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Team America: Regional Police
CNN investigates the Federal Air Marshal Service:
In more than a dozen interviews across the country, air marshals said the agency is rife with cronyism; age, gender and racial discrimination; and attempts by managers to make the agency appear more efficient than it is by padding numbers.
Air marshals describe an agency in chaos, where bored and frustrated marshals focus more on internal squabbles than watching for bad guys.
For example,
International flights are considered to have the highest risk.
However, air marshals from a half dozen FAMS field offices said the agency continues to assign marshals to short, regional routes on small jets. The marshals told CNN that lots of short-haul flights make the agency look more productive on paper.
The marshals said if someone dares criticize a manager, he or she can be banished to what they call "Team America," referring to the regional trips.
For more details, read the whole thing. And to understand the underlying philosophy behind the Federal Air Marshal Service, the rest of the Transportation Security Administration, and indeed the entire Department of Homeland Security, watch this:
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|2.5.10 @ 10:21AM|#
air marshals said the agency is rife with cronyism; age, gender and racial discrimination; and attempts by managers to make the agency appear more efficient than it is by padding numbers.
It's as if these people are trying to destroy my unshakeable faith in government.
Nitori Kawashiro|2.5.10 @ 10:29AM|#
Fuck yeah! Somebody at the Reason staff followed my last YouTube link.
|2.5.10 @ 11:18AM|#
Utterly predictable behavior from a bureaucracy.
Spoonman|2.5.10 @ 11:27AM|#
Especially a secret one.
|2.5.10 @ 11:57AM|#
Heh. Great clip from a great show.
Zeb|2.5.10 @ 5:02PM|#
Indeed. Probably the greatest show about how government works ever.
Spoonman|2.5.10 @ 12:22PM|#
Also, that spells TARP.
|2.5.10 @ 1:12PM|#
I read somewhere that the air marshals have a pretty much impossible task because they are expected to be continuously awake, alert, and ready to respond to any unusual circumstance. The problem is that they are human and humans get bored. The chance of a terrorist attack on any particular flight is pretty much zero. So these air marshals have to spend all their time in cramped seats, eating shitty food, and looking at other miserable passengers doing nothing of significance. On top of that they have to wear a suit and tie and carry a pistol on their belt while seated (uncomfortable and I speak from experience). No wonder the agency is in the crapper.
André|2.5.10 @ 3:20PM|#
Why not require pilots to pack heat?
Zeb|2.5.10 @ 5:02PM|#
That would seem simpler, wouldn't it?
|2.5.10 @ 8:37PM|#
The hoplophobes don't like it.