Steve,

I have been a rabid listener to Hagmann and Hagmann for about a year or so. I realize that Doug's email gets nailed daily with 1000s of emails as does yours. I have imparted this info before to both Doug and Joe but i am not sure they got it.

I am a retired Federal Air Marshal. When the term TSA check point comes up it is not going to be manned by TSA's airport gropers. They are NOT law enforcement officers and cannot carry weapons. These Checkpoints will be manned by Federal Air Marshals usually in their tactical gear. These guys are highly trained and trained by fellow FAM's in their local offices that are usually ex-street cops. The ones in my office were fairly unsavory. Narco cops that bragged about tossing dope in peoples cars, Regular cops that would use any excuse and intimidation to search a persons person or vehicle.

The dangerous part of this is these guys are typical government suck ups that are bored with day to day flying and want to make a career of ground based assignments. The VIPR Team (now there is an acronym for you) is a place for these go getters to drop into. They show up everywhere, air shows, bus stops, train stations, River boats.

Nov 10, 2013