Free Republic

Our ever-friendly Transportation Safety Administration sure has smacked a hornet’s nest with their new see-through body scanners and overtly invasive body inspections that border on criminal groping if done unofficially. The anger this has raised has once again brought to the front the example of the Israeli method of clearing people through questioning rather than all the hi-tech gadgetry. Some will always criticize the Israeli method due to the fact that it is a form of profiling. This is a mute and unsubstantiated complaint as the Israelis profile not by race, religion, or other physical traits, but profile by the...

If you want to understand the spontaneous outrage that combusted this week at the introduction of new airport security procedures—an electronic undressing for those who go through the fancy X-ray machines and a groping for those who "opt out"—just look at the pictures of our fellow citizens passing through the scanners. They stand, dishearteningly, with their hands above their heads in the universal pose of defeat and surrender. Yet the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration are, frankly, annoyed at the "traveling public" for making such a fuss. A senior Homeland Security official (who would not allow...

Subject: So Dumb You Can Only Smile A DC airport ticket agency offers some examples of 'why' our country is in trouble! 1.I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman (Carol Shea-Porter) ask for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. (On an airplane!) 2.I got a call from a Kansas Congressman's (Moore) staffer (Howard Bauleke), who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information, and then he interrupted me with, ''I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in...

The National Transportation Safety Board has again recommended that airlines require a separate seat for all children, regardless of age, eliminating the current practice of permitting children under the age of 2 to fly for free on the lap of a parent. Will mandating child restraint systems make air travel safer? The answer is probably yes but that's the visible. Having to purchase an extra airplane ticket, some families will opt to drive to their destination instead. Thus, mandated CRS will force some families to switch to a less safe method of travel and some highway fatalities will represent the...

...After decades as the frontman of Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson has a new second job – in middle management. The English singer has been named marketing director of Astraeus, a Gatwick-based charter airline, where he has worked as a pilot for several years. The announcement at the bottom of the Astraeus website makes it sound like just another corporate position. "With the rapid growth in the business we have increased our commercial team," the statement reads. "Bruce Dickinson as our marketing director, [and] Claire Ronson has now moved to sales and marketing to support our sales team." They don't even...

MYFOXNY.COM - A Playboy centerfold tried to bust out -- midair -- from a jet amid a bad case of high anxiety. Law enforcement officers met a JetBlue plane at its arrival gate in Newark Liberty International Airport Thursday afternoon because of a passenger who was causing a disturbance on board, the airline reported. The passenger was identified as 21-year-old Tiffany Livingston. She was aboard JetBlue Flight 522 from Florida to Newark, N.J., on Thursday when she bolted from her seat and tried to open the door of the plane. She had became agitated because of turbulence and appeared to...

One man is in custody and Miami International Airport is back open this morning after a suspicious device caused a major evacuation and shutdown Thursday night. The security scare happened just after 9 p.m., when a baggage screener spotted a suspicious item in a checked piece of luggage in the Customs area. -snip- A video of what is believed to be part of the suspicious device showed a silver canister, though police haven't confirmed what was found. Police also haven't released the identity of the man taken into custody, but airport officials said he had been on a flight from...

If you are flying out of Boston’s Logan International or Las Vegas-McCarran International airports you can expect the heavy hands of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to come down on you. The TSA has just implemented a more aggressive palms-first, slide down body search technique to properly feel up airline passengers. The new policy replaces the formerly-used almost-as-intrusive back hand patdown. It’s not enough that TSA agents get to ogle your naked bodies — and those of your kids — via the naked body scanner machines. If you refuse to subject yourself to the radiation of the backscatter naked body...

Maggots falling from an overhead bin from a spoiled container of meat forced a US Airways flight to return to the gate so the bin could be cleaned. Passenger Donna Adamo said she noticed a couple of flies on the Monday flight when she got to her seat but didn't think much of it. Then, as the plane was taxiing, she heard a passenger behind her causing a commotion and refusing to take her seat. "Then I heard the word 'maggot' and that kind of got everybody creeped out," she said. "All of a sudden, I felt somebody flick the...

