Free Republic

Civilian who killed Sailor at Naval Station Norfolk identified "Norfolk, Va. – The civilian gunman accused of killing a sailor aboard the destroyer Mahan on Monday night before being fatally shot is Jeffrey Tyrone Savage, the Navy announced on Thursday. The Navy says Savage, 35, drove his 2002 Freightliner through Gate 5 just after 11 p.m. He then went to Pier 1 and left the truck and tried to get onto the USS Mahan. He was stopped by security there and that’s when a struggle started. They say Savage disarmed a petty officer of the watch and Savage then used...

<p>The head of a union representing 45,000 Transportation Security Administration officers says a report conducted by the TSA after a Los Angeles airport shooting last fall doesn't go far enough in addressing threats posed by individuals targeting its officers. The Transportation Security Administration recommended Wednesday that airports post armed law enforcement officers at security checkpoints and ticket counters during peak hours.</p>

Actress Amanda Seyfried accidentally snuck a Swiss Army knife onto a plane, and then alerted the TSA about it.

According to one estimate, since 2012 the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. DHS also reportedly purchased 2,700 Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles (MRAPs) to go with their bullet stockpile. ATK is one company that won a contract with the Department of Homeland Security to provide 450 million rounds of .40 caliber ammunition in 2012. TSA, an agency within the DHS, purchased 3.5 million rounds of .357 SIG caliber training ammunition in September. Recently TSA purchased 1,386 pounds of dynamite to go with their ammo. The Activist Post reported: Put...

The wife of a man with prostate cancer posted on her blog a scathing assessment of how Transportation Security Administration agents treated her husband during a security checkpoint, explaining how one proclaimed loudly his state of incontinence while a second one grimaced and snickered. The woman — who posted her story without giving names — wrote that her husband battled prostate cancer and, as a result, now suffers from an overactive bladder and is forced to wear adult diapers, The Daily Mail reported. Usually when they fly, he’s forced to explain his situation to security agents — but that the...

Another gun-wielding toy has had its weapon seized by airport security. After a cowboy sock monkey Rooster Monkburn had his tiny harmless weapon seized last year, a Woody doll underwent similar probe at London’s Heathrow Airport. Healthrow traveler John Hazen posted a picture of his son’s figurine to the social-media website Reddit on Tuesday showing a security official removing the doll’s gun. “At Heathrow, security just confiscated his ‘weapon,’ keep the world safe boys,”​ Hazen wrote on the site. The doll does not usually come armed with gun — it was an accessory the family added.

Security researchers have discovered a potentially dangerous flaw in airport x-ray machines that would allow hackers to pass deadly weapons through security. Billy Rios and Terry McCorkle of security firm Qualys discovered that a training function called Threat Image Projection, which superimposes fake images of contraband on the screen to train security personnel, could be manipulated to work in reverse, and project images of weapon-free luggage over top of the real thing. The training software is present in all TSA scanners, and also on machines deployed in government buildings, embassies, courthouses, ports and border crossings. …

The Transport Security Administration has been criticized for humiliating a cancer survivor at a security checkpoint for wearing an incontinence pad. The man's wife has told that he suffers from OAB (overactive bladder) after a battle with prostate cancer and wears adult diapers for his condition. At an airport security checkpoint recently, he was forced to explain his situation multiple times to TSA officers, one of whom announced that he was wearing a diaper for the whole security line to hear, and then underwent an embarrassing back-room search. The man's wife, writing anonymously, described her husband's ordeal on the forum...

TSA is becoming more and more like a totalitarian police force every day, above the law and beyond the reach of accountability for their acts. A Colorado woman, Jamelyn Steenhoek, was recently subjected to what she felt was the equivalent of a gynecological exam by TSA and filed a criminal complaint, only to have the Denver District Attorney’s  Office refuse to prosecute. Cherry-picking DA’s don’t want to fight the feds. Now comes word of an incident this past Wednesday in which an award-winning Jewish author, Phyllis Chesler was singled out for special attention by TSA agents in JFK Airport. Chesler’s flight to Florida...

A day after the United States government warned of toothpaste bombs on flights to Russia, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has banned toothpaste--and all other liquids, gels, or aerosols--on flights between the United States and Russia. "As always our security posture, which at all times includes a number of measures both seen and unseen, will continue to respond and appropriately adapt to protect the American people from an ever evolving threat picture," a DHS official who confirmed the new liquid ban told ABC News on Thursday.

