Sorry, hadn't heard of it before. I presume it is something similar to the massive crinoline, or the mega taffeta.

Ah, the old "they hate our freedoms" argument. Actually, what they hate is being indiscriminately slaughtered. They have no problem with our freedoms, only with our violence.

IANAL, but last time I checked, there was no law for driving under the speed limit as long as your speed is not below the posted minimum.

This makes it an illegal stop, IMO.

I hope you filed a complaint.

For the record, I don't want LEOs doing the screening. The only hope we may possily have at getting our rights back is to keep the administrative search separate from criminal, even though the line gets less and less clear.

Let me present some facts to you.

FACT There was warning something like this was going to happen. The Government chose to turn a blind eye to it. Google the August 6th memo.

FACT: The private security guards were executing the screening the FAA mandated.

FACT The FAA was the body that created the screening restrictions and guidelines.

FACT: At least two of the 9/11 hijackers got secondaries. You can even Google for the video of one getting the rubdown at Dulles.


If screening pre-9/11 was so ineffective, then what does that say about the vast majority of TSA checkpoints that still use the same equipment the private screeners used?

Wow, I didn't know there was that much Kool Aid available in TSA. They must really feed you that stuff non-stop if you believe what you just wrote. Incredible! But we know what TSA "facts" are by reading PV, don't we?

From what I've read & heard, most of the LEO's on airport checkpoint duty consider it a punishment due to the close proximity of the TSA staff & the behavior they are forced to witness.

Ireland? Spain? Greece? Turkey? China? Egypt (ok, not Europe, but still) Perhaps you missed all the violent demonstrations last year in Denmark over a bunch of cartoons?

BTW-would it be better if it were the 'Great Silk'? How about 'Great Velvet'?

Again, what has the TSA, on its own (remember, not cooperating w/hijackers & barring access to the flight deck are all on the airlines), done that, had it been in effect on 9/10/01 would have prevented 9/11 (TM)? This is the 2nd time today I've asked you, specifically, this same question, btw. If you're going to keep making these kinds of claims, that the flying public 'needs the TSA', you're going to need to back them up w/something other than 'trust me, you do'.

We have already layered on costs with the TSA. Let's not compound the problem with more expensive LEO's.

Ducking the question is part of the TSA training. It's pervasive in the agency from the Idiot down to the Workfare employees.

Just to clarify, I am not advocating actual LEO's manning the WTMD's and X-Ray's. I think there are a lot better things they can be doing.

The people I am referring to would be the equivalent of a New York State Peace (not Police) Officer, a New York City Special Patrolman, or a California PC 832 officer. For those that are unfamiliar, their police powers are generally restricted to on-duty and while in the performance of their specific job function.

The people would be hired specifically for airport security, and trained appropriatley by their respective agencies,(of course this would have to involve the use of federal guidelines, so ...)

I realize that there would still be opportunity for corruption/mistreatment of pax, but I think it would be a lot less than current.

wildcatlh: The justification behind that potential officer being rejected was that he would find the work boring and would quickly leave for another position, leaving the department holding a bill for over 100,000 dollars in training expenses. I'm not saying its right, but that was the justification.

AngryMiller: As far as you getting stopped, I honestly have no explanation, as I was not there. Two possible explanations are:

1. You're vehicle matched the description of a suspect's vehicle, and the officer did not want to tell you the real reason for the stop, in case you had connections to the person they were looking for

2. If it was late at night, the officer may have believed you were DUI.

Also for the line of questioning, I have to say that sounds less like a mind numbingly dull officer, than one who was trying to see if you would slip up and start changing your answers.

Or it could be that that one really was an idiot, they do hire humans after all

and no, I am not an LEO.

I spend a lot of time, probably too much time, following police brutality cases and cases of extreme violations of constitutional rights by police officers. It is NOT pretty. If you want some examples, go here and here

If the TSA had that many violations, Bob could make 5 posts a day over at PV and it wouldn't be enough. One of the only groups that scares me more than the TSA as an American are police officers.

wildcatlh:

I really don't want to get into a debate on LE. I will say that I trust articles posted on "The Agitator" to be unbiased and a fair representation of the facts probably as much as you would trust an article from the TSA or DHS websites to be such.

He links to the original articles. What more do you need? I can go pull some links if you like, or you can actually visit the site instead of just looking at the URL, and click on his links.

The owner of that blog was formerly with the CATO Institute and is now a Senior Editor at Reason Magazine. He's a legitimate journalist.

Ward Churchill would be proud of you Spiff!!

Prof Churchill's premise was that the US brought 9/11 on itself.

I make no such assertion. I simply state that the response to 9/11 was stupid, unnecessary, and un-American. It's also pathetic how often the 9/11 card is overplayed as a catch-all excuse for abuse of the traveling public and the destruction of civil liberties.

What is the source of your information here? If there is a "blatant" violation of rights, the LE agency doesn't have much choice but to act, lest the complaint be sent over to the FBI. An IA complaint doesn't preclude going to the FBI as well, but most circumstances aren't so grave as to call in the big guns.

News flash: there will always be scary people out there. Arpaio gets re-elected because he appeals to the cowboy culture in that part of the world. I suspect he will eventually get taken down by the feds, if he doesn't die first. He'll be 77 in June. Arpaio has a lot of enemies in Arizona, including the Maricopa County DA's Office. They have to defend him every time he gets sued. Then the county commission has to pay the damages when the county loses or settles the lawsuit, which happens a lot. As long as the taxpayers want a folk hero more than they want cost-effective government, Arpaio and people like him will persist.

That did occur once, although not quite as your statement would imply. A small police department--I think it was in Connecticut, although I could be mistaken--administered a psychological screening test to their applicants, as do most LE agencies. The test included a component on problem-solving aptitude, which is not quite the same as an IQ test because it doesn't provide an IQ score. These tests typically have a range for each measured dimension (aggression, masculinity/femininity, paranoia, etc.) that mirrors the range recorded for successful police officers. This gives an ideal "personality profile" to compare applicants against. The applicant that was turned down--and sued, which was the part that made the news--scored above the ideal problem solving score range. The position of the police agency was not that he was too smart to be a cop, but rather that he wouldn't have been satisfied with a law enforcement career and wouldn't stