TSA defends confiscation of Mass. woman’s cupcake

‘Security Theater’? TSA Confiscates Woman’s Frosted Cupcake

Do you feel safer yet?

Vanessa Gibbs holds her infamous “purse gun”

It’s not unusual for 17-year-old to find themselves in hot water with the fashion police. But on a flight from Virginia to Florida, Vanessa Gibbs found herself detained by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) over the appearance of her purse.

And just to be clear, it wasn’t the content inside the purse that the TSA objected to. No, agency officials took exception with the design of a gun on Gibbs’ handbag.

“It’s my style, it’s camouflage, it has an old western gun on it,” Gibbs told News4Jax.com. Gibbs didn’t run into any trouble while traveling north from Jacksonville International Airport. But on her way back home, TSA officials at Norfolk International Airport pulled her aside.

“She was like, ‘This is a federal offense because it’s in the shape of a gun,’” Gibbs said. “I’m like, ‘But it’s a design on a purse. How is it a federal offense?’”

After TSA agents figured out the gun was a fake, Gibbs said, they told her to check the bag or turn it over. By the time security wrapped up the inspection, the pregnant teen missed her flight, and Southwest Airlines sent her to Orlando instead. The changed itinerary created no small amount of anxiety for Gibbs’ mother, who was already waiting for her to arrive at the Jacksonville airport.

“Oh, it’s terrifying. I was so upset,” said Tami Gibbs, the teen’s mom. “I was on the phone all the way to Orlando trying to figure out what was going on with her. It was terrifying.”

Less terrifying is the actual design on the purse, which is only a few inches in size and hollow. “I carried this from Jacksonville to Norfolk, and I’ve carried it from Norfolk to Jacksonville,” Vanessa said. “Never once has anyone said anything about it until now.”

Nonetheless, the TSA says the design could be considered a “replica weapon,” something that the agency has banned since 2002. Just imagine what would have happened if Gibbs had also been wearing stiletto heels.

So, a couple of studs on the outside of a leather purse is a “replica weapon”?  You have to practice to get this stupid, and these are the people that AOPA, EAA, NBAA and the other alphabet soups compromised with over LASP II…

It’s coming soon, and it’s just a start.  When the bored moron can’t find a 30,000 pound takeoff weight aircraft to fondle, er inspect; what’s to prevent him from wandering into your hangar?  How many “weapons” do you keep there?  How much “HAZMAT”?

Call Congress, call the subcommittees, call Sam Graves (R-MO) and John Mica (R-FL), get behind this.  Call John Rockefeller (D-WV) and tell him he’s a moron.  And above all VOTE when able.

Congressional Report Urges TSA Reform

November 16, 2011By: George DooleyTravel Agent

A sure to be controversial report released by U.S. House Congressional leaders that alleges a decade of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) “mismanagement and failures” calls for “dramatic reform of the nation’s bloated transportation security agency.” The report, entitled “A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform” addresses a host of tough issues impacting travelers and the traveling public. The TSA is marking its tenth year.

“Congress created TSA ten years ago to be a lean, risk-based, adaptive agency, responsible for analyzing intelligence, setting security standards, and overseeing the nation’s transportation security structure. Unfortunately, TSA has lost its way,” said U.S. Rep. John L. Mica (R-FL), Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

“TSA has strayed from its security mission and mushroomed into a top-heavy bureaucracy that includes 3,986 headquarters staff, making $103,852 per year on average, and 9,656 administrators in the field. Currently, TSA has 65,000 employees. Unfortunately, over the past ten years, the agency has spent $57 billion on numerous operational and technology failures,” Mica said.

“While we are safer today than we were ten years ago, this is largely thanks to the vigilance of American citizens and passengers, the actions of flight crews and armed pilots, the addition of hardened cockpit doors, and the assistance of foreign intelligence agencies,” Mica continued. “After ten years, we cannot continue to rely on luck. It is time for reform. TSA must become the kind of agency it was intended to be – a thinking, risk-based, flexible agency that analyzes risks, sets security standards and audits security performance. “

The report is being provided to Congress and there are plans to introduce legislation to improve this critical security agency, the committee reports.

“TSA was envisioned and sold to the American people as a proactive agency that would strategically deploy the latest technology and cutting-edge tactics to protect travelers,” said U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “Despite these high ambitions, the agency has become a backwards-looking dinosaur that seeks employees through pizza box advertising and struggles to detect actual terrorist threats. TSA needs a vision and purpose that goes beyond throwing expensive equipment and invasive searches at passengers who do not pose a security threat.”

