TN Congressman Blasts "Useless" Air Marshals

[mrjarrell]

I have to say, that if this mans figures are correct then the service should be terminated. It's wasteful spending. Let the airlines hire armed security professionals or let the passengers fly armed, if hijacking is a concern. Or just give us back our knives and box cutters. The service is over funded and under performing and should be put up on the chopping block. Too bad the security theatre types won't agree, tho.

via House.gov

Washington, DC -- Mr. DUNCAN: Madam Speaker, probably the most needless, useless agency in the entire Federal Government is the Air Marshal Service.
In the Homeland Security Appropriations bill we will take up next week, we will appropriate $860 million for this needless, useless agency. This money is a total waste: $860 million for people to sit on airplanes and simply fly back and forth, back and forth. What a cushy, easy job.
And listen to this paragraph from a front-page story in the USA Today last November: “Since 9/11, more than three dozen Federal air marshals have been charged with crimes, and hundreds more have been accused of misconduct. Cases range from drunken driving and domestic violence to aiding a human-trafficking ring and trying to smuggle explosives from Afghanistan.''
Actually, there have been many more arrests of Federal air marshals than that story reported, quite a few for felony offenses. In fact, more air marshals have been arrested than the number of people arrested by air marshals.
We now have approximately 4,000 in the Federal Air Marshals Service, yet they have made an average of just 4.2 arrests a year since 2001. This comes out to an average of about one arrest a year per 1,000 employees.
Now, let me make that clear. Their thousands of employees are not making one arrest per year each. They are averaging slightly over four arrests each year by the entire agency. In other words, we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest. Let me repeat that: we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest.
Professor Ian Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania wrote last year about the money feeding frenzy of the war on terror. And he wrote this: “Nearly 7 years after September 11, 2001,'' he wrote this last year, “what accounts for the vast discrepancy between the terrorist threat facing America and the scale of our response? Why, absent any evidence of a serious terror threat, is a war to on terror so enormous, so all-encompassing, and still expanding? The fundamental answer is that al Qaeda's most important accomplishment was not to hijack our planes but to hijack our political system.”
“For a multitude of politicians, interest groups and professional associations, corporations, media organizations, universities, local and State governments and Federal agency officials, the war on terror is now a major profit center, a funding bonanza, and a set of slogans and sound bites to be inserted into budget, grant, and contract proposals.''
And finally, Professor Lustick wrote: “For the country as a whole, however, it has become maelstrom of waste.'' And there is no agency for which those words are more applicable than the Federal Air Marshal Service.
In case anyone is wondering, the Air Marshal Service has done nothing to me, and I know none of its employees. But I do know with absolute certainty that this $860 million we are about to give them could be better spent on thousands of other things.
As far as I'm concerned, it is just money going down a drain for the little good it will do. When we are so many trillions of dollars in debt, a national debt of over $13 trillion, we simply cannot afford to waste money in this way.

I do have to disagree with him on one point, tho. Better to save $860 million and not spend it on anything.

 

[irishfan]

Air Marshals are a double edged sword as they work best when you hear nothing about them. In all honesty, I think we are better served by making stronger cockpit doors and give pilots or flight crew in the cockpit some weapons training. If a person has a bomb then the marshal is useless but a weapon such as a knife could be stopped easily as long as there is actually a marshal on that plane then they can stop the person. If a cockpit door is reinforced and a weapon is kept in the cockpit then I could see the captain/crew being able to prevent a large disaster much more efficiently than the Air Marshal program.

 

[rambone]

$200 Million per arrest. Holy ****.

 

[dross]

To be fair, though, arrests may not be the most important measure. They are there mainly for deterrence. Impossible to measure, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

[Scutter01]

Wait a minute. So, you want them to make MORE arrests? This reminds me of my IT career. Tens of thousands of people put in millions of man-hours to ensure nothing went wrong on Y2K. When nothing went wrong on Y2K, people complained that the money they spent was wasted. Wait, what? We did our jobs correctly and that was wasted money?

Any time the budget people don't see us around, they assume they're throwing their money away. "Why are we paying that guy? We never have any problems with the network!" Really? You know, there's a reason you never have any problems with the network. You're not paying me to "put out fires". You're paying me to maximize your uptime.

Before we complain that we're spending 200 million per arrest, let's first define and quantify what we're spending the money on and what we hope to accomplish. Seems that if we've only gotten four arrests out of it since 2001, then they're doing a pretty good job.

 

[mrjarrell]

One of the main problems is that the service puts marshals on the least concerning flights, rather than those that should be of concern (international). I posted a thread way back in Feb. that had CNN, (of all people) addressing the issue. The air marshals service looks to be a big boondoggle of a cluster foxtrot. If onboard events are of a concern they can be addressed better and we can save billions by doing away with them. Too much bureaucracy, corruption and incompetence seems to occurring to warrant keeping them in existence. Better to find another solution.

 

[Scutter01]

One of the main problems is that the service puts marshals on the least concerning flights, rather than those that should be of concern (international). I posted a thread way back in Feb. that had CNN, (of all people) addressing the issue. The air marshals service looks to be a big boondoggle of a cluster foxtrot. If onboard events are of a concern they can be addressed better and we can save billions by doing away with them. Too much bureaucracy, corruption and incompetence seems to occurring to warrant keeping them in existence. Better to find another solution.

That I will agree with. I just remember the days after 9/11 when people were demanding to have the Air Marshalls back. Well, they got 'em. Now they're saying that it's wasted money.

 

[dross]

At this point, are we really worried that other passengers are a threat? I could understand explosives, but unless a terrorist group filled the plane with their own people, the passengers won't stand for another 911.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

A FAM I know rather well is on all kinds of international flights...

But probably 3-4x as many domestic.

And no, he wasn't involved in the arrest of the football player in Cleveland nor the smoker guy here recently.

-J-

 

[theweakerbrother]

To be fair, though, arrests may not be the most important measure. They are there mainly for deterrence. Impossible to measure, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

If they are there for "terrorists" there is no deterrence level because terrorists don't care if they get caught. They prefer to get caught and then make things go boom! Am I assuming too much?

 

[jbombelli]

And in other news, jbombelli blasts useless congressmen, whose only function seems to be to "act stupidly."

 

[Clif45]

The problem is that there isn't enough arrests. What we need to do is make more regulations so that we can arrest more. Then we can justify our expenses.

I also know a FAR who does many international flights. Nice guy. Says it is a really boring job though.

 

[jsgolfman]

Airline security belongs to the airlines.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

Airline security belongs to the airlines.

I'd have a hard time arguing that...

And if it were the airline's responsibility...they could do it how it SHOULD be done and not have to be all PC like any government entity.

On another note, I asked the FAM I know if he had any involvement with the two most recent situations.

He responded by saying "I don't arrest at 36000 feet"

I said "Ventilate then ask questions?"

"yep"...one word response.

Wish I could be with him on flights.... but they're not allowed to fly with family or friends while they're working.

-J-

 

[mrjarrell]

So your buddy would have shot a man dead for smoking a cigarette on a plane? That's not making the case that they are presenting a valuable service.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

It was via text message...

And we should all know that no, no air marshal would shoot someone solely for smoking in a restroom aboard a plane. They are eminently trained and very good at their craft.

Come on, man. We all know that you don't like much about the government / police, but you can use some common sense.