{"id":408270,"date":"2010-03-08T07:44:34","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T12:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonplanet.com\/?p=36181"},"modified":"2010-03-08T07:44:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T12:44:34","slug":"smutty-scanners-and-private-planes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/408270","title":{"rendered":"Smutty Scanners and Private Planes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Becky Akers
\nCampaign For Liberty<\/a>
\nMarch 8, 2010<\/p>\n

Twice in as many months, events have conspired to give the Transportation Security Administration<\/a> (TSA) exactly what it wants despite the public\u2019s intense opposition. You need not be a skeptic for this to seem oddly convenient rather than merely coincidental.<\/p>\n

First was the Underwear Bomber\u2019s attempt on Christmas Day to emasculate himself aboard his flight. The TSA immediately exploited that fashion faux-pas to push its favorite toy, whole-body imagers. These pornographic scanners peer through passengers\u2019 clothing to photograph the bombs so many tape to their bodies \u2014 and the bodies themselves.<\/p>\n

The TSA has been trying to turn airports into peep-shows courtesy of these strip-machines since 2002.<\/span><\/a> But judging from passengers\u2019 refusal to submit, they preferred to lose the War<\/a> on Terror<\/a> rather than exhibit themselves to government<\/a> agents. The idea was so patently offensive that Congress<\/a>, never known for its prudery, introduced legislation last year restricting the scanners\u2019 use<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then along comes Umar Farouk Abdullmutallab and his burning britches and bingo, resistance to titillating the TSA drops (at least among Congressmen: Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), sponsor<\/span><\/a> of the aforementioned legislation, mourned that though \u201cit passed in the House with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle,\u201d Abdullmutallab\u2019s stunt renders \u201cthe Senate . . . very reluctant. And I understand why.\u201d) Whole-body scanners<\/a> are now zooming along the fast track and coming very soon to an airport near you.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Never mind that \u201cit is unclear whether the [scanners] or other technologies would have detected [Abdullmutallab’s] weapon,\u201d as the Government<\/a> Accountability Office put it<\/span><\/a>, nor that his diaper wasn\u2019t imminently dangerous since the odds of his successfully detonating it were low. (Explosives are notoriously temperamental: they require careful handling and precise conditions. Yes, Abdullmutallab might possibly have blown a hole in his plane \u2014 just as birds could fly into its engine and force a landing on the Hudson River. But both are unlikely). Game, set, match, with the TSA and manufacturers gloating over $300 million in \u201cstimulus funds . . . allocated<\/span><\/a> for technology to detect explosives carried by passengers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The TSA pants to control private planes as much as it does to see us<\/a> naked. And so it\u2019s muttered for years about the dangers of \u201cGeneral Aviation.\u201d According to Craig Fuller, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association<\/span><\/a> (AOPA), GA encompasses \u201call flying except scheduled airlines and the military<\/a>,\u201d everything from hobbyists having fun to helicopters monitoring traffic and volunteers zipping donated organs from one hospital to another.<\/p>\n

But, the fear-mongering TSA objects, who really knows who\u2019s climbing into all those single-engine Cessnas and corporate jets? Well, the pilot for one. His passengers, for another. And the staff at GA\u2019s airports, which tend to be small, friendly, and intimate. \u201cThe general aviation community is a very tight-knit group,\u201d wrote Vic Bird, director of the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission, when explaining the facts of life to the TSA<\/span><\/a>. \u201cAirplane owners know who is riding in their plane and where they are going.\u201d Inflicting the TSA on private pilots and their passengers is akin to stationing screeners in your dining room and searching the guests at your next dinner-party.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m blessed with a cousin as generous as he is successful who has piloted his own plane for decades. Jerry and his wife have offered me one of the four seats in their tiny Cessna 182<\/span><\/a> numerous times. The employees at the airport nearest his home all know Jerry by name. They know his wife; they\u2019re getting to know me, as hospitable as my cousins are; and they know his plane.<\/p>\n

Ditto for the corporate craft housed at this airfield. Like aficionados of cars or sailboats or any other hobby, my cousin and the other pilots love looking at, discussing, and dreaming about bigger, fancier planes than theirs. They\u2019re often friends with the owners of these babies; one tycoon even offered me a tour of her plane when I last visited my cousins.<\/p>\n

