Federal air marshals have begun following ordinary US citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior under a new domestic surveillance program that is drawing criticism from within the agency.I guess that the Air Fuzz don't have enough to do, so they're following people in order to justify filling their rice bowels.
The previously undisclosed program, called “Quiet Skies,” specifically targets travelers who “are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base,” according to a Transportation Security Administration bulletin in March.
I'll restate this: If you can go from where you are to where you want to be in a day, then drive.
And yet, still only the Silver Medal in airport-related government intrusiveness, so long as the TSA keeps their body scanners.
ReplyDeleteBut the "rights" section of people's brain shuts down at the sound of the word "terrorism."
A large part of why I am choosing to learn to fly.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to go where I want, when I want without the TSA.
I have done the Drive rather than Fly bit (12 hours driving time) since a few years after 9/11, and if I can get there faster, and in a straight line (mostly) in my own plane, then all the better.
"I'd like to go where I want, when I want without the TSA."
ReplyDeleteOh, B., oh dear...the small aircraft pilots have it worse right now. Comrade has posted the stories, it ain't pretty.
The most fiendishly difficult to catch terrorists are those that never actually commit any crime. Don't worry, though. The TSA is working on not having to prove any criminal cases before prosecuting and executing whomever they choose. To keep us afraid and safe. And afraid.
ReplyDeleteB,
ReplyDeleteIf you want to get there faster flying make sure it can fly more than 600 miles without refueling and cruse near or better than 160kt.
I did enough trips from Ma to roughly cleveland in a C150 (95kts) to say it takes a better part of a day and about 6-7 hours flight time and two fuel stops. The upside, if the weather is good it is relaxing and not exhausting compared to driving.
If the weather is poor, you wish you were driving or anywhere else. EBM and I know of a few trips like that.
Eck!
I like flying.
ReplyDeleteI hate airports.
Yeah, I figure I will buy a late 70's/early 80's 182 and spend a year flying that... fast enough to start.....then step up to a decent, faster, retractable. This should let me learn how much I fly and how much full fuel payload I need...What kind of airports I travel to, etc...and earn my IFR while I am at it. I should be able to sell it for about what I have in it, since it is pretty much depreciated.
ReplyDeleteThen I will buy a plane for travel. Maybe get my twin as well. We shall see.
There's a lot out there I can get. I have the cash. I just need the skills and experience.
Yikes! I qualified for about two-thirds of the listed criteria on my last flight. For example, I checked my baggage. I slept during the flight. (Why the hell not?) I was,if not the very last, at least one of the last on the flight because I was in the cheapest seat available and my section was one of the last called. And (when awake) I was aware of my surroundings, I guess. And furthermore in flight, I got up twice — twice! — to pee.
ReplyDeleteBut I think the TSA is on to something with those bobbing Adam's apples. It's a sophisticated new form of Morse Code (but in Arabic or Farsi, of course) that terrorists use for silently communicating with each other Replaying in my mind some twitching Adam's Apple movement on the airplane, and with the audacious use of Google Translate. I've come up this translation of what they were saying:
- "Yo,Mustafa, take a look at that guy in seat 21 C."
- "You mean the one who slept for two hours before he got up pee again?"
- Yeah, that's the dude! I noticed that he was last to board the plane, too. Our Al Queda handbook of character traits exhibited by infidel TSA spies says to watch our for frequent pissers.
- He could be dangerous to our mission. Keep an eye on him."
-"Y'know what? Let's postpone blowing up this flights until the return trip."
Yours very crankily,
he ew York Crank
Unfortunately, in Hawaii, I work on one island (Oahu) and choose to have a home on another(Hawaii). I interact with TSA on almost a weekly basis. Unpleasant, yes. But it does give me a continuous source of new material for my stand-up comedy act.
ReplyDeleteI did a 900 mile trip a few years ago. Three fuel stops, 9.5 hours of flying time, 11.5 hours block-to-block. Driving distance was 1,100 miles, a 20-hour drive with stops.
ReplyDeleteBut weather is a big issue for traveling by light aircraft. See, Scott Crossfield.
What were you flying in?
ReplyDelete