AIR MARSHALS

 

THE PLANE POLICE
   This is a year-end project that I did not get to by the end of the year, so I will try to quickly make my points and then provide a brief bibliography with additional information. Travelling by air is now awful. Here in Canada, people would rather take a Conestoga Wagon from Halifax to Vancouver, even in the winter, especially if it involved Pearson Airport, which it would.
  The problems begin before one gets on the plane. Surely all the pre-boarding security features need to be re-vamped. On a recent flight out of Vancouver, people with tickets missed flights while waiting to be scanned. On a recent flight out of New York a stowaway made it to Paris, perhaps because she didn't go through security (see the bib.) 
    We will avoid here the problems with the planes (wheels falling off, windows popping out, etc.) and focus on those inside of them. There have been hundreds of articles about unruly passengers. The point here is, how many of them do you recall mentioning Air Marshals? These agents travel on some flights as a deterrent to potential terrorists They have been on many flights since the early 1960s and need to be secretive, but surely if they were on a flight with problem passengers, their intervention would have been reported. I haven't seen any articles saying, "Fortunately a marshal was on board" or "A marshal stopped a drunken brawl on a flight carrying rowdy rugby players." 
  I don't fly much, but seven years ago I was going from Buffalo to Baltimore and the newspaper I was carrying had an article asking if the Plane Police were worth it. It is listed below along with some other articles that suggest we should take a fresh look at the process passengers have to go through and whether the ones we now use are worth it. 
   (If you plan to skip the bibliography, which my wife says you do, then at least look at the Bonus, which she also says you skip, where you will find my observations about "gate lice" and those who stand in the aisle immediately when the plane stops.) 

The Bibliography:
  This is being done quickly to illustrate some of the issues I don't have time to develop. I may not put down the full citation, but, trust me, the headlines are real. Before presenting my very selective bibliography here are some basic sources and references.
 "Federal Air Marshall Service," Wikipedia.
"Sky Marshal," Wikipedia (covers various countries.)
For Canada, see the Wikipedia entry above and the Canadian Air Carrier Protective Program. "In 2002, the Government of Canada initiated the Canadian Air Carrier Protective Program as a response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This program is designed to safeguard the travelling public from threats, both within airports and on select domestic and international flights."

Recent article about the Plane Police: 
"Meet a Federal Air Marshal. She May Have Been Sitting Next to You on a Flight: Working for a federal agency shrouded in mystery, Esther Fausett shared what she could about her career in in-flight law enforcement," Christine Chung NYT Aug. 1, 2024
   Little is released to the public about how, why and where federal air marshals operate. As they transit through airports and board flights, they resemble passengers just like us — napping occasionally, watching rom-coms and eating bland airplane food. But air marshals are working undercover, with concealed guns and the power to make arrests. Because of their top-secret security clearance, the number of flights they work, the looming threats behind assignments, the alarming behaviors they are monitoring and even the size of the Federal Air Marshal Service are shrouded in mystery.
   Since 1962, federal air marshals have been ensuring aviation safety in the United States, flying in airline cabins to and from domestic and international destinations. In recent decades, the responsibilities of air marshals have expanded to include securing the country’s entire transportation system. Marshals operate at airports, but also on ferries, trains, buses and on the U.S. border with Mexico. They also support transit security at events that draw large crowds like the Super Bowl, the Indy 500 and the United Nations General Assembly."
 The source for the picture: 
"How To Become an Air Marshal, The Most Secretive Job in the Sky: A behind-the-scenes look at how future marshals train and travel," Natalie B. Compton, The Washington Post, Nov. 29, 2023.
  "The service has been an anonymous layer of public security since the concept was created in response to a spate of plane hijackings in the 1960s and expanded in the 1970s. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, air marshals moved under the newly created Department of Homeland Security and TSA. The number of air marshals grew from 33 to thousands. Today, the exact number is secret. They travel among us, armed and undercover, on planes, subways and ferries and monitor airports, train and bus stations. It’s a lot of pressure, they say, particularly on a plane. LaFrance said there’s no set minimum or average on how much air marshals fly. “It just doesn’t work like that,” he said. “It’s based on the needs of the service and what’s going on in the world at that moment that would need our attention.”

Screening Not Stopping Bad Behavior
“California Man Assaulted Frontier Flight Attendants,”
“Traveler forced to pay airline fuel costs after flight diverted due to his unruly behavior” (Australia)
"More Passengers are Losing it on Airplanes. Here's what we know about why: Hardly a week passes without another 'passenger shaming' video being posted on social media of a mid-flight meltdown,Sharon Kirkey, various POstmedia - Dec. 22, 2023
"Major airlines are once again reporting a rise in emotional meltdowns and people otherwise losing it on airplanes, the combined effect, studies suggest, of several problems, from pre-boarding booze-ups and delayed flights to shrinking personal space. Dutch carrier KLM has seen a 100 per cent increase in unruly passenger numbers compared to 2019, the world’s oldest airline reported last week. This week, Air New Zealand reported a “concerning trend” in disorderly and abusive passenger conduct, with nearly 200 reports per month, up from 572 reported incidents for the whole of 2019."

QUESTIONING THE STATUS QUO

"Terror in the Skies: TSA's air marshals are 'last line of defense,' but is the program really needed?" Bart Jansen, USA TODAY May 17, 2018

"But now some lawmakers and critics in watchdog agencies are asking: Is the program that peaked at nearly $1 billion a year — a program that never has caught a single terrorist on board a plane — really needed?