That time, Jerry flew us<\/a> to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey<\/span><\/a>, suburban to New York City. Teterboro is much larger and less personal than the airfield near my cousin\u2019s southern city \u2014 but the traffic in and out is a fraction of what a commercial airport sees<\/span><\/a>. Ergo, the staff is almost as friendly and collegial as their southern counterparts. GA reminds me of the small town we all idealize, where everyone knows and generally likes everyone else, with respect, good humor, and courtesy as common as they are taken for granted. It\u2019s Mayberry in the skies.<\/p>\n

No wonder most people in GA passionately love flying. The contrast between it and commercial aviation is stunning, complete, infuriating. I\u2019m not the only one who\u2019s impressed: USA<\/span><\/em> <\/span>Today<\/span><\/em> described GA<\/span><\/a> as \u201ca world of ease and tranquility unknown to [commercial] airline passengers, who endure long trips to airports, costly parking, slow security screening, packed airplanes and delayed flights.\u201d<\/p>\n

What accounts for the difference? The TSA\u2019s absence, for starters. Plus, there\u2019s less interference from the Feds overall. Enormous subsidies and grants keep both GA and commercial aviation aloft, as is the case for most industries in our corporatist economy; along with the loot comes smothering supervision from the Feds. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates GA as it does commercial flight, but its rules for the latter seriously outnumber those for the former. These dictates cover every conceivable situation commercial pilots might encounter (and some inconceivable ones, too), whether it\u2019s the time they leave the gate for take-off or their reaction to a skyjacking (the FAA ordered passengers and crew to sit tight and comply with the criminals\u2019 demands \u2014 a decree that helped kill 3000 folks on 9\/11<\/a>). Myriad regulations hamstring GA, too, but it\u2019s blissfully free by comparison.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also far more competition among GA\u2019s airports than commercial ones. State or local governments almost always own and run commercial airports while enforcing geographic monopolies; if you figure other passengers are as fed up with the high prices, abuse, and delays of Your City\u2019s Airport as you are, you can\u2019t get rich off that dissatisfaction by building a competitor. Occasionally, metropolitan areas boast several airports, such as New York City\u2019s LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark or Chicago\u2019s Midway and O\u2019Hare, but choice is still elusive because the airlines\u2019 schedules (which federal regs heavily influence) usually decide which one you\u2019ll patronize.<\/p>\n

Compare that with GA, whose airports are often privately owned. There are many more of them, too, so many they could be a fast-food franchise, and they pepper the country: my cousin once remarked that GA is incredibly safe since you\u2019re almost never more than 10 or 15 miles away from a landing strip. Depending on whether a dirt runway in the wilds of Alaska qualifies as an airport, GA counts anywhere from several thousand to about 20,000, versus approximately 560 commercial ones<\/span><\/a>. The staffs treat customers as customers \u2014 and extremely valued ones at that \u2013, not terrorists. Managers know that disgruntled private pilots have plenty of options, unlike commercial ones. \u201c\u2018The beauty of an airport<\/span><\/a> like Centennial is if it gets crowded, you go cross-town to Metro or to Front Range\u2019 to land, says Robert Olislagers, executive director of Centennial Airport near Denver. Rocky Mountain Metro and Front Range, two other general-aviation airports, are about 20 miles away.\u201d And Randall Earnest, manager of Mercer County Airport in West Virginia,<\/span><\/a> doesn\u2019t charge pilots to land because \u201cNobody would land here if I charged a fee . . . You\u2019d land at an airport that\u2019s not charging a fee.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this luxurious, secure, very personal world, could a terrorist load a plane full of explosives without either the airport\u2019s staff or private pilots and their guests catching him? Could he sneak onto a corporate or chartered jet dressed in Abdumutallab\u2019s briefs and enjoy better luck at detonating them? Maybe. But it\u2019s extremely unlikely.<\/p>\n

No matter. The TSA lusts to control GA, and you can see why: by any measure except how many passengers it carries, GA dwarfs commercial aviation. Not only are there more airports, almost three times as many private pilots are licensed as commercial ones<\/span><\/a>. And the Department of Homeland Security<\/a>\u2019s (DHS) Office of the Inspector General says GA \u201caccounts for 77%<\/span><\/a> of all flights in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the freedom: fun, immense, exhilarating. You decide where you\u2019re going, and when, and with whom. You take along whatever you please, subject only to aviation\u2019s physics.<\/p>\n

