Posted on 05/24/2013 12:41:28 PM PDT by pabianice
"My dad fought a war so this can never happen in America. I will not dishonor my father's memory by giving up what he fought for. No, sir. With all due respect, I will not consent to a search without a proper warrant."
James Fallows May 21 2013, 11:34 AM ET
Over the weekend I related the story of Gabriel Silverstein, a businessman and pilot who for no apparent reason was subjected to a two-hour detention and invasive search by Homeland Security officials as he traveled across the country in his small plane. The picture above is not from that episode; it's an official DHS photo of its emergency-response agents being trained.
Below and after the jump are two additional stories of the same sort. The first is a long account from Larry Gaines, a small-plane pilot from California who had a similar episode last year. The story is long and detailed, and will be riveting for those in the aviation world. The summary for general readers is this.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
They were practicing.
Really.
This was an opportunity to use all their stuff.
Really. That’s what they were doing.
Maybe he saw something that he didn’t know he saw, or realize the importance/impact. Something is definitely fishy.
Not the 1st time I have heard of this, I wonder if this is the same guy that this stunt was pulled on, on his way to Oshkosh...
I’m thinking that the security apparatus in this country really hates the idea of private aviation for the simple fact that they don’t control every last aspect of it.
People who own their own aircraft don’t have to be intimidated and violated every time they want to fly somewhere. They don’t have to be searched, radiated, or groped. They don’t have to answer nonsensical questions.
They are still FREE.
And the people who hate our Constitution and our freedoms HATE this and lay awake at night wondering what they can do to justify ending it.
Nothing like giving DHS nearly unlimited funding to follow a single guy driving a single engine aircraft, LEGALLY. How much money was spent here? A King Air, a “large business jet” probably a Gulfstream, and how many warriors? They wasted tens of thousands of dollars, probably WAY more, because a guy took a trip in his airplane?
James Fallows is a big supporter of Hillary and was Jimmy Carter’s chief speechwriter when he was president. What the samhill did he think would happen with Big Government? I have no tolerance for his unwillingness to understand the implications of his politics.
They wasted tens of thousands of dollars, probably WAY more, because a guy took a trip in his airplane?
They've got all the money in the world to play with, and if they start to run short of sheeple handing over tax dollars, they can print as much more as they'd like to spend. Cost is no object to totalitarians.
So now Napolitano wants to control all the air movement in the U.S.
The Dyke is nothing if not deranged.
This guy played everything right, but one comment: it's the stopping at the little airports that I think can cause the problems. If he had been going to metro airports, flying into Class B and C airspace, stopping at Million Air and other big FBO's, nothing would have happened: too open, too much visibility.
By trying to avoid ATC hassles, he gives some bird brain in a DHS intel center the half-baked idea that he's trying to avoid scrutiny.
It always cracked me up with cops who learned to fly: it was the rules and regulations they liked, talking on the radio, saying "Roger!" "Over!" instead of the flying.
Real pilots would fly kites with motors, and no radio, and certainly no talking to some Gomer hunched over a radar screen in a TRACON.
The DHS people seem the same. So they don't understand why a guy would simply fly and avoid all that crap.
Does the U.S. really have the money to indulge a bunch of overgrown kids acting out? A Citation loitering at 3000 AGL for a possible problem, not a real one? At what, $5K/hr with government salary costs?
Send Napolitano back to Italy. She can join her ancestors in the mafia there and be the enforcer she always wanted to be...on the side of the law that she really is.
Totally agree. Law abiding citizens are now drafted against their will as subjects for training exercises.
Sounds like the GA guys are going to have to take lessons from the gun guys on terms like “am I free to go” and proceed accordingly.
“Grampa, tell me about the good old days when you could fly your own airplane and go anywhere you wanted.”
It’s possible these guys were all Republican donors.
Crazy, huh?
Remember all the befuddlement about the Gibson Guitar WOOD SOURCING..? (”You guys gotta assemble your guitars in Madagascar, from now on, and pay huge fines...”).
It turns out that all that expensive fussing and harassment was simply cuz Gibson had given Repubs the max in donations.
WELCOME TO THE HONKY THIRD WORLD.
“Grampa, tell me about the good old days when you could fly your own airplane and go anywhere you wanted.”
This grandma flew single engine putt putts often in Texas in the 70s and flying was a joy. There were restricted areas, mostly military fields, but almost all my flying was without restriction and done under VFR.
I avoided TCAs whenever possible, flying around them except New Orleans where I had to contact them to get through the TCA onward to Lakefront airport. Flying was a joy then. You couldn’t get me in the air these days. Too irritating and too expensive now.
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