Free Republic

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.”—James Madison “Here [in New Mexico], we are moving more toward a national police force. Homeland Security is involved with a lot of little things around town. Somebody in Washington needs to call a timeout.”—Dan Klein, retired Albuquerque Police Department sergeant If the United States is a police state, then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its national police force, with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies. In fact, although the DHS’ governmental bureaucracy may at times appear to be...

Verne Troyer AKA "Mini Me" from the Austin Powers movies tweeted a photo Sunday that shows him being searched by a TSA agent.

The TSA has issued a solicitation requesting 24 million rounds of .357 SIG “duty ammunition” over a five year period, prompting fresh questions as to whether the federal agency is planning to arm its workers. “Estimated quantity is approximately 4,800,000 rounds of .357 Sig duty ammunition per year, totaling 24,000,000 over the life of the contract,” states the solicitation, posted on FedBizOpps, which adds that the ammo is for use at “DHS component locations nationwide.”

H.R.1095 : To amend title 49, United States Code, to direct the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security (Transportation Security Administration) to transfer unclaimed money recovered at airport security checkpoints to nonprofit organizations that provide places of rest and recuperation at airports for members of the Armed Forces and their families, and for other purposes.

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A TSA Supervisor was arrested at Kennedy Airport accused of setting up a meeting in the Dominican Republic to engage in sexual activity with minors. Vernon Lythcott was arraigned Friday afternoon in federal court. A judge set bail at $250,000. He works as a TSA screening supervisor. He's being charged with elicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign country and faces up to 30 years in prison. Prosecutors allege Lythcott engaged in sex acts with two 15-year-old girls during a January trip to the Dominican Republic.

A Hermosa Beach woman who sued the Transportation Security Administration after she claimed officers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport harassed her four years ago over her son's breast milk said in remarks published today that she has won a tentative legal settlement against the agency. Stacey Armato sued in federal court in Phoenix after a 2010 incident in which she asked the TSA to provide an alternate form of screening that would not expose her 7-month-old son's breast milk to radiation. During the incident, Armato claimed in court papers, she was forced to wait in a glass enclosure for...

I may be wrong, but I think I just heard Sean Hannity say on his show that the TSA searches are okay. It happened just as I came across his show - so I must say up front I may have heard it wrong, or perhaps out of context. If anyone can correct this, please do so. BUT, I think he said something to the effect of he's happy to go thru the process, that if it will keep us all safer, we should all just do it. Now I hope this was out of context, because there's about three...

Concealed Firearms– Normally when our officers discover firearms, they’re inside carry-on bags. This week, three loaded firearms were discovered on the passenger. A 380. caliber firearm loaded with five rounds and one chambered was discovered strapped to a passenger’s ankle after walking through a metal detector at Cincinnati (CVG). A loaded 380. caliber firearm with a round chambered was discovered in the rear pocket of a San Antonio (SAT) passenger during Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) screening. A 380. caliber firearm loaded with five rounds was discovered after a passenger walked through a metal detector at Dallas – Ft. Worth (DFW)....

EXCLUSIVE: The director of the Federal Air Marshal Service is retiring after being investigated for his role in an alleged operation to acquire guns for officials' personal use, FoxNews.com has learned. Director Robert Bray's home was raided in December in connection with the ongoing probe. Law enforcement and congressional sources told FoxNews.com that Bray's recently announced retirement, which is effective in June, is directly related to the investigation. Bray allegedly is among several officials who were obtaining weapons through this operation.

WOMAN claims an airport security agent refused to let her disabled sister on board a plane because she couldn’t say her own name. Sherry Wright says she was shocked at the treatment they received at Los Angeles International Airport, where her sister Heidi was due to fly to Phoenix. The problems began when Heidi, who was left wheelchair-bond and unable to speak or write after a stroke a decade ago, was stopped by the Transport Security Administration (TSA) due to an expired driver’s licence, CNN reported. Sherry claims the TSA agent was rude and insensitive, insisting Heidi talk. “I showed...

Heathrow Airport has been forced to defend its security after a pair of students smuggled two large World War I artillery shells on to a plane and flew to the US. Baggage screeners made the discovery when the teenagers landed in Chicago, sparking a major incident. It is believed they picked up the 75mm munitions as souvenirs while on a school trip to a former artillery range in France. The find prompted the evacuation of O’Hare International Airport by the FBI before officials concluded there was no risk of the shells exploding. It is not clear how the students, aged...

NORFOLK A civilian police officer has been placed on leave and the Navy is boosting security measures at bases from Virginia to Maine after last week's shooting aboard the destroyer Mahan. The guard who allowed the shooter onto Norfolk Naval Station was a federal police officer, not a sailor or a contractor, officials said Monday. Everyone entering a base in the service's mid-Atlantic region using a transportation worker credential - the kind Jeffrey Savage showed before he shot and killed a sailor - now must be checked against a federal crime database. Until last week, those checks weren't mandatory. Navy...

I recently had a bad flashback. I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep when I was hit with a vivid memory from my time as a Transportation Security Administration officer at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. It was 2008, and I was conducting a bag check when three of my TSA colleagues got into an argument with a passenger at the checkpoint. Things got pretty heated. The subject of debate? Whether mashed potatoes were a liquid or a solid. In the end, of course, the TSA agents had the last word: Since the potatoes took the shape of their container,...

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.