GA\u2019s size and the independence it confers have the TSA constantly \u201cthreaten[ing]\u201d to \u201cstrangle\u201d it with \u201conerous and ill-conceived security regulations,\u201d as the AOPA put it mildly.<\/span><\/a> In 2008, the agency \u201cproposed\u201d that \u201cprivate-jet passengers . . . be checked against watch lists.\u201d It would also \u201crequire jet operators to keep weapons, including pocket knives, off their planes, and . . . force 315 airports used only by private planes to enact security plans.\u201d Though the TSA was starting with \u201cprivate jets,\u201d it wasn\u2019t fooling anyone: as always with Leviathan in general and the TSA in particular, the agency would expand its dictatorship<\/a> to consume GA in toto<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My cousin knows more about flying than all the bureaucrats at the TSA and the FAA put together. And the agency\u2019s \u201cproposal\u201d had him hopping mad. \u201cThat damn TSA,\u201d Jerry\u2019d say. \u201cThey just wanna take all the fun out of things.\u201d The rest of the industry agreed. So did Congress<\/a><\/span><\/a>, for obvious reasons: \u201c. . . lawmakers also regularly<\/span><\/a> use general-aviation airports to get around their districts and states, sometimes in planes with lobbyists. Members of Congress<\/a> took 2,154 trips on corporate-owned jets from 2001 to 2006. . . \u201d Even the DHS\u2019s Inspector General slapped the TSA down. Reporting in May 2009 on \u201cTSA\u2019s Role in General Aviation Security<\/span><\/a>,\u201d the IG decided that it basically doesn\u2019t have one: \u201cWe determined that<\/span><\/a> general aviation presents only limited and mostly hypothetical threats to security. We also determined that the steps general aviation airport owners and managers have taken to enhance security are positive and effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

On February 8, 2010, Mayberry sighed with enormous relief when the trade press announced that the TSA would back off, or, in the agency\u2019s terms, \u201crevise,\u201d its infernal scheme: \u201cDuring the proposal\u2019s<\/span><\/a> comment period. . . , TSA was flooded with more than 4,800 comments from individuals and aviation entities that were concerned with TSA\u2019s current proposal. And apparently those comments, including many that were voiced during public meetings held across the nation, have gotten TSA\u2019s attention. . . \u201d<\/p>\n

Ten days later, tax-protestor Joseph Andrew Stack flew his Piper Cherokee into one of the IRS\u2019s offices<\/span><\/a> in Austin, Texas. That shocked not only the Feds (or so they claimed) but everyone who knew Mr. Stack as a \u201cstereotypical software guy\u201d and \u201cmild-mannered<\/span><\/a>\u201d musician. Patrick Beach, \u201cwho once played in a band with Stack,<\/span><\/a>\u201d testified to the surprise. \u201cI talked to a lot [sic<\/em>] of people who knew him better than I did, and no one saw anything like this coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also unsuspected were Mr. Stack\u2019s \u201cpolitical feelings.\u201d \u201cBilly Eli, a band member<\/span><\/a> of Stack\u2019s, has known the man for about five years \u2026 \u2018The Joe I knew was mostly apolitical,\u2019 he told Fox News<\/a><\/a>. \u2018I never heard him talk politics<\/a>\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Stack knew better than to discuss his plans for revenge within GA\u2019s close community; he didn\u2019t dribble saliva while ranting for hours; there are no reports of his sweating, a sure sign of impending mayhem, according to the TSA<\/span><\/a>. Short of reading his mind, no one, and certainly not the Feds, could have predicted and prevented his attack.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, \u201cthe Transportation Security Administration<\/a><\/span><\/a> will review the fiery crash . . . and use that information to shape future anti-terrorism<\/a> regulations for the nation\u2019s 220,000 private airplanes.\u201d But just as whole-body scanning won\u2019t find underwear bombs, groping private pilots and their families won\u2019t end blowback such as Mr. Stack dished out.<\/p>\n

Which is limited anyway: Douglas Laird, a \u201csecurity expert,\u201d <\/span><\/a>says,<\/em> \u201cYou can do about as much damage with [Mr. Stack’s small] plane as you could with an SUV loaded with fuel . . . I can\u2019t get agitated about it.\u201d Nor can \u201caviation-security consultant Rich Roth.\u201d He considers GA \u201cjust a risk<\/span><\/a> you\u2019re going to have to accept . . . There\u2019s nothing we could really do short of saying you guys can\u2019t fly planes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s next.<\/p>\n

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