Posted on 02/27/2005 2:35:55 PM PST by FreedomCalls
Governments like to keep secrets. This is a simple fact of life. There are things that the government says and does that they would rather not have disclosed to anyone other than those with a “need to know”. To this end, the government has created a whole series of “classifications” that dictate exactly who gets to know what. There are even parts of this classification system that are themselves classified to prevent people from revealing that that particular classification category is very important. The whole thing smacks of “Big Brother” and is enough to give anyone a headache. Believe it or not, there is a method to the madness: Information is power.
Our government goes to great lengths to protect certain types of information because it wants to keep our enemies in the dark. Why? The amount of information that you know about your enemy’s strengths and weaknesses can have an incredible impact on how well you can defend yourself and attack him. It’s just like having another football team’s playbook. If you know exactly what the other team plans to do in every possible situation, then your defense and offense will be able to stop the other guy cold and win the game.
This can be applied to almost any highly competitive activity: Baseball, business, stocks, courtroom litigation, and national defense. It’s the reason why our nation spends trillions of dollars on intelligence collection, and it’s also the reason why we try to guard our national defense secrets so closely. Everyone understands this.
Everyone except for Thomas Dewey Quinn and his management cronies. You see Thomas Dewey Quinn, the current Director of the US Federal Air Marshal Service, believes that the best way to defend our nation’s commercial airliners is by giving the bad guys our entire playbook. Thomas Dewey Quinn has allowed CNN (and other news networks) complete access to all of the Federal Air Marshal Service’s secrets (which is classified as “Sensitive Security Information” –– dissemination and discussion of which is strictly limited to US law enforcement and intelligence agencies only), and then Quinn authorized those same media outlets to release that information to the world.
To make matters worse, a high-ranking executive within Federal Air Marshal Service Headquarters, has now leaked information that Thomas Dewey Quinn has been providing national security information to civilians that have absolutely no need to know.
This latest leak provides photographs of country western singer Lyle Lovett and an unidentified woman being personally escorted by Thomas Dewey Quinn, through the high security areas of the Federal Air Marshal Service Headquarters secret training facility. The photos also show Quinn allowing Lovett and the unidentified woman access to the secret training facilities while Federal Air Marshals were practicing the very tactics that they may have to use to defend airliners from terrorists –– Quinn then allowed Lovett and his companion to participate in the secret training.
This type of abuse of authority has been going on for quite some time and has often involved several other high-ranking executives in the Federal Air Marshal Service (the Headquarters leak is now believed to have come from senior executives within the Service who realize that their own survival hinges upon the removal of Thomas Dewey Quinn, and the appointment of a more reasonable and stable Director).
Why would Thomas Dewey Quinn allow this to occur? Surely Quinn, a former executive in the US Secret Service, is well aware of the necessity to keep protective measures a secret. The US Secret Service would never allow anyone to know how their agents plan to protect the president in any scenario, let alone film those agents practicing the tactics they would use, and then release that information to the world. The US Secret Service will not even disclose whether or not the President's limo has armor or not. That type of classified information would jeopardize the safety of the President, and it would severely reduce the effectiveness of the US Secret Service as a law enforcement agency.
Yet this is exactly what Thomas Dewey Quinn has done to the men and women of the Federal Air Marshal Service. By revealing every little detail about their mission and methods, Quinn has placed the lives of the flying public in mortal danger. Even the Secret Service knows that a bunch of agents in pretty business suits can only go so far to protect someone. At least Secret Service agents have high altitude sniper/surveillance teams, move in large teams, wear body armor, utilize state-of-the-art equipment, and use radios to communicate.
Thomas Dewey Quinn unbelievably advertised to the world on the February 17th CNN video, that Federal Air Marshals, while in flight, CANNOT communicate with each other or the Mission Operations Center on their PDAs –– the very same PDAs Quinn personally acquisitioned himself! Can you say "DataMAX", the company that supplied the Service with the costly, yet faulty PDA software that has never functioned properly to this day?
The hard truth is that any terrorist willing to sacrifice their life, will succeed in an assassination attempt, because visible deterrence only works against people who ARE afraid to die. Organizations like Al Qaeda are feared by the US Secret Service because these people are not afraid to die and are not afraid to sacrifice 10, 20, or even a hundred people to overwhelm “the men in black” and achieve their goals (which is why the Secret Service does not allow its protectees into areas with this type of threat). This is exactly the type of threat that Federal Air Marshals face everyday, and the element of surprise is the most important advantage that they have to combat any threat.
Terrorists cannot plan a successful hijacking if they don’t know the specifics of who, where, how, or how many when dealing with Federal Air Marshals. Let’s face it, terrorists are very risk adverse. Terrorists will never attempt something that could become an embarrassment to them, and they will never attempt anything that they are not reasonably sure will succeed. Nothing hurts a terrorist cause like a news story talking about how “XXX Government Agency defeated yet another terrorist attack and demonstrated that the US homeland is secure.”
Federal Air Marshals are committed to defending the flying public with their last breath if necessary, and we owe it to them to give them every advantage necessary to ensure that 9/11 never happens again. Federal Air Marshals do their jobs every single day knowing that they may face overwhelming odds, and they accept this because they have unshakable faith in their training, skills, resolve, and personal dedication to those who died on 9/11.
The Federal Air Marshal motto of “Unseen, Unheard, and Undeterred” is a statement of pride among Federal Air Marshals (which in a fit of retribution against the rank and file for their fight against his foolish and dangerous policies, Quinn and his management cronies have officially bastardized their motto to now read “Unseen and Unheard”, ). The motto is still the basis of every Federal Air Marshal's protective value: The element of surprise allows them to overcome any challenge.
The damage that Thomas Dewey Quinn has done to the Air Marshal Service and national security of the United States is so irreparable that it is being compared to the damage inflicted by spies such as Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and Julius & Ethel Rosenberg. Thomas Dewey Quinn has betrayed the agents of the Federal Air Marshal Service and provided Al Qaeda (and any other terrorist organization) with a step-by-step manual on how to spot, disable, defeat and kill Federal Air Marshals before they even know a hijacking has begun.
After 9/11 we all vowed to “Never Forget” the thousands of Americans who died on that day. Thomas Dewey Quinn and his executive management cronies of the Federal Air Marshal Service, have not only forgotten, they have betrayed an entire system dedicated to preventing another 9/11, and in doing so, they have betrayed the memories of our hollowed dead and of the United States of America.
Try Googling the url that you linked to....
(There IS some threat from bombs on airliners, and I don't think that part of our airliner security is a waste. There may also be some threats from a hijack of a business jet or cargo jet -- I don't mean to imply there is no threat at all.)
BUMP!
I know many of the air marshalls are upset with Quinn because of his dictate that they must wear coats and ties on all flights, thereby making it easy to pick them out. They feel endangered by this, so it is not surprising to see anti-Quinn stories circulating as a way of getting revenge.
Why does this guy still have a job?
When I flew for the airlines right after 911, the Air Marshalls I saw were wearing plain clothes so as to blend in better. Unfortunately, these individuals boarded the aircraft well in advance of other passengers. Anyone in the general boarding area, or looking out a window, could easily identify these types as persons of interest.
As a side note, I think they (the Air Marshalls) got the phone numbers of quite a few flight attendants.
Hee hee, I guess flight attendant debriefings are one of the perks of the job. On your other point, I'm not sure Quinn was running the program back then, though. Or, if he was, he hadn't implemented his dress code, which seems very dangerous to me. Maybe he's even rescinded it recently, I honestly do not know.
AND RIGHTLY SO!!
Concur.
fyi
If it is true, he should be unemployed by day's end.
Bull-pucks.
The Air Marshalls are a praetorian guard for our rulers and other VIPs.
Arm the pilots. Then we all get some protection.
Because GW is not the Super Genius, that a lot of freepers think he is.
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