Jeno Mouton, of Houston, allegedly told a TSA supervisor that “he would rather vent than to come back and shoot up the place,” according to an arrest affidavit.   Investigators said Mouton, who is a long-time employee, allegedly made the comment while he was on-duty and working in the capacity of a TSA officer. His supervisor told police she spoke with Mouton several minutes after he made the initial statement and said Mouton refused to recant it, then went on to repeat it several more times during their conversation. The supervisor reported Mouton to the human resources office manager and...

A Transportation Security Administration agent has been accused of threatening to shoot coworkers at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, according to multiple media reports. Jeno Vernelli Mouton, 35, has been arrested and charged with making a terroristic threat, a felony, the Houston Chronicle reported. According to the Associated Press, documents say Mouton told an airport supervisor on Jan. 25 that he wanted to vent instead of “come back and shoot up the place.” KPRC-TV reported that Mouton, who has worked at the airport for five years, was disgruntled with management and made the remark with coworkers and passengers nearby.

My pained relationship with government security had started three years earlier. I had just returned to Chicago to finish my bachelor’s degree after a two-year stint in Florida. I needed a job to help pay my way through school, and the TSA’s call-back was the first one I received. It was just a temporary thing, I told myself—side income for a year or two as I worked toward a degree in creative writing. It wasn’t like a recession would come along and lock me into the job or anything. It was May 2007. I was living with a bohemian set...

The author of the TSA blog "Taking Sense Away" is feeling the pull of capitalism. He's posted scoop on the TSA during and after his employment in the cadre of paid gropers. News media have picked his material on scanners and behavior of employees. Capitalism is calling, and there's a need to promote an upcoming novel based upon the inner workings of the TSA. Jason Edward Harrington is out of the closet. Best of luck to him.

A former TSA officer has confirmed many of the worst suspicions about airport security screeners: they stop passengers for having an attitude, they confiscate snow globes from children and nail clippers from pilots, they profile passengers based on their nationality. And yes, they do see travelers naked in the X-ray photos. ... ‘I confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security. I was even required to confiscate nail clippers from airline pilots—the implied logic being that pilots could use the nail clippers to hijack the very planes they were flying,’ he...

<p>I hated it from the beginning. It was a job that had me patting down the crotches of children, the elderly and even infants as part of the post-9/11 airport security show. I confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security. I was even required to confiscate nail clippers from airline pilots—the implied logic being that pilots could use the nail clippers to hijack the very planes they were flying.</p>

Even airport TSA agents don't really believe they're making much of a difference. Or so suggests Jason Harrington, a former Transportation Security Administration employee who's written a revealing piece for Politico on what it's like to work for the agency on the ground floor. Harrington writes that many of his coworkers found their orders questionable, from selecting people for enhanced screenings based on their nationality to the broad use of full-body scanners. Harrington also writes that he hated that the job made him pat down children and the elderly and confiscate everything from nail clippers to homemade jellies under the...

(snip) The story unfolds: Traveling by commercial airlines from Albuquerque, NM to LasVegas,NV, (Police Chief) Harger was asked by TSA to show his credentials. Minutes later a man flashed a badge claiming to be a federal agent (agency unknown) also demanding to see Harger’s credentials. (snip) The following morning, Harger was informed by Sheriff Douglas C. Wood of Sandoval County, New Mexico, that Harger was to dismantle the Jamez Springs Police Department. (be sure to click through and read the whole thing)

Americans have always treasured the freedom to pick up and go anywhere they please. Our forebears had to travel to get here, often had to travel more after they arrived and sometimes moved on to uncharted territories out West only to return East. No one stopped them, whatever direction they were going. They had the good fortune to live and migrate before the creation of the all-encompassing national security state. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans woke up to find that their freedom to travel was not a fundamental right but a vaporous privilege, bestowed by the government and revocable at...

The head of the Transportation Security Administration said Thursday his agency has officially rejected arming officers in response to a November attack at Los Angeles International Airport. John Pistole made the comments after a news conference to announce the opening of a “pre-check” application site for expedited screening at LAX. TSA union officials have called for creating armed officers from the agency to ensure safety at screening checkpoints. But Pistole said virtually every issue is on the table except for arming officers. Introducing more guns is not the solution, he said. The agency is conducting a review of the shooting...