  The program has existed under a variety of names and agencies for 57 years, and it expanded significantly after the 9/11 hijackings. But air marshals can't be on every plane, and during those decades, they haven't faced a real terror threat during an actual flight.

TSA Administrator David Pekoske called the program “a terrific organization” that performs a stressful job under difficult circumstances. The service is an important layer of security, he said, that begins when a passenger buys a ticket, a database search against no-fly lists and checkpoint screening at airports. And the prospect that an air marshal could be on a specific flight is a deterrent to would-be attackers by itself."...

Critics of the program highlight the costs and the lack of terrorist incidents. They argue that more air marshals are arrested than terrorists.

Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., would like to abolish the program that he said had about 4,000 air marshals in 2009 and averaged 4.2 arrests a year in the first seven years. He slams the program as “the most needless, useless agency."

 Air marshals themselves were arrested 148 times from November 2002 to February 2012, according to a report by ProPublica based on TSA documents. Air marshals also were charged with more than 5,000 cases of misconduct during that period, including 1,200 cases of lost equipment and 950 missed flights, the report said.

"Hundreds of people bypassed parts of airport security in last year

More passengers are sneaking past ID checkpoints and going the wrong way through one-way exit lanes," By Natalie B. Compton,The Washington Post, April 4, 2024.

"The TSA is a Waste of Money That Doesn't Save Kives and Might Actually Cost Them,"

By Dylan Matthewsdylan@vox.com  Updated Sep 11, 2016, 11:26am EDT

vox.com

"Few post-9/11 security measures have proven as enduring as the creation of the Transportation Security Administration, which effectively nationalized airport security and dramatically increased screening procedures on flights. In a matter of months, flights went from something you could arrive 30 minutes to an hour beforehand and be fine to something you needed to budget two hours for, what with the shoe removal and the liquids and the possibility of a random pat-down.

It's annoying, but it's also worse than annoying. The TSA's inefficiency isn't just aggravating and unnecessary; by pushing people to drive instead of fly, it's actively dangerous and costing lives. Less invasive private scanning would be considerably better.

Why the TSA falls short

The TSA is hard to evaluate largely because it's attempting to solve a non-problem. Despite some very notable cases, airplane hijackings and bombings are quite rare. There aren't that many attempts, and there are even fewer successes. That makes it hard to judge if the TSA is working properly — if no one tries to do a liquid-based attack, then we don't know if the 3-ounce liquid rule prevents such attacks.

So Homeland Security officials looking to evaluate the agency had a clever idea: They pretended to be terrorists, and tried to smuggle guns and bombs onto planes 70 different times. And 67 of those times, the Red Team succeeded. Their weapons and bombs were not confiscated, despite the TSA's lengthy screening process. That's a success rate of more than 95 percent."

"Is The TSA Really Necessary?"

Remington Tonar and Ellis Talton

Forbes, Jan. 28, 2019

As the U.S. government shutdown enters a three-week intermission, many are taking a moment to assess the political impact of the longest shutdown in the country’s history. Beyond the political and social ramifications, however, the hiatus also provides an opportunity to look at how our infrastructure and transportation systems fared....
The Transportation Security Administration has also seen an increase in unscheduled absences, which have more than doubled year over year during the shutdown. Unlike the shortage of air traffic controllers, however, the lack of TSA personnel has not led to abnormal delays....

The efficiency and security of our air transportation infrastructure is of paramount importance to the economic and social wellbeing of our nation.

Yet, if significant portions of TSA officers can no-show without compromising efficiency or safety, is the TSA still necessary to ensure aviation security?

  In 2017, Homeland Security inspectors were able to transport facsimile firearms, explosives and knives through TSA checkpoints an appalling 70 percent of the time. This is not only unacceptable, but calls into question the effectiveness of the TSA. Many experts, in fact, have long criticized the TSA as “security theater,” noting that body scanners are largely ineffective at detecting common explosive materials. Further, there’s been very little evidence that measures such as the liquid ban are in any way essential or effective, and even the European Union has been trying to eliminate liquid restrictions for years. Numerous studies have found that the TSA has consistently mismanaged security investments and that private screeners perform as good or better than TSA screeners....

The TSA was important after 9/11 to provide both physical and psychological security. Today, new technologies may allow us to start reclaiming our airports from our blue-shirted compatriots. The TSA was only ever a means to an end and, today, there are better means. It’s important we use the shutdown to identify where improvements can be made to the TSA—and all federal agencies. Our country needs a working government, but we also have to recognize that it’s not always working even when it is.

"TSA Misses 70% Of Fake Weapons But That's An Improvement,"

Michael Goldstein, Forbes, Nov 9, 2017,

"Undercover investigators working for the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) managed to sneak fake guns, knives and explosives through checkpoints earlier this year, getting the mock weapons through a depressing 70% of the time. The unclassified summary noted “We identified vulnerabilities with TSA's screener performance, screening equipment, and associated procedures.”....

But in the world of government airport security, missing 70% is apparently an improvement over a similar test two years earlier, when the “hi-tech” equipment and the people manning it failed to detect fake weapons 95% of the time."

The Bonus:

  Do something about the "Gate Lice", the term used by airport personnel to describe those who hop up and run over older people and children when the first call is made at the boarding gate. I don't know the name of those who hop up immediately at the gate when landing, but below is one solution.