“Despite TSA’s massive bureaucracy, reports indicate that more than 25,000 security breaches have occurred in U.S. airports since 2001,” said U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, M.D. (R-GA), Chairman of the Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, and a member of the House Homeland Security Committee. “The agency as a whole has been a colossal disappointment; the one thing it has been successful at is violating the rights of the American people (italics — STOPLASP.com). Instead of worrying about ‘political correctness’, TSA should be putting our resources into intelligence and technologies that could be more effective when it comes to catching highly elusive and dangerous terrorists. We should know about terrorist attacks before they materialize on U.S. soil, and I have yet to see that kind of progress come out of TSA.”

“Terrorism is a global problem and we should continue to consider and learn what other countries are doing to effectively safeguard the public and stop terrorism,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI), Chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee of the House Transportation Committee. “We need to focus more on identifying and thwarting terrorists rather than spending vast resources on programs that simply inconvenience the traveling public who are not a threat.”

“This report highlights what we have known for years – that TSA is misguided, overly bureaucratic and mismanaged,” said U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations of the House Oversight Committee. “It invests in tomorrow’s technology to fight yesterday’s threats and wastes billions of taxpayer dollars in the process. It’s time for President Obama and Secretary Napolitano to refocus the troubled agency and get serious about real solutions.”

From the top down, TSA is a troubled agency, the report says. TSA and its administrator are buried within the Department of Homeland Security along with 21 other agencies. Turnover in the position of TSA Administrator has been excessive, and too little priority has been placed on naming a new administrator when the position has become vacant, the committee says.

The list of TSA operational failures has grown over the last ten years, and the agency has expended a significant amount of taxpayer resources in too many efforts that have provided little or no security benefits, the report says.

Earlier this year the agency undermined a successful – and congressionally mandated – program to allow airports to opt out of the all-federal passenger screening model in favor of a model in which qualified private contractors conduct screening under TSA standards and oversight. TSA’s expenditure of a quarter of a billion in taxpayer dollars resulted in a poorly designed, poorly tested, and poorly performing behavior detection program, known as SPOT. The agency has also failed to successfully implement a long-delayed Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program at many of the nation’s ports, the report says.

TSA personnel failures include its inability to retain its workforce, high training costs for replacements and decisions to recruit employees with ads on pizza boxes and discount gas pumps, according to the report.

The agency has also failed to effectively deploy technology, the report charges. Since 2001, “TSA has obligated over $8 billion on screening technology, a significant portion of which has been useless, unused, discarded, poorly deployed, or sitting idle because of a lack of trained personnel,” the report says.

“Despite great expenditures, TSA’s record of stopping terrorist plots is dismal. Classified evaluations of security performance continue to reveal concerning results. For example, the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the Times Square bomber, and the toner cartridge bomb plot were not thwarted by TSA, but by flight crews and passengers, or by foreign intelligence agencies, ” the report says.

The report was prepared by the majority staff of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Lieberman to hold aviation security hearing — Get MOTIVATED!

You can feel the love…

TSA Plans to Produce Revamped Security Proposal by Year-end

October 24, 2011

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials have told NBAA that they hope to issue a new proposed business aircraft security program by the end of this year. The new proposal, which is expected to be markedly different from the Large Aircraft Security Program (LASP) offered several years ago, will need to be reviewed and approved by the Department of Homeland Security and Office of Management and Budget before being published for public comment.

“TSA heard our concerns about the most egregious elements of the original LASP proposal,” said Doug Carr, NBAA’s vice president for safety, security & regulation. Those provisions included the aircraft weight threshold, prohibited items list, and the requirements for third-party auditors and armed security guards onboard business airplanes. Even the name of the new security proposal is expected to be different, no longer including the word “large,” which was a misnomer anyway.

TSA has included a “trusted pilot” element in all of its other security programs, and Carr expects it to be part of the new proposal as well. Carr also believes that the new proposal will reflect more of a risk-based approach to security, since TSA Administrator John Pistole, in an effort to evolve his agency into a high-performance counterterrorism organization, has announced plans to reorganize TSA so it can adopt a more intelligence-driven, risk-based approach to security.

Besides having received input from NBAA Staff, business aircraft operators (including NBAA’s Security Council) have helped TSA officials re-craft the business aviation security proposal, said Doug Hofsass, TSA’s deputy assistant administrator for Transportation Sector Network Management, during a well-attended security session at the recent NBAA Annual Meeting & Convention. “This rule is going to make a lot more sense, and it’s really good security,” he declared.

