Free Republic

The American Civil Liberties Union announced Saturday evening that a federal court in New York had issued an emergency stay on President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The court’s decision, which will affect people who have been detained in airports, came after the ACLU and other activist groups filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of two Iraqis who were held at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as a result of the order. “I hope Trump enjoys losing. He’s going to lose so much we’re going to get sick and tired of...

A congressional hearing Thursday on aviation security will be missing its chief witness, who declined to testify. Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole had been asked to appear before the Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on aviation on the impact of his agency's policies on passengers and the airline industry. But Pistole said he had no plans to attend, arguing the panel has no jurisdiction over TSA matters. ... TSA regularly chooses to not even respond to simple requests for information

Security officials gather and giggle at naked travellers in body scanner . The 3D full-body scanners procured for thorough body check of passengers at the nation's major airports for security reasons are now being abused by security officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN)... They use the machines, installed in the wake of the Farouk AbdulMutallab affair, to watch the naked images of female passengers for fun. The controversial body scanners have been dubbed "e-stripping" in advanced countries because of the way they expose the nakedness of those being screened. THISDAY discovered that during off-peak periods, the aviation...

A recently-released report from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Richard L. Skinner reveals serious flaws in the department's computer network.

As hands are wrung in the aftermath of the near-tragedy on a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, a conversation from London's Heathrow Airport in 1986 comes to mind. It consisted of an El Al security agent quizzing one Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy, a 32-year-old recent arrival in London from Sallynoggin, Ireland. While working as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, Murphy met Nizar al-Hindawi, a far-leftist Palestinian who impregnated her. After instructing her to "get rid of the thing," he abruptly changed his tune and insisted on immediate marriage in "the Holy Land." He also insisted on their...

If the government prohibits airline passengers from getting out of their seats during the last hour of a flight, I hereby announce that I will get out of my seat either to escort someone who needs to use the lavatory or because I do. I understand that I may be arrested, but I am willing to make this a cause celebre. Aside from a genetic incapacity to be directed by irrationality, I will make this protest on behalf of fellow passengers who are in pain because of this idiotic rule. What are diabetics, for example, supposed to do? And considering...

The Northwest Flight 253 bombing attempt has once again reignited the debate over using profiling as a security technique. Many have pointed out over the years that ethnic profiling could have stopped the attacks of September 11. And it probably could have. But profiling alone is not the solution. First of all let's concede that America's intelligence capabilities are virtually useless. Shoe bomber Richard Reid was spotted by the Israelis. British intelligence knew about Umar. Nidal Malik Hasan did everything but walk around within the military establishment carrying a sign, "I Will Kill You All". And had he even actually...

Congratulations on an outstanding job, Osama. You masterfully pulled the strings, and the most powerful nation in the world jumped. You caused turmoil in major airports around the world on the busiest travel day of the year, cancelling and delaying thousands of flights. Now we discover that there is a new place to hide explosives as we scurry around to devise solutions. Passengers go through a pre... Passengers go through a pre-flight security screening at Ben-Gurion Airport. Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski [file] Creating havoc at airports will divert our attention from your real targets. Perhaps our fragile electricity grid? Or our...

Andy, you're right to call out the President for taking refuge in discredited cliches about "crushing poverty" as a "root cause" of terrorism: Young Mr Abdulmuttalab lived in a London flat worth £2.5 million - ie, four million bucks. Still, it's good to know the President has abandoned his laughable assurances that the Pantybomber was an "isolated extremist". After all, when the leader of the global hyperpower says things that any reasonably informed person at home and abroad knows are complete twaddle, he makes his country look stupid to the world. But I think we're still missing the larger point...

Stress Security, Not ConvenienceThe safest airline in the world, it is widely agreed, is El Al, Israel’s national carrier. The safest airport is Ben Gurion International, in Tel Aviv. No El Al plane has been attacked by terrorists in more than three decades, and no flight leaving Ben Gurion has ever been hijacked. What are the Israelis doing that we aren’t? Airports in the United States and many other countries are built around convenience while in Israel it’s all about security. We get our boarding passes online and check our baggage at the curb. At T.S.A. checkpoints, youths stare at...

The Department of Homeland Security has initiated unspecified personnel actions against individuals involved in the bungled online posting this spring of a government document that revealed airport screening secrets, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told senators Wednesday morning. A contract employee was responsible for failing to properly redact a 93-page Transportation Security Administration operating manual onto a government procurement Web site, allowing computer users to recover blacked-out information by copying and pasting them into other documents, Napolitano said. TSA supervisors were also involved, Napolitano said. "The security of the traveling public has never been put at risk," Napolitano assured the...

