are declining, despite assurances by the federal government that most planes would be protected, according to estimates provided by marshals, pilots and a retired airline executive.

So is this.

Mr. Adams told Gannett News Service in late May the Federal Air Marshal Service is under a self-imposed hiring freeze, and an unnamed administration official told CNN that about 100 air-marshal positions would be eliminated this year.

So. Passengers are forbidden to carry anything that remotely resembles a weapon, screeners aren't allowed to profile, pilots aren't being armed and now air marshals are being cut back.

For whom are we making it easier to fly the friendly skies?

Posted by Rita at August 16, 2004 06:14 AM

Comments

For the past three years I have attended homeland security meetings and researched and written requests for materials and services that would be necessary in maintaining and/or re-establishing the most vital parts of our community infrastructure. It began as, and still is, the most confusing, unpredictable, and ultimately empty, government promise of assistance that I have ever participated in. I finally quit even reading the materials I am so disgusted, but my point here is, so far they aren't even close to wanting to give money to prevent terrorist attacks. All of the resources being promised (nothing delivered so far) are for rebuilding after we have been attacked and seriously injured. As far as I know we have ordered the most modern communications equipment on the market today, and when it does show up it will be stashed in a bunker awaiting a sufficient disaster. The entire program is the same sort of nonsense in that it actually has nothing to do with Homeland security, it has to do with a Homeland band-aid after security has failed miserably.

And now what? The air marshal protection program has been mis-represented.
I am seriously beginning to suspect that we are being set up for disaster by our own bureaucrats.

Posted by: kenneth at August 16, 2004 09:38 AM

Ask Mike what the old man said about being armed....If memory serves me correctly; "The most dangerous weapon a man carries is the one he carries between his ears..."

Posted by: Bill at August 17, 2004 01:01 PM