The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

[astjp2]

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=27613455&nid=148&title=180-pounds-of-marijuana-found-on-plane&fm=home_page&s_cid=queue-1

HLS sent the sherrif out to check this airplane for drugs. Since when Did POT become a HLS issue?

[Jim Hartley]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=27613455&nid...&s_cid=queue-1

HLS sent the sherrif out to check this airplane for drugs. Since when Did POT become a HLS issue?

Search; Fusion Centers.

[astjp2]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

I think you are flying too close to HARRP! lol

Search; Fusion Centers.

[Jim Hartley]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

Had you done some research you would have the answers. Instead you chose a flippant statement that makes you appear foolish.

Here are a couple of excerpts from Wikipedia;

1. A fusion center is typically organized by amalgamating representatives from different federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies into one physical location.

2. According to the fusion center guidelines, a fusion center is defined as “a collaborative effort of two or more agencies that provide resources, expertise, and/or information to the center with the goal of maximizing the ability to detect, prevent, apprehend, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity.

In this case it was a collabrative effort that resulted in an arrest of individuals engaged in criminal activity.

[astjp2]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

Jim, I think you missed the point, DHS has required local law enforcement to stop many GA airplanes traveling across the country and this is the first reported time that they actually found something. Since we dont normally have transponders we become targets automatically to these searches on some flight paths across the country. Tim

[Jim Hartley]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

I did not miss the point. You asked a question and I answered your question with facts. This thread has no other value factually and should disappear or moved to Rant and Raves where it belongs.

[Marv]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

Do you think we are getting close to a election year? Time to start a show. LOL

[Pearson]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

Well maybe Jim didn't miss the point, but I sure did! What in the world is a HARRP?

[3Dreaming]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

Well maybe Jim didn't miss the point, but I sure did! What in the world is a HARRP?

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, located in Gakona, Alaska.

[Robert Lees]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

Haemorrhoids Are Really Really Painful?

Half-Arsed Rhetorical Reticent Protagonists?

How All Relatives Really Procreate?

Oohh...I found a real one: Housing Authorities Risk Retention Pool



Sorry couldn't resist!

[fearofpavement]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

Ok ya'll. Play nice.

[astjp2]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

At least someone is starting to question the BS

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-international-news/2013-12-03/senators-demand-answers-warrantless-ga-stops

December 3, 2013, 4:40 AM





Eight senators have called out the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about numerous stops and searches of law-abiding pilots on domestic flights that never leave U.S. airspace.

In a letter to DHS Acting Secretary Rand Beers, the lawmakers, all members of the Senate General Aviation Caucus, demanded that the DHS provide records of all stops of GA flights since 2009, including explanations of the “reasonable suspicion” that led to each stop by officers from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the “probable cause” that resulted in a search. The DHS is the parent agency of CBP.

“Recent reports and first-hand accounts from pilots indicate a significant rise in the number of unwarranted stops and searches of U.S. general aviation aircraft that did not cross the U.S. border by the Air and Marine Division of the [CBP] agency,” the solons wrote.

“While we appreciate law enforcement efforts to protect our national interests and combat illegal activity, the abrupt increase in the number of stops and searches of personnel aboard general aviation aircraft raises concerns that CBP may be violating our citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights,” they said.

Some House members also have signaled their concern with what appear to be warrantless searches. During a September 9 meeting, AOPA president and CEO Mark Baker and Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), co-chairman of the House General Aviation Caucus, discussed the importance of protecting law-abiding pilots from unreasonable search and seizure.

Graves, a GA pilot, sent a letter to the inspectors general at the Transportation Department and DHS asking for an investigation into CBP’s actions. In his letter, Graves noted that in more than 40 reported cases of stops and searches, no evidence of criminal activity has been found, raising the question of whether the searches are reasonable.

In a response to the letter, Thomas Winkowski, acting commissioner of CBP, cited regulations allowing any federal agent to check pilot and aircraft documents as the basis for stopping, searching and sometimes detaining law-abiding pilots on domestic flights.

AOPA has filed numerous Freedom of Information Act requests in an attempt to determine under what authority the CBP is stopping purely domestic flights. The association brought the issue to the attention of lawmakers after its requests were ignored or received inadequate responses.

“Without a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity, a warrant or probable cause, law enforcement has no business stopping aircraft in the first place, let alone searching and possibly detaining law-abiding pilots,” said AOPA general counsel Ken Mead, a former DOT inspector general. “We can’t afford to have law enforcement agencies that act outside the scope of their authority and then try to hide behind laws designed to protect our national security. They have to be accountable to the citizens they are supposed to serve and [the senators’ letter] is one way to help ensure that accountability.”

Tags: LawGovernmentCustoms servicesBorders of the United StatesSearches and seizuresU.S. Customs and Border ProtectionNational securityFourth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionUnited States Department of Homeland SecurityProbable causeSearch and seizureSuspicion

[paulnuss]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

"Thomas Winkowski, acting commissioner of CBP, cited regulations allowing any federal agent to check pilot and aircraft documents as the basis for stopping, searching and sometimes detaining law-abiding pilots on domestic flights."

Wow! Imagine how miffed the general public would be if these law enforcement agencies pulled them over in their autos on a random basis and searched for illegal anythings! Without probable cause, without a warrant, without reasonable suspicions of illegal doings, it is a basic violation of our Constitutional rights. It brings on fears of jack-booted thugs in uniforms demanding we show our "papers" as we travel, like in the times of the Nazis, or the former Soviet Union. To defend overzealous law-enforcement persons doing these things is wrong! It isn't the way things are supposed to work in this country. We should be incensed by such actions!

[M Towsley]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

I think, just part of it, is they are trying to justify their existence. Not enough to do, and, someone in the upper hierarchy may not have a love for airplanes or their owners.

After 26 years in law enforcement I have seen similar happenings. Though the original start of this thread was arresting a drug dealer, which is fine with me, overstepping ones bounds to make work for an agency that has little to do is concerning.

[Mark Julicher]

Re: The TSA is watching all of you dangerous airplane owners!

Wow! Imagine how miffed the general public would be if these law enforcement agencies pulled them over in their autos on a random basis and searched for illegal anythings!

Well that just happened in Ft Worth last week. Dozens of cars were directed into a parking lot during morning commute and the drivers were given a form telling them this was a random and voluntary screening for blood, breath and saliva samples… Except the Ft Worth police were assisting the process and they were not at all explicit about the voluntary part - and the drivers were sniffed for alcohol by a detection device before they ever got a look at the information form.

See it in Ft Worth Star Telegram. Very intimidating to most of the drivers.

I guess this should move to rants and raves.