More than 3,600 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) or Homeland Security Department airport security uniforms and badges have been lost or stolen over the past five years, The Washington Times reports. Most of the items are thought to have been lost or misplaced, according to TSA spokesperson Amy Kudwa. The TSA requires employees to report a missing badge or uniform to a supervisor, who is then to notify local law enforcement – but only if the item is believed to have been stolen. Kudwa tells the paper that missing uniforms and badges cannot be used by terrorists to gain access to...

In yet another example of airline passengers going on their gut instincts to identify potential threats to their safety in the absence of effective screening procedures at airports that can spot the terrorists amongst them, six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix after a passenger passed a note to a flight attendant reporting “suspicious activity.” According to BBC News, “The men were told to disembark shortly after saying evening prayers. Three of the six had stood as they prayed. … police were called after the men refused to get off the flight when...

The Orlando Sentinel reports that 501 of the 830 security officers at Orlando International Airport (60 percent) failed a test in June that assesses how well they can detect explosives, guns and other banned items at passenger checkpoints. The Threat Image Projection (TIP) test requires screeners to identify and flag images of banned items in carry-on bags that are randomly flashed onto the X-ray screen. When such an image is seen, the screener must push a button; those who consistently fail the test are given remedial training. According to the paper, a spokesperson for the TSA attributed the high number...

The federal agency in charge of aviation security is considering major changes in how it screens airline passengers, including proposals that, an official said, would lift the ban on carrying razor blades and small knives as well as limit pat-down searches. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will meet later this month to discuss the plan, which is designed to reduce checkpoint hassles for the nation's 2 million passengers. The agency proposed the changes after its new chief, Edmund S. Hawley, called for a broad review in hopes of making airline screening more passenger-friendly. An initial set of staff recommendations drafted...

At the invitation of UPI, Jon Loose and I wrote this op-ed and submitted it a week ago. UPI told us that every single person who read it there said that this was not commentary but that it was news. They have told us they were assigning staff to cover this story. Since Newsmax has broken the story, I thought it time to put out information that has not yet come to light. The Cost of Life By Jon Loose and Connie Hair Hindsight is always 20/20. You see causes and proactive avenues that could have altered the outcome. Sometimes ...

News NBC reporters posing as terrorists try to charter a helicopter Meg Godlewski 9/3/2004 Security at small airports in the United States recently increased not because of terrorist threats, but because of television reporters from NBC posing as terrorists. On Aug. 11 an employee at a helicopter charter business at St. Louis Downtown Airport received a call from a man wanting to charter a helicopter. The man said he and a companion wanted to view the local landmarks, such as the nearby Gateway Arch, and perhaps do some videotaping. The employee taking the call became suspicious when the man said...

NYC police on watch for Port courthouse bomber By Andy Smith and Stephanie Akin Staff writers New York City police are targeting a man who bombed Newburyport Superior Court 28 years ago, saying he poses a threat to next week's Republican National Convention. But an anti-war activist group has accused police of trying to "smear" their reputation by linking the group with the convicted radical who terrorized New England with a series of bombings in the 1970s. New York City police say Richard J. Picariello, 55, is among 50 activists whose criminal histories will earn them extra attention next week....

Over in the alternative universe of the 9/11 commission hearings watched only by me, Richard Ben-Veniste recently proposed an amazing new standard for investigating Arabs in this country. In the middle of haranguing Condoleezza Rice, Ben-Veniste demanded to know why the suspected 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, had not been more aggressively investigated, despite the fact that -- I quote -- he had "no explanation for the funds in his bank account, and no explanation for why he was in the United States."So let me get this straight: Airport security can't acknowledge that a person is an Arab, but they should...

MEDFORD, N.J. (AP) - Military jets Saturday diverted a small plane flying in temporarily restricted air space shortly before President Bush flew out of Philadelphia on Air Force One, a Secret Service spokeswoman said. Two F-16 fighter jets ordered the plane to land at Medford's Flying W Airport, and the president was never in any danger, Secret Service spokeswoman Ann Roman said. The fighter jets had to use flares to get the pilot's attention, said Lt. Col. Kacey Blaney of the Northeast Air Defense Sector. Usually pilots respond to radio contact or other signals, she said. The plane and pilot...