Now the TSA gets off its ass

After the travel gestapo working for Homeland Security totally flubbed the warning they received about would-be terrorist Umar Abdullmutallab they have finally gotten off their fat asses and done something. Once again, it is the wrong thing.

As you will remember they imposed these new absurd travel regulations stripping people of the right to pee during the last hour of a flight. Well, that information was made public through some blogs. So what do the Travel Nazis do? They go after the blogs with subpoenas.

The writer Christopher Elliot, found a TSA agent at his front door with a subpoena saying: "You are hereby commanded by the administrator, Transportation Security Administration, United States Department of Homeland Security to produce and permit inspection of the records described below...."

While the TSA didn't have time to investigate someone reported by his own family as a terrorist, who flew without luggage and who appeared on a list of suspected terrorists, they do have time to harass bloggers. Why? The bloggers printed the new TSA "guidelines" on "How to Harass Innocent People Why Ignoring Real Threats." Okay, maybe the TSA called it SD 1544-09-06. They are demanding the bloggers reveal the source of their information. It is a pathetic commentary on the Homeland Security State of Napolitano and Obama, when instead of fixing what went wrong, they concentrate on unimportant issues while harassing bloggers.

The TSA sent two of their thugs to visit travel blogger Steve Frischling as well. They confiscated his lap top computer. Frischling said that they threatened to "interfer" with his contract to write a blog for an airline if he refused to cooperate with them. They wanted him to name names. Is Joe McCarthey running TSA? The New York Times is reporting that the TSA refuses to say how many American bloggers are being harassed under this new fishing expedition. What they want is to silence anyone exposing TSA stupidity—which would be a full time job.

So, all you morons who thought Obama would be different than Bush, you are right. He's worse. I could be wrong, but I don't remember TSA thugs harassing bloggers under Bush. That seems to be an Obama innovation. Certainly this contempt for the First Amendment is not unique it was used before—by men like Stalin, Mao, Mussolini and Hitler.

Huffington Post says:

The agents threatened to get Frischling -- a blogger for KLM airlines -- fired from his job, confiscate all his electronic devices -- phones, computers, and iPods -- and declare him a security risk -- which would get him on the No Fly list -- unless he cooperated.

Frischling -- who has worked for Life, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, and was embedded with troops in Iraq -- didn't know what to do. He couldn't reach a lawyer.

The civil subpoena threatened a fine and up to a year in jail for failure to comply.

The TSA has been under fire lately for failure to stop the Christmas Bomber from boarding the NW flight. Frischling told the Huffington Post that he didn't know who sent him the memo and that it is not in any of his computers. The memo was hardly secret. It was sent to approximately 10,000 airlines, airports, and security firms around the world, including locations in Riyadh, Islamabad, and Lagos.

So the TSA sends out a directive to thousands of places, which is seen by tens of thousands of people, and then starts harassing two people for knowing what is in the directive. This is par for the bungling, authoritarian perfomance of Napolitano. She really does want to be another Janet Reno. Now all she needs is to kill some women and children by buring down their "compound" and send in armed thugs to terrorize a small child. Janet Reno Lives. Be Afriad. Be Very Afraid.

Image: Janet Reno showing the world some of her "tools of persuasion." She promised to later show reporters the "rack," "iron maiden" and other tools she finds usesful as first security reichfürher.

Flubbed terrorists known to government.

The Nigerian who tried to light explosive strapped to his leg was known to the U.S. government. Umar Abdulmutallab's name was added to a list of known or suspsected terrorists by the government a month ago. However, when the man's name was run through the database, before he could board his flight, it came up with a green light. There was no warning of any kind. There wasn't even a suggestion that he be put under additional scrutiny. Instead of focusing on people the government KNOWS to be risks the bureaucrats prefer to go after everyone.

There are new restrictions on hand luggage put into place—yet the explosives the man carried were strapped to his leg and never in hand luggage. There is the new regulation confining passengers to their seats yet the man was in his seat when he tried to light the explosive. Abdulmutallab would have been in compliance with all the new restrictions imposed by the government had they been put in place before he boarded the plane. In other words, NONE of the new regulations would have had any impact on the incident. These regulations do not prevent incidents such as the one that happened, that is clear. The incident is merely an excuse for the additional regulations not a justification.

Take the new rule on one piece of carry-on luggage only as an example. Abdulmutallab had only one piece of carry-on luggage. In fact, it was the only luggage he had. Apparently no one found a man flying thousands of miles, with just one piece of hand luggage unusual. His ticket showed him being on his trip for almost two weeks—yet he had no luggage and no one found that unusual. He was on a list of suspected terrorists which exists to allegedly warn airport security about yet the U.S. government gave the man the green light so security staff were not even warned to give the man a bit of additional scrutiny.

Instead of focusing on ways in which the existing failed the bureaucrats like Napolitano look for ways to complicate the lives of innocent people. One month ago our government listed Abdulmutallab as a potential terrorist and yet they approved him to fly without even a hint that he might be a problem. The failure was not the result of too little regulation, as Napolitano is always inclined to think, it was the failure of government. Having the travel gestapo spend more time hassling flyers is no help. All it does is tie up security staff with millions of innocent people.

Since the government knew that Abdulmutallab was a potential risk the most sensible thing to do was to ask security staff to check him out thoroughly. When the man checked-in, was on a list of potential terrorists AND had no checked luggage that should have sent alarm bells ringing. But no one, other than the bureaucrats, knew he was on the list. Security at the airport was never told.

Notice that the failure in security belongs heavily to the bureaucrats in Washington for failing to sound the alarm bell for extra scrutinty. It partially belongs to security staff for not wondering about the absence of luggage. Instead of addressing precisely where security failed, Napolitano pretends the problem was not enough state control and ups the level of regulations stripping Americans of freedom. This is why I don't think there is a war on terrorism, there is a war on freedom however. Everytime some would-be terrorists does something the U.S. government, instead of actually focusing on the individuals with a known tie to terrorism, clamp down on the traveling public.

Photo: Janet Napolitano illustrating how to slowly grab liberty by the throat.