Posted on 05/31/2004 4:51:50 PM PDT by wagglebee
They stick out like sore thumbs -- Federal Air Marshals complain.
The marshalls say that's a threat to their own and passenger security.
An intelligence brief quoted by the Los Angeles Times recalled an incident when two air marshals were spotted by a passenger coming down the aisle who said "Oh, I see we have air marshals on board!"
This is something that happens all too often, the marshals say, insisting that the element of surprise may be crucial to their mission.
But in a complaint to Congress, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Assn. said they are "as easy to identify as a uniformed police officer."
What makes them stand out, they say, is the clothes they wear and the way they access the aircraft to which they are assigned.
Regulations require marshals to go to work wearing a suit and tie or sport coat, collared shirt, dress slacks and dress shoes. Equivalent attire is required for female air marshals. This in an era when passengers arrive aboard wearing shorts, jeans and even less informal attire and sporting beards and scraggly hair cuts.
According to the Times, Federal Air Marshal Service spokesman David M. Adams told them that personal appearance was important: "Professional demeanor, attire and attitude gain respect. If a guy pulls out a gun and he's got a tattoo on his arm and [is wearing] shorts, I'm going to question whether he's a law enforcement officer."
Marshals can't go through the initial security screening with the rest of the passengers because they are armed. They are forced to use exit lanes, the Times explained. Instead of using the entry points set aside for airport employees, the marshals often must go through the "exit" lanes - marching against the flow of arriving passengers, at times in full view of travelers.
"Everybody sees you standing there," one marshal said. "Everybody sees you show your ID. They see you are being escorted through an exit lane, bypassing security."
John Amat, a spokesman for the marshals belonging to the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association told the Times, "They lose the advantage" of being undercover.
One marshal complained to the Times that "a bad guy on a plane can quickly narrow the pool of potential marshals. They're not wearing jeans, they're not wearing cargo pants... There will not be an air marshal who is unshaven. You eliminate the unknown element."
At Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, the Daily Telegram in Superior, Wisconsin reported that air marshals are required to follow procedures "so absurd that airline passengers could figure out who they were."
It is, the newspaper noted "... a situation that points out the often ridiculous nature of government bureaucracies, in this case the Transportation Security Administration created to help prevent terrorism attacks.
Special Exit Lane
At checkpoints for arriving passengers, screeners can be seen leading the agents up an exit lane to a table where they have to sign in, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The TSA's procedures required air marshals and other plainclothes officers to show identification and sign in at each security checkpoint, and it wasn't exclusive to Mitchell Airport.
The Journal Sentinel cited a letter from Frank Terreri, president of the air marshals unit of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, to the director of the Federal Air Marshals Service in October about the requirement to sign in: "This is done in plain view of passengers transiting through these screening checkpoints. It is obvious that even a novice surveillance agent could sit near a checkpoint and determine who, what and where these logged individuals are and their destination."
Although forbidden to talk to the media, some of the marshals spoke to the Times, noting that the prospect of being spotted by terrorists and disabled or killed before they could react makes them uneasy.
"This is what I foresee," one marshal, a two-year veteran confided to the newspaper. "Two of us get on the plane and we've been under surveillance the whole time. There's a minimum of four bad guys... My partner goes to the bathroom and they come after me with a sharp pen, stab me in the neck or in the brain and take my weapon," he continued. "When my partner comes out, they shoot him. Then they've got 80 rounds of ammunition and two weapons."
Although spokesman Adams called such a scenario "highly unlikely," noting that marshals "are not undercover like Serpico," a congressional General Accounting Office study of a two-year period from 2001 to 2003 found an average of about one case a week in which marshals reported their cover was blown.
Secret Service Look
The controversial dress code is the work of Thomas D. Quinn, the director of the air marshals, who took over in January 2002.
Quinn, the Times reported, spent 20 years with the Secret Service. He was the focus of heavy criticism when he lobbied against a bill designed to broaden the law arming airline pilots.
Before the 9/11 attacks, the air marshal service had about 30 officers. Today it has several thousand, with an annual budget of $600-million.
And, some marshals told the Times, it was after Quinn took over that the strict rules on dress and grooming were instituted, including the ban on beards, long hair and jeans.
"Secret Service people are notoriously known for being snappy dressers," Capt. Steve Luckey, security chairman for the Air Line Pilots Assn told the Times.
The marshals have petitioned Congress for help in changing the rules, but in the meantime, some air marshals have found ways to adapt. One told the newspaper that he deliberately acts as the more visible member of his team. He walks down the jet way before the passengers. If someone stares at him, he stares back. By becoming the focus of attention, he figures he's helping protect his partner's anonymity.
"If they come after me first, he might be able to save my bacon," said the marshal. "At least one guy may be able to do something to defend the aircraft."
IIRC there's an older law stating something about a "right to keep and bear arms."
How did being armed on a privately owned aircraft become the governments business?
Darn good question. I think the idea to disarm passengers started when commercial aircraft were getting hijacked to Cuba.
There may be some history in FAA began 'disarming' pilots in '87
Simply put, the TSA's intimidating background screenings, which involve intrusive psychological tests; its threats of sharing its opinion of the pilot's psychological fitness with the FAA and the pilot's employer; its refusal to issue standard federal credentials to FFDO graduates; its ridiculous requirement that the firearm be carried in a lockbox onto the airplane, instead of on the FFDO's person; its use of only one distant training facility; its instructions to Federal Air Marshals to police the FFDO's; and its arbitrary and unnecessary disqualifications of FFDO candidates, have combined to discourage most of those pilots who would have otherwise volunteered.
with their bare hands?
Valid point, but after 9/11, I would say it's highly unlikely because I for one would not simply sit there and watch, gun or no gun.
Welcome to FR.
Fine choice
These were not crew members. They were "business" people. No airline uniforms, hats, luggage etc. It was odd or I wouldn't have thought about it twice.
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