Wow, maybe the NBAA and the TSA should get a room, what with all the mutual admiration?

This is a bad idea, period.  No matter what it’s called.  The DHS and TSA’s own studies have already covered the limited utility of GA in any terrorist threat.  There are already programs to cover Part 135.  There is no need for this.

But, it’s a great segway into the rest of aviation. 

Oh no, the TSA would never do that… then you better read that article on the “road warriors” in Tennessee again.  I’m telling you the alphabet soup is selling us out, compromise and declare victory will not get you the freedom to fly your airplane like you do now.  If you want that to continue, you better join the fight.

BIG BROTHER IS HERE, RIGHT NOW, TODAY!

I want everybody to run, don’t walk, to the library and check out a copy of “1984″ by George Orwell.  We are here, folks.  It’s happening, and one day you’ll wake up and wonder what the hell hit you when you can’t even leave your house without permission.

From Channel 5 in Nashville, TN

By Adam Ghassemi

PORTLAND, Tenn. – You’re probably used to seeing TSA’s signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR).

“Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate,” said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.

Agents are recruiting truck drivers, like Rudy Gonzales, into the First Observer Highway Security Program to say something if they see something.

“Not only truck drivers, but cars, everybody should be aware of what’s going on, on the road,” said Gonzales.

It’s all meant to urge every driver to call authorities if they see something suspicious.

“Somebody sees something somewhere and we want them to be responsible citizens, report that and let us work it through our processes to abate the concern that they had when they saw something suspicious,” said Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol checked trucks at the weigh station with drug and bomb sniffing dogs during random inspections.

“The bottom line is this: if you see something suspicious say something about it,” Gibbons said Tuesday.

The random inspections really aren’t any more thorough than normal, according to Tennessee Highway Patrol Colonel Tracy Trott who says paying attention to details can make a difference. Trott pointed out it was an Oklahoma state trooper who stopped Timothy McVeigh for not having a license plate after the Oklahoma City bombing in the early 1990s.

Tuesday’s statewide “VIPR” operation isn’t in response to any particular threat, according to officials. (Bold and Italics from StopLASP.com)

Armes said intelligence indicates law enforcement should focus on the highways as well as the airports.

No threat, just going to start looking.  See, we’re the good guys, we just want you to be a responsible citizen and give us a call if you see something ‘suspicious’… 

And when you get a dime dropped on you because you cut somebody off in traffic?

And when your kids drop a dime because you make them be home by a certain time?

Or your neighbor’s dog is barking all night and you think that’s suspicious?

Once again, here at StopLASP we’re not against security nor safety.  But we are for Constitutional freedoms, like the 4th Amendment.  You don’t have to like what I do, but if it’s not illegal, I have a right to do it.

That includes flying airplanes.  If you see your hangar neighbor putting 55 gallon drums in his aircraft and filling them with avgas — there’s no STC for that and you should maybe ask a question or two and maybe make a phone call.  But if you fly out of an airport where the jump plane thinks he owns the pattern, being impolite isn’t against FARs either.

It’s a slippery slope and we are very, very close to it.  The world your children will grow up in could be extremely different if you don’t get involved.

New LASP Proposal Expected Soon

When the Transportation Security Administration proposed its Large Aircraft Security Program in 2008, the response from the aviation community was fast and furious, and now a revised version is expected to be proposed soon. The new LASP should be out in the next few months, EAA said on Monday, and a new public comment period will be designated. The original proposal attracted more than 8,000 comments, most of them “overwhelmingly negative,” according to EAA. The new version is expected to have a higher minimum weight than the original 12,500 pounds, and will provide more flexibility to aircraft operators.

The agency spent two years redesigning the program after ditching the original proposal in 2009, EAA said. Industry representatives were consulted for input on the second version. Opponents to the original plan created a website called StopLASP to encourage pilots and others to write their representatives in Washington in protest.

Thanks to Paul and the guys at AvWeb for the mention.  We are not just opposed to the first one, GA doesn’t operate on a ticket like Part 135 or 121.  My passengers are known to me and are friends or family and don’t require a pat down to get on my airplane — ever. 

When LASP II comes out, we’ll read it and post our opinion here, I can tell you it won’t be good because it’s unnecessary in our opinion.  Security, like charity, starts at home, or in this case the hangar; not in DC.

TSA vows to learn from breast cancer survivor’s pat-down

This appears to be more than just TSA…

Aviation International News » October 2011