The U.S. government is refining its terror-screening policy to focus on specific terror threats and not travelers' nationalities. The new policy replaces a security requirement put in place after the attempted bombing of a jetliner en route to Detroit on Christmas Day that singled out people from 14 countries that have been home to terrorists. It also expands the pool of foreign travelers targeted for extra screening beyond those whose names are on a U.S. terror watch list. The changes, announced Friday by the Homeland Security Department, come after a three-month review of counterterrorism policies ordered by President Barack Obama...

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will announce a new set of procedures for screening US-Bound air passengers which will use a more comprehensive profile of each passenger to determine who will receive enhanced searches and screenings. These new procedures will replace existing methods which use a more broad brush approach requiring enhanced screenings for all passengers from 14 mostly-Muslim nations. This is clearly a step in the right direction and most likely reflects an implicit admission by the Obama administration that current methods of ensuring secure air travel simply do not work. According to the Wall Street Journal...

The United States will announce on Friday its plans to begin profiling US-bound passengers in a major shake-up of air travel security measures, US media said. Under the new measures to begin this month, which will apply to US citizens as well, the level of screening of travellers will depend on how closely their personal characteristics match against intelligence on potential terrorists. The measures will replace mandatory enhanced screening of all passengers travelling to the United States from 14 mostly Muslim nations, put into place following a failed al-Qaeda attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day. "It's...

NEW YORK (Associated Press) -- An air traffic controller at New York's Kennedy Airport is in hot water after he allowed his young son to radio instructions to several pilots. The Federal Aviation Administration said it has placed the controller and a supervisor on administrative leave as it investigates. FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt called the episode a "lapse in judgment." The agency says it has also suspended all unofficial visits to FAA air traffic facilities while it reviews its policies.

A Muslim woman is thought to have become the first passenger to be stopped from boarding a flight after refusing to go through a full body scanner for religious reasons. The passenger was at Manchester Airport for a flight to Islamabad when she was selected at random to pass through the security screen. She was warned she would not be allowed to board the Pakistan International Airlines flight if she did not comply with the request but she decided to forfeit her ticket. Her female travelling companion also left the airport after she cited ''medical reasons'' for not wanting to...

As Americans get larger and airplane space comes at a greater premium, it's not difficult to see where friction ensues. The issue was brought to light again Feb. 13, when movie director Kevin Smith was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight from Oakland to Burbank, Calif., for failing to fit comfortably into a seat. According to Southwest, Smith originally bought two tickets — "as he's been known to do when traveling on Southwest" (Smith disputed this on his Twitter account) — but decided to fly standby on an earlier flight. After the director received a seat, it was determined that...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Obama administration official says more air travelers may have their hands swabbed as part of a stepped-up effort to screen passengers for explosives. The official says added security measures may begin as early as Wednesday. The official requested anonymity to speak about security plans.

ROMULUS, Mich. -- The Transportation Security Administration says unruly passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit were interviewed by Customs and Border Protection officials after the plane landed.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — A failed airport security test ended up with a Slovak man unwittingly carrying hidden explosives in his luggage on a flight to Dublin, Slovak officials admitted Wednesday — a mistake that enraged Irish authorities and shocked aviation experts worldwide. While the Slovaks blamed the incident on "a silly and unprofessional mistake," Irish officials and security experts said it was foolish for the Slovaks to hide actual bomb parts in the luggage of innocent passengers under any circumstances. The passenger himself was detained by Irish police for several hours before being let go without charge Tuesday.

Even if Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab had never boarded that Christmas flight from Amsterdam to Detroit wearing explosive underpants, a passage on page 17 of a report published in July by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security would still be eye-popping. "Not all known or reasonably suspected terrorists are prohibited from boarding an aircraft, or are subject to additional security screening prior to boarding an aircraft," says the passage. More than eight years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, people boarding commercial flights in the United States -- and sometimes those boarding international flights bound for the United...

That was quite a revealing -- and understandable -- public tantrum President Obama threw Tuesday. Understandable, because the president has every right to be livid over the "potentially catastrophic breach of security" that nearly saw a terrorist bring down an airliner with 289 people aboard. And revealing, because perhaps Obama has come to understand that he does not enjoy as much control over intelligence matters as he might have imagined. Also, that the Islamist threat to America won't be countered with mere words.