You know I had a nice long, nasty note to send you and then I deleted it. That is not my way and I guess that being condescending is just yours. Whatever. Different strokes for different folks. I do like though how you can disparage hard working law enforcment officers with just a couple of paragraphs. It does make me wonder,though, what have you ever "protected" other than your precious frequent flyer status
I guess that you do have a point about common sense and it really is, in my experience, uncommon.
FAMIAM

If your definition of being harrassed is having a conversation with a law enforcement officer, then I would agree. This has happened to "Plenty of innocent parties" and happens in the coffee shops on the street and every where else you see people interacting everyday.

You were able to insult quite a few air marshals, but you didn't explain why we don't need them. Could you explain your fact based reason for not having air marshal's or decreasing the force? By calling yourself a patriot, doesn't mean that you now are an expert in the field of terrorism. Of course, you do have a right to an opinion, which obviously includes not having air marshals, which this sounds like, just an opinion.

Reading more closely what I wrote, one would certainly know that what you say is not part of my definition of being "harrassed". I was talking about people being "stopped and harrassed" by police/security forces. A coffee shop (if applicable and it's generally not) conversation would not be classified as such unless it involves police/security forces STOPPING and bothering innocent parties by engaging them when they don't wish to be engaged.

Don't let the truth of what I said stand in the way of mischaracterizations and propaganda opportunities. But the truth of what I said still stands as correct.

Thanks,

I guess I am just a glutten.

Well firstly, I never stated that the peeping tom should not be questioned nor did I state his questioning was a constitutional affront. Quite the contrary, I support the concept that such a person should be questioned and that is a legitimate function of the police.

As for the drug stops, they were certainly made by profile in a number locations, New Jersey and many Florida counties among them, and the traffic violations were usually made up or simple infractions no one would ever be pulled over for. The demeanor of the police was highly combative, dogs were trained to react to non-existent drugs at search sites to produce probable cause and motorists who refused searches were often detained while warrants were obtained. Many of the people profiled for these stops were certainly not educated or strong enough to stand up for their rights, as in many cases they were lied to by police or threatened. Countless lawsuits have been filed all over the country for violations of rights, police misconduct and retrievel of illegally seized assets.

Further searches were done at airports to confiscate cash, usually from minority passengers who were carrying the money for legitimate reasons.

The war on drugs did not justify that type of police or government behavior, and I am sorry but the war on terror does not justify marching down a similar road where people are profiled, detained, questioned oor turned in by their fellow suspicious citizens.

Folks --

I first stumbled onto this thread a few days back and was just checking in to see if DL had issued any statements or advisements on the OP's reported observation.

To my disappointment, I find that this thread has gone way over the deep end. Everyone is yelling at everyone else over tertiary issues and personal opinions that, in large measure, have nothing to do with the core of what the OP wrote.

I hate it when FT postings do this. The issue is that someone claims to have witnessed an AM get comped (off duty) into F displacing some elite pax who were playing by the standardized DL rules and in the "UG queue." Isn't that what this is all about?

Why don't we just focus on that? I'm outta here.

As a point of clarification, this thread was started nearly a year ago. And most of the on-topic discussion was concluded in August of 2004.
Another poster dredged this thread up from the archives a couple days ago and started a discussion on FAM's which continues today.
While I'll agree that the current discussion has little to do with the thread title, I think it's close enough that we'll let it proceed.
As far as threads wandering, this happens so frequently on Internet BB's that it's often called "birdwalking".
If you follow threads on most any active BB, it certainly helps if you are able to mentally separate the wheat from the chaff.

At the risk of getting this fired up again, just thought I would make some comments as one of the folks who admits being a FAM on this board. Just for clarification if someone unfamiliar "surfs" in and starts reading.

The airlines would NOT stand for this. We have a pretty good working relationship, but they would not stand for off duty FAMS getting "FREE" upgrades. If a FAM is off duty and flies in first he or she has either used private FF points (no not accumulated on duty-people get fired for that, and they do check) or paid the upgrade fee, just like anyone else.

Does that mean that some FAM somewhere doesnt have a friend who slipped them some extra bennies? Who knows? Not likely as both the employee and FAM would have some questions to answer, and likely job losses because of it. I dont think this is the case, but I will acknowledge it "could" happen. Just as it could with anyone who has a "friend" working behind the counter. Only in this case both parties would get in trouble. And as I said before, the airlines watch for this stuff, and it is reported direct to HQ. People have been fired over such actions (several violations of policy of this type reportedly took place just after 9-11 during the buildup when many "temp" FAMs from other agencies were working), and word gets out quick. So if this complaint was given to the airline, and it was real, they would have taken action in my experience. So I don't think the observation that started this thread was an actual off duty FAM in the first place.

Your use of the word "harassed" betrays your bias. You assume that the only reason that officers stop people is to "harass" them, as if the officers got extra credit or a commission for every person they "harassed" in a shift. I have been stopped by police from time to time, but I have never been "harassed." In every case, there was something that caused the officer to direct his attention to me, and in every case, the officer promptly told me what had caused him to stop me.

And, by the way, with the exception of anomalies like 2001, law enforcement officer fatalities due to criminal action have been decreasing steadily since the 1970s, when the FBI started keeping track. I don't think that is because the police have been less active over the last 30 years.

It's tough making a living as a law enforcement/security consultant, given that everyone believes that they're an expert.

You certainly seem to know a lot about this. I was unaware of this mass desecration of the constitution, and I teach this stuff for a living. Not everything you see on 60 Minutes is necessarily true or reflective of the situation everywhere.

I apologize if I went overboard. It gets under my skin when people believe that their claim on a FC seat trumps security measures that are for everyone's benefit.

I just went back and re-read the OP. I didn't see any evidence there that the FAM was off duty when the FC seat was assigned. The OP says that he confirmed this in his opening statement, but didn't say how he determined that the FAM was off-duty and got a FC seat. I find it a little curious that two off-duty FAMs would be traveling together. I think it far more likely that they were on-duty FAMs, and got the FC seats to be near the flight deck, and to allow for the hardware that they are carrying.

For those of you that maintain that the FAMs should not be on the aircraft at all, or that they should be in coach, so that your precious FC seat can contain your pampered butt - get over it. I flew from EWR-SLC last night and didn't even get onto the upgrade list (must have been the chicken bones and PBR cans that I left around my seat in the DL Crown Room, but that's another thread in another forum), and had to ride in coach with the rabble. Gosh, it was just awful. I had to gut it out with only a snack pack and a bag of animal cookies, plus a Diet Coke or two, for comfort. I still don't know how I coped.

You seem pretty reasonable, but I'll focus for just a moment on this one sentence. You're right that a passenger's desire to sit in first class does not trump "security measures that are for everyone's benefit." I agree with you. But conversely, security measures don't trump passengers' desires all the time, either. For instance -- and I recognize that this is purely hypothetical -- if the TSA said that "for security" nobody can sit in first class except air marshals, we might all agree that they had gone too far.

I just want some reasonable balance between normal life and security. You might even agree with me on that!

Bruce

1. The only biases I have in matters of security are: 1) a bias for the truth; and 2) a bias against ignorance/misunderstanding/misinformation and against actions that make the problems worse or just waste resources.

2. Contrary to your claim and your "reading minds" -- i.e., you state you know my unstated assumptions -- I do not assume that the only reason that people were stopped was to "harass" them; however, that too factors in on more than a rare occassion. Furthermore, the law enforcement/security types are not always or even often honest -- especially about the stopping of innocent people.

Given your response above, I am curious about what bias you think my use of "harassed" betrays. What bias does it betray in your opinion?

Perhaps, in the minds of others here, chasing after an attractive woman in the hallways of her hotel when she doesn't want to be chased is not harassment; however, in my mind it is harassment. Call it what you wish; but when it's your young daughter, you'll call it as it is: namely, harassment. As indicated above: stopping and engaging innocent parties when they don't wish to be engaged is generally harassment in my book.

1. You are pulling selective data that is not broadly representative and is not even generally applicable to what I said. I suggest closely reading what I said above and keeping it in context when replying.

2. Law enforcement and security force fatalities due to murder and non-negligent homicide have not been universally decreasing since the 1975. And in the places where "stops" have been estimated to have risen the most, the numbers of law enforcement officers and security forces killed has generally risen the most there too.

1. Contrary to your above claim that everyone believes that they're an expert, not everyone believes that they're an expert.

2. I am a perpetual learner and always hope to be; and I would never believe myself an expert in any matter other than being an "expert in my own feelings and private thoughts".

3. This perpetual student has been (in the past) an advisor to more than one senior official whose portfolio included security threats and responding to such.

http://www.cutv.com/robbery.htm

http://www.libertarianworld.com/Prop...re-Rights.html

http://www.ndsn.org/sept95/bookrev.html

http://www.nacdl.org/MEDIA/PR000085.htm

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=323

In a nutshell the Sheriff of Nottingham seized $8 million in a 41 month time span from 1989 to 1992, about $5,000/day. In 199 seizures there were no arrests made for any violation. 75% of the people were able to get some of currency returned (50% to 90%) after negotiating with the Volusia County attorney. All had to agree not to sue the Volusia County Sheriff's Department. Only 4 people were able to get there cash returned 100%.

To paraphrase your post, I'm sure not all the public records of Volusia Country Sheriff's Department are necessarily true and that it is not reflective of the situation then.

Public trust is earned, and even more quickly retracted by those who have a nasty civics habit of knowing the Constitution.

And yes I do look forward to every encounter with a TSA (I'm not supposed to use the term STASI) screener at MIA, TLH, AUS, DFW, DAL, ATL, FLL, MSY, PBI, OKC, EWR, ISP, MCO, JAX, TPA, IAH, JAC, LBE, PIT, PHL, MCI, etc. Have not been to all 429 of them but I try. Heaven forbid I form an opinion with encountering only 10% of them.