Federal Air Marshals: Fratboys of the skies.

Geez...yeah, go ahead and fall asleep with a loaded gun on ya...great idea.

I don't why they are so bored and sleeping on flights. I mean, there's like a terrorist on every other flight right?

People in cop-like positions who have severe personality problems?
I, for one, am completely shocked.

Sarcasm aside, I'm Canadian, and I have to say I actually am surprised. 9/11 carries such weight with the world, nevermind with actual Americans, that I just had it in my head for some reason that every Air Marshall would be a Chuck Norris type. Constantly vigil, waiting to neutralize any threat in any capacity.

At least, that's what I would be like. But then again, how's that saying go? You don't want the people who want to be cops, to be cops?

Ha, female air marshals, now that's funny. I wonder if they were put in charge of making sammiches.

Leave it to a democrat and a guy named Steve (who i'm guessing is gay) to ruin all the fun.

I thought the game they played was wheel of fortune.

I always thought it would be a staggeringly boring job. Lots of rules and regulations, then get on the plane and be focused while doing nothing after listening to the flight safety instructions for the 1,274th time....

My uncle is an Airline pilot and my brother is DHS. So I have some personal feelings about air safety. And even I would say that a steel locked cabin door does more to prevent hijackings than everything else combined.

Hell, make the damn thing sound proof so the pilots can't hear the crazies threatening the passengers. Then publicly declare all of this and I guarantee there will never be another hijacking again.

If you can't control the plane and you can't make demands then what's the point? Stabbing people on the plane? You have a better chance of getting away with it or causing more death in the airport lounge then in an airplane cabin. And bombs could be screened the way we've always done. With sensors and xray.

Maybe personnel from other law enforcement agencies should do three-month assignments as Air Marshals, then rotate back to their agencies before they get too bored with it. That way, you wouldn't end up with all the deadwood being shunted off to the TSA.

superdude72: Maybe personnel from other law enforcement agencies should do three-month assignments as Air Marshals, then rotate back to their agencies before they get too bored with it. That way, you wouldn't end up with all the deadwood being shunted off to the TSA.

What a good and practical idea. Government agencies exist in all the major cities with airports so it would be easy to get them in and out of the system. Therefore it will never happen. No lobbyist can make money off of it.

ihatedumbpeople: Geez...yeah, go ahead and fall asleep with a loaded gun on ya...great idea.

Just don't do it with more than 4oz of liquid.

FTA

Managers at the Federal Air Marshal Service regularly made fun of blacks, Latinos and gays, took taxpayer-paid trips to visit families and vacation spots, and acted like a "bunch of school kid punks,"

So in other words, they act just like the BATFE, County Sheriffs and your local blue shirts.

Other categories included "Our Gang" for African-Americans, "Geraldo Rivera" for Latinos, and "Ellen DeGeneres" for gay female air marshals.

One of the five women listed on the board later tried to commit suicide, according to Theodoropoulos and other air marshals familiar with the case.

I've got an idea. How about everyone involved with this pile of shiat gets to sit on the outside of the plane for their next flight?

I'm really talking out my butt here, but my common sense tells me that pre 9-11, the Air Marshals probably weren't considered to be that important. Now, post 9-11, the agency has probably had tons of cash thrown at it. I bet there are more than a few pre 9-11 guys who were like, "hells yeah, it's farking party time!"

What they need is a shake-up at the senior management level.

FTFA: "John Pistole, who oversees the air marshals..."

Excellent name for the job!

Frankly I'll take the risk of another terrorist hijacking over the TSA and Air Marshals being in existence. Passengers aren't gonna sit down and shut up now that we know what we know. And all it will take is one attempted hijacking that gets thwarted by simple everyday people to get terrorist organizations thinking of a different nefarious way to kill innocent civilians.

Like the post above mentioned, just screen for bombs, guns, knives, etc. Anything else I'm pretty sure we can handle ourselves.

And before I end my rant, there's another huge difference between non and 9/11. Maybe it's just me and the 24 or so flights I've been on, but every single plane is packed these days. It's a lot harder to hijack 100-300 people than it is 40-60.

Too bad none of this will change, though.

What do you mean, 'you people'?
*tase*

pickle smokers

So their slurs are what a 4th grader would come up with?

In a post 9/11 world I expect them to have enough funding and training to come up with much better slurs.

liam76: pickle smokers

So their slurs are what a 4th grader would come up with?

In a post 9/11 world I expect them to have enough funding and training to come up with much better slurs.

-----------------------------

They coulda stolen Peter Pufferr from R. Lee Ermey.

