Posted on 06/30/2009 7:19:09 PM PDT by DBrow
WASHINGTON - The Federal Air Marshal Service is a "useless" agency staffed with under-worked officers who make few arrests, a Tennessee congressman is charging.
U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., has taken to the House floor in recent days to ridicule the service as a "needless, useless agency" and argue that air marshals have "a cushy, easy job" that requires little more than sitting on a plane.
He also contends that the number of air marshals charged with committing crimes exceeds the number of arrests the agents themselves have made.
"I think they are doing almost no good at all," he said.
The air marshal service, which falls under the Transportation Security Administration, is a law enforcement agency that is probably best known for putting armed, undercover agents on selected flights to help thwart possible terrorist attacks or other hostile acts.
President George W. Bush ordered the program to be greatly expanded after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. Before 9/11, the agency had roughly 33 air marshals. Today, there are about 4,000, although the exact number is classified.
Megan Norris, an air marshal and spokeswoman for the agency, defended the program, which has a 2009 budget of about $820 million.
"Obviously, aviation is our primary mission, and since 9/11, we've had tens of thousands of flights that have flown successfully under our watchful eye," she said.
While it's a common belief that an air marshal's job consists only of sitting on a plane and flying back and forth across the country, that is a misperception, Norris said.
"We're there to ensure the safety and security of the traveling public, so it's our vigilance and our training that allows us to be ready to react should there be any type of threat or situation on a plane that could harm the passengers, the crew, the aircraft," she said.
The congressman, however, said arrest records show that air marshals do very little. Since 2001, the entire agency has averaged slightly over four arrests per year. That comes to about one a year per 1,000 employees and means the government is spending about $200 million per arrest, Duncan said.
"When we are so many trillions of dollars in debt -- a national debt of over $13 trillion -- we simply cannot afford to waste money in this way," he said.
Norris countered that arrests aren't a good way to measure the agency's success. Federal air marshals are trained to report suspicious activity to local law enforcement agencies, "so even in situations where an arrest would be appropriate, the majority of that is handled by the local law enforcement in whatever airport or location we are at," she said.
Duncan also pointed to news reports that said dozens of air marshals have been charged with crimes or accused of misconduct since 9/11, including drunken driving, domestic violence, human trafficking and attempting to smuggle explosives from Afghanistan.
Norris responded that the majority of air marshals are professionals who are dedicated to the job.
"We're out there ready to put our lives on the line to defend everybody on that aircraft and anybody else who could possibly be harmed, so it's disappointing to us when people choose to focus on that (misconduct)," she said.
Duncan stressed that he has never had any run-ins with an air marshal and said he doesn't even know anyone who works for the program. Regardless, he believes the government needs to be more reasonable in its security spending. He'd like to see the Air Marshal Service abolished, although he doesn't expect that to happen anytime soon.
"The problem is, nobody wants to vote against anything that has the word security attached to it," he said. "Well, we're going ridiculously overboard. Even if we spend the entire federal budget on security, we couldn't make life totally, completely safe."
On Wednesday, Duncan saw his contention proved right on the House floor. His amendment to freeze the agency's 2010 budget at the current level instead of giving it a proposed $40 million increase was shot down by a vote of 294-134 as the House wrestled with, and later approved, the program's $860 million budget for next year as part of the broader spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
"I just think this $860 million that we are about to appropriate for them would be much better spent on almost anything that you can think of," he said. "There are hundreds of other good things, maybe even thousands, that money could be spent on. I just think it's a total waste."
You are correct. They would probably die. So would the terrorists. 'Let's Roll' still rings loud and clear.
Good men died to kill bad men that wanted to kill more. Some days, that's all you get.
/ohnny
Thanks, Iron, I wish I had said that when I was searching for equivalents.
We have armed guards in most other critical points.
As I said above, a ruse can make the pilot open the armored door to respond to a threat.
Then, the CS grenade gets chucked and the plot thickens (assuming that the “wasteful” scanners and stuff at check-in are also taken out).
I mention CS because I found out that TSA takes a dim view of gas masks in carry on. Geiger counters too, though I could not figure out why.
I agree. Society is safer if criminals don’t know who’s armed.
Plus I think something like Glasers is safer than the Sig .357 the marshals carry.
Maybe it's just people with guns?
Maybe someone is pumping money into the concept of rolling back all the airline safety stuff (much of which was put in by Algor, a solid leftie).
Well, you may be right, although I’d like to see more pilots armed as well, at least those who choose to take the training.
How about we save money by abolishing the Department of Education instead?
(We wish.)
Hmmm... cholera and dysentery aren't major problems in the USA either, we should stop garbage collection and sewer service too!
Congressman Duncan, you are an ass.
“Air marshals are easy to spot and any serious terrorist would take them out first.”
I don’t fly a lot, probably 5 or 6 times a year. In the past couple of years i have spotted hree of them on seperate flights. One was so lazy he made no attempt to conceal his weapon. He sat in the seat to the back of the plan just in front of the bathrooms. He was paying less attention to the passengers and more in his book he was reading. All it would have taken was a can of soda or my laptop power supply and bonk on the head as I was coming out of the rest room and viola I would have been armed!
Air Marshals haven’t stopped a thing, in fact, they’ve been accused of more crimes than they’ve stopped. It costs almost a billion dollars for this program. The Congressman is right, but since this program employs so many union members, its probably never going anywhere.
The Omamabots won’t bring up 9/11 that’s for sure.
Time to move on. I wonder when the left will take down the Threat Warning color charts they insisted Bush put up all over.
It would be nice to fly without taking off my shoes, but I noticed that planes stopped dropping out of the sky after Oct 2001 (I think) when the Shoe Bomber got busted and they started checking everyone’s shoes. Nowhere near as many “accidents” after that.
I think the mere presence of them stops some things.
And it costs nowhere near a billion dollars, look it up.
I wish I could give you a qualified answer. I can’t. The only thing I can think of is the attempted universal reach of Islam. If you can clear the planes, trains and other forms of transportation of any deterrent … and crap happens!
But, to postulate this idea reeks of conspiracy … and I’m not a conspiracy nut.
The only thing I’m willing to personally consider along these lines is Obama’s Islamic heritage.
Other than that, who knows?
;-)
$820 million. Passengers would not allow it, and if they let the pilots arm themselves, then it’d even be a greater waste of money
It could be just the common thought of liberals, that if you defend against something you get more of it, force is futile.
I’m sure no Congressman haven’t gotten brides/contributions from the recipients of those huge airport boondoggle equipment contracts.
I just hope the Air Marshals are of a better quality than the DMV-types who work for TSA.
But if there has been little, if any, terroristic activity on airplanes since the marshals have been implemented, doesn’t logic and common sense tell us that they are doing their job (despite a few bad apples, like any industry)????
Just a thought....I’m in favor of letting them stay.
If there is a ruckus in the cabin, the armed pilot will stay in the cabin and defend the cabin from attack.
In Miami, a Federal Air Marshall prevented a terrorist from setting off a bomb in the terminal. One shot in the jetway stopped the guy. The program is worth it!
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