Epod

Federal air marshals assigned to protect commercial flights across the U.S. were furtively pulled from their assigned flights so they could meet for sexual trysts, get better routes or travel to cities they preferred, according to documents and interviews with current and former employees.

What began as an internal investigation into allegations of harassment and threats stemming from a spat between ex-lovers has expanded into a criminal inquiry focused on the Federal Air Marshal Service’s dispatch hub in Herndon, Virginia. More than 60 federal employees are under scrutiny as investigators look into whether flights considered at risk of hijacking or a terrorist attack were left without marshals on board, sources with knowledge of the investigation told Reveal...


http://www.revealnews.org/article/di...sexual-trysts/

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sbrower

I am no fan of the program. But this is just sensationalist bs. "flights considered at risk of hijacking"? Is that flights departing NY? Flights departing JFK? Flights with terrorists who are known to have smuggled explosives on board and they thought the solution was to add a FAM?

Xyzzy

I fail to see how this affected aviation security. The woman at the center of this was responsible for scheduling employees. She did it to her own advantage, it is alleged. This came alng with the article cited above:

chollie

Either the FAM is a serious program with FAMs assigned to specific flights/routes as a result of some sort of analysis - in which case, it is a big deal if those concerns are over-ridden by personal wishes - or it's basically a sham with little to no security value beyond the mere fact of its existence.

If it's the former, a genuine, thought-out response to potential threats, then anyone messing with assignments for personal reasons should be fired - as should anyone who knew about the practice and didn't report it. Why on earth should employees of the very agency tasked with guaranteeing the protection of US citizens be exempt from 'see something, say something'?

If it's the latter, then perhaps it's time to curtail the program and put the resources to better use.

cestmoi123

Agreed. I can see a rationale for assigning FAMs based on some assessment of the relative risk of hijacking faced by various flights (not sure how exactly you'd work out that methodology, but it could be done) or doing purely random assignment (so that a potential hijacker couldn't predict whether there'd be a FAM on a given flight). In either case, tweaking flight assignments as discussed here would violate the assignment algorithm.