Air Marshals are under the purview of the TSA (but I have heard they hate being linked to the TSA screeners).

If this goes on with the FAM program, can only imagine what TSA screeners do in the back rooms when they rifle through passengers' possessions.

Oh wait, we already know (new window)

Here, too (new window)

Here (new window)

And here (new window)

And here (new window)

But wait, there's more (new window)

And another (new window)


And those are within the past few months.

The only way this agency is going to be stopped is through self-implosion, and it's doing a fine job of it so far. It's only a matter of time when the house of cards will completely fall within the TSA.

My buddy is an air Marshall. He says its boring and tough to make up bs when people start talking to him. He's 5'5 and says they tend to want folks who don't reek of authority if they're flying by themselves. His schedule is literally 8-5 except he spends it...flying. The exception is once in awhile he goes to Europe and stays a week, only 'working' to and from there.

loaba: I'm really talking out my butt here, but my common sense tells me that pre 9-11, the Air Marshals probably weren't considered to be that important. Now, post 9-11, the agency has probably had tons of cash thrown at it. I bet there are more than a few pre 9-11 guys who were like, "hells yeah, it's farking party time!"

What they need is a shake-up at the senior management level.

Insert picture of the Joker looking at the guy from 24 with an odd look on his face.

I think they should all be replaced with people named Marshall, such as Penny Marshall and Marshall Mathers. I would feel a lot more safe.

Did that report really say "Billion dollar"? Is that just for the Air Marshal program or the whole TSA/Air Marshall program?

/Gubberment money not well spent!

WienerButt: My buddy is an air Marshall. He says its boring and tough to make up bs when people start talking to him. He's 5'5 and says they tend to want folks who don't reek of authority if they're flying by themselves. His schedule is literally 8-5 except he spends it...flying. The exception is once in awhile he goes to Europe and stays a week, only 'working' to and from there.

Flight delays must play hell with their scheduling.

coldones: I think they should all be replaced with people named Marshall, such as Penny Marshall and Marshall Mathers. I would feel a lot more safe.

Or musicians who play exclusively through Marshall amps. They could probably get a nice endorsement deal as well.

superdude72: Maybe personnel from other law enforcement agencies should do three-month assignments as Air Marshals, then rotate back to their agencies before they get too bored with it. That way, you wouldn't end up with all the deadwood being shunted off to the TSA.

Good idea. Too bad these jobs are often in the hold of union scum, so they will have a hissy fit at the idea of the extra effort.

dmax: coldones: I think they should all be replaced with people named Marshall, such as Penny Marshall and Marshall Mathers. I would feel a lot more safe.

Or musicians who play exclusively through Marshall amps. They could probably get a nice endorsement deal as well.

Yeah, and then when the terrorists try to hijack the plane they can crank some sweet riffs out of their Marshall stacks and rock the terrorists into submission.

In their defense, it doesn't matter virtually one whit what Air Marshals do. It's like being hired full-time to be vigilant in case Mars Attacks. It's a game of dress-up, make-believe. What motivation do they have not to fark around? Hijackers can't get access to the cockpit anymore, and we screen for bombs as we always have.

There's no threat. It's all bullshiat. And unlike the general public, Air Marshals know that.

Disband the TSA. Do it today. There is no reason for this group of perverted degenerates to be employed by a government agency, one that serves absolutely no purpose. Fire every last one of them, and eliminate the agency.

coldones: dmax: coldones: I think they should all be replaced with people named Marshall, such as Penny Marshall and Marshall Mathers. I would feel a lot more safe.

Or musicians who play exclusively through Marshall amps. They could probably get a nice endorsement deal as well.

Yeah, and then when the terrorists try to hijack the plane they can crank some sweet riffs out of their Marshall stacks and rock the terrorists into submission.

I was thinking the terrorists would go, "Hell yeah! and decide that 'Merica rocks! and then they'd defect and tell us all their secrets.

Totally unrelated to the story: That site fired up a commercial and played it without any action on my part, and it wouldn't let you stop it either. Other than by leaving the site. Which I did immediately, and won't return.

So congratulations, ABC News.

I look forward to the world of, say, 5 years from now, when our phones and tablets just fire up commercials unbidden, at any time, day or night, whether we like it or not. The SOPA III act will no doubt make it a crime to try to stop such ads, because doing so deprives corporate persons of their right to free speech.

/get off my lawn

Kibbler: Totally unrelated to the story: That site fired up a commercial and played it without any action on my part, and it wouldn't let you stop it either. Other than by leaving the site. Which I did immediately, and won't return.

So congratulations, ABC News.

I look forward to the world of, say, 5 years from now, when our phones and tablets just fire up commercials unbidden, at any time, day or night, whether we like it or not. The SOPA III act will no doubt make it a crime to try to stop such ads, because doing so deprives corporate persons of their right to free speech.

/get off my lawn

This!
I left also.

/can't believe sheep just sit there

OnlyM3: FTA
Managers at the Federal Air Marshal Service regularly made fun of blacks, Latinos and gays, took taxpayer-paid trips to visit families and vacation spots, and acted like a "bunch of school kid punks,"
So in other words, they act just like the BATFE, County Sheriffs and your local blue shirts.

Came to say something like this. In the late 80s/early 90s, the ATF was the subject of some news stories like this. A lot of it was swept out of the news when Ruby Ridge and Waco happened. Funny how that happens...

I do have wonder what the Air Marshal equivalent would be.

pedrop357: I do have wonder what the Air Marshal equivalent would be.
________________________

I don't think that air marshals get into the same kinds of trouble as their ATF brothers. Per another farker's comments, they're kinda the frat boys of the police world. They like to make fun of co-workers, harass the skirts, and basically do as little work as possible while milking as much as they can from public tit.

Air marshals behaving badly, po-dunk city SWAT units crashing the wrong house, that's what Homeland security has bought for us.

Kibbler: Totally unrelated to the story: That site fired up a commercial and played it without any action on my part, and it wouldn't let you stop it either. Other than by leaving the site. Which I did immediately, and won't return.

So congratulations, ABC News.

I look forward to the world of, say, 5 years from now, when our phones and tablets just fire up commercials unbidden, at any time, day or night, whether we like it or not. The SOPA III act will no doubt make it a crime to try to stop such ads, because doing so deprives corporate persons of their right to free speech.

/get off my lawn

Yeah, how dare people attempt to even recoup the cost of streaming video to you on their site. Unconscionable!

Knara: Yeah, how dare people attempt to even recoup the cost of streaming video to you on their site.

They can pay for my bandwidth if they want to do that.

pedrop357: Came to say something like this. In the late 80s/early 90s, the ATF was the subject of some news stories like this. A lot of it was swept out of the news when Ruby Ridge and Waco happened. Funny how that happens...

I do have wonder what the Air Marshal equivalent would be.


Plane gets hijacked, Air Marshall kills all the cabin crew so they can't be taken hostage.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time."

Did anyone else notice the airplane interior painted to look like profuse blood spatter? Which marketing design genius's idea was that? (See video at around a minute in.)

sure haven't: People in cop-like positions who have severe personality problems?
I, for one, am completely shocked.

Sarcasm aside, I'm Canadian, and I have to say I actually am surprised. 9/11 carries such weight with the world, nevermind with actual Americans, that I just had it in my head for some reason that every Air Marshall would be a Chuck Norris type. Constantly vigil, waiting to neutralize any threat in any capacity.

At least, that's what I would be like. But then again, how's that saying go? You don't want the people who want to be cops, to be cops?

My own sense is that these problems are coming from a subgroup of Air Marshals who were brought in *after* 9/11, by and under the Bush Administration, who were then encultured with the same brand of derisive arrogance we got to know from that gang -- the similarities, at least to me, really are that striking. Air Marshals have been around a long time, but the rise of these problems seems to coincide with the post-9/11 legacy of petty, poorly-vetted, poorly-trained, poorly-supervised, and poorly-disciplined state agents pushing citizens around and treating them like members of a police state. TSA is notorious for their abusive arrogance, their general disrespect of the citizenry, as well as a sometimes startling ignorance and idiocy. Since so many new Air Marshals came in around that same time, on that same swell, under that same administrative push, it sadly doesn't surprise me as much as it should to learn that this once-proud service is capable of disgracing itself also.

s1ugg0: If you can't control the plane and you can't make demands then what's the point?

First of all, you're assuming that all hijackers are going to be informed and reasonble, and you're willing to risk passengers' lives on that assumption. It might surprise you to learn that passenger service is the main role and point of air travel, so passengers getting killed would be just the start of the flaw in your logic. Second, you also seem to assume that hijackers would see no point in merely killing passengers, as if all hijackers and terrorists would necessarily have some other agenda. It might therefore further surprise you to learn that in fact, killing people is a primary tactic of terrorists, and many terrorist actions have no point beyond that. So it's hard to see how a situation that enables lots of killing would be likely to cut down on terrorism. Third, there are lots of situations where it's vital to communicate with the cockpit. (Sick passengers is just one very common reason.) You seem to be suggesting that it should not be possible to communicate with the cockpit. That's not going to be acceptable.

This is one of those, "wouldn't it be a great idea to..?" cases where the firm answer is NO.

Jon H: Kibbler: Totally unrelated to the story: That site fired up a commercial and played it without any action on my part, and it wouldn't let you stop it either. Other than by leaving the site. Which I did immediately, and won't return.

So congratulations, ABC News.

I look forward to the world of, say, 5 years from now, when our phones and tablets just fire up commercials unbidden, at any time, day or night, whether we like it or not. The SOPA III act will no doubt make it a crime to try to stop such ads, because doing so deprives corporate persons of their right to free speech.

/get off my lawn

This!
I left also.

/can't believe sheep just sit there

I can't believe there are still people who don't know how to use script blocking.

freetomato: I testified against a manager in an EEO case because she broke the farkin' law and lied about it, and because of that I'll probably never work for the TSA or DHS again

Isn't there a federal whistleblower protection law?

Baloo Uriza: Knara: Yeah, how dare people attempt to even recoup the cost of streaming video to you on their site.

They can pay for my bandwidth if they want to do that.

Just like commercial radio stations pay for your receiver, and commercial TV stations pay for your electricity? Nothing's free, okay? The cost of everything has to be shared, and that means some portion of it must be distributed to consumers, or else content origination, carriage, and delivery isn't sustainable. Go on and call up the website's owners and tell them that they needs to pay for your bandwidth in order to run the ads that pay for the site you want to look at . I'm sure they'll be very sympathetic.

Last words: "...less good than it should be."

*facepalm* Great grammar there, Stinky. How about "not as good as it should be," or "worse than it should be," or "not up to par," or "less than optimal?"

/not a grammar nazi but believes the MSM contributes to the "dumbing down" of America

So.. FAM is just like everything else government related, a frat boy socialism government welfare program for apparently the good looking drop outs of the other federal agencies. Doing useless jobs for way too much money pretending they are protecting anything but their paychecks. What happened America? 9-11 did change everything, it made you even more retarded.

intelligent comment below: What happened America? 9-11 did change everything, it made you even more retarded.

Honestly, this is going to sound like something right out of the Politics tab playbook, but I really do blame the Bush administration, more than anyone else. I really do think that they saw in 9/11 a chance to claim their place in world history, and, predictable for people with such a poor grasp of geopolitics, did it about as ineptly as possible. Let me qualify that, though. I don't blame the entire administration, and I equally blame the GOP leaders backing them. And I don't blame the entire GOP, but the dangerously aggressive, impolitic, and quite possibly insane faction of neocons who'd gradually clawed their way to the top of it starting with a sliver of opportunity a few decades ago in the Nixon administration. (Which is not to say that I blame Nixon -- I don't, and he'd flip out at todays' GOP -- but he didn't help as much to prevent it as he could have.) BushCo put on an enormous and very costly but bafflingly goofy show of Doing Something about the attacks. They didn't do some of the most obvious things right out the gate, like bring in seasoned Israeli and British counterterrorism experts -- modern, Western-style veterans of terrorism would could really help a great deal -- but instead set about reinventing the wheel, in ways that just happened to benefit their friends.

One example that hit home for me and a lot of people I know is that Marine One, the president's helicopter, was requisitioned from Sea King, the UK firm that crashed half a dozen of the damn things they same year they got the contract. This award was clearly not about quality and workmanship, or safety and reliability of the product. It was, in fact, a political twofer: It helped seal the deal with the UK as the other senior partner in what BushCo cynically termed 'the coalition of the willing' (really, just a few steps up from 'everyone who's not a poopypants loser'); meanwhile, it was stern biatchslap to the irremediable libruls of Connecticut, who'd been building the president's official helicopter at Sikorsky in Milford for four decades. (Screw you, blue-staters! We're BFFs with England now, because they're willing to see things our way!) Does anyone else have a compelling alternative explanation for why the official helicopter of the leader of the United States would suddenly not be made in the United States anymore, after forty years, at the height of a much-ballyhooed war? If you're at war, doesn't it make sense to retain as much domestic military manufacture as you have, rather than choose (when you don't have to) to switch to a foreign manufacturer on the other side of an ocean? It's very hard not to see the Sikorsky > Sea King decision as anything but politically cynical, and that kind of thing was very characteristic of BushCo.

I'm certain that BushCo wanted safe airways for U.S. citizens. Hell, their friends have to fly, too, at least the ones who can't afford their own planes. And very inconveniently, so do a lot of friends of the other party, so you can't have those people getting blowed up or it hurts your political position. And I think there really was some effort to get TSA to do that, though pre-TSA screening methods were just as effective, much cheaper, and much less onerous. But just changing up the screening policy wouldn't be demonstrative enough for them. They really needed to prove they were the party ready to take charge in a national emergency, so they rounded up every out-of-work bouncer they could find and paid them low wages to rough up citizens. Unpleasant? O you bet. But it was impossible to deny that they were Doing Something, which is what TSA was really about: the show, not the results. (Remember Logan? NO measurable improvement in security, after six months and millions of dollars. The fact that so many people *weren't* surprised by that finding speaks volumes: a lot of us were on to their dog and pony show from the start.)

I often think of BushCo this way: If the Executive Branch was a rental limo, Bush took it to Pimp My Ride before bringing it back. So now we're sort of stuck with all the really stupid useless expensive crap he put on it, including how to explain to nation of fearful morons that it's stupid, useless, and needlessly expensive.

This is a difficult and trying time to be a liberal in America. On the one hand, we're dealing with critical social programmes being constantly threatened in order to 'save money'. (Never mind that citizens dying in the streets or never getting an education doesn't do a lot to bolster the nation's earning power.) On the other hand, we're pouring untold billions into lots of for-show 'security' efforts that actually accomplish very little, in a strict cost-benefit analysis. Of course, you can't prove a negative, but a voting majority of American citizens don't seem to understand that Bush snapping his fingers didn't really keep tigers away, or at least there's no good reason to believe it, never mind keep paying for it at such a high level while enduring UFIAs at the airport. (Here meaning Unnecessary) And we also got handed a couple extremely costly wars of very dubious justification, especially in terms of cost. It's pretty much impossible to believe that those were anything more than very extreme extensions of the same Put On A Show For 'Em approach to gubmint that BushCo seemed to really be into (and yet, amazingly bad at all the same).

As I always eventually get to, the real problem isn't the people in charge, it's the goobers who elect them. There has never in history been a more obvious and powerful indictment of the faltering intellect of the American people than the RE-election of George W. Bush. One could argue that Kerry was a weak opponent, and that would be true; it's pathetic that he's the best the Democrats could put up, but it also seemed to a lot of us that really, anyone who vaguely resembled a grown-up should be able to beat Shrub. Wasn't it obvious how incompetent, cynical, and self-serving he was? How destructive and dangerous? Apparently not. So in the end, I actually give all those creeps a pass. They could barely get out of their own way, never mind mastermind a shrewd takeover of American politics. No, they simply took advantage of the general and growing idiocy of the American public. All you've gotta do is tell crazy stories about how libruls will make everyone have gay abortions with your tax dollars or something, and Americans will ride their Bibles to the polling place to vote for a guy who most sensible people wouldn't hire to walk a dog. (It's very hard to comprehend why else any sober person would pull the lever for Palin.) BushCo and the neocons aren't nefarious criminals (unless we're now using very forgiving definitions of 'nefarious' and 'criminal' -- these jokers couldn't outwit Boris and Natasha, never mind any real villains).

No, it was The American People all along. We're to blame. We always were. And I'm very, very sorry. I wish I knew how to make it better, and sometimes I try. But I really do think that the people of this country just aren't paying attention, aren't thinking, and aren't being thoughtful and reasonable, and that's why so much weird stupid and destructive stuff keeps happening here. I certainly don't support a change to our electoral practices -- I can't think of any that would be less destructive, at least -- but I earnestly wish that Americans would wake up, grow up, sit up, and actually, I don't know, THINK, I guess. Think before speaking. Think before acting. Think before voting, fer crissakes. Deliberately and routinely challenge their own assumptions. Ask for details. Ask for facts. Ask for other opinions to balance and compare their own. Think before reacting. When I was in school, what are now called 'liberal' and 'conservative' were more commonly termed 'radical' and 'reactionary'. I see the propriety in those terms now, much better than I did then. We are indeed a highly reactive people, much more than a thoughtful one. And that's probably the best answer I can give you.

WienerButt: My buddy is an air Marshall. He says its boring and tough to make up bs when people start talking to him. He's 5'5 and says they tend to want folks who don't reek of authority if they're flying by themselves. His schedule is literally 8-5 except he spends it...flying. The exception is once in awhile he goes to Europe and stays a week, only 'working' to and from there.

Does he sit in the same seat all the time? I take a frequent flight to San Diego and book very early. There is one middle seat that is always booked even when there are many better seats available - I'm thinking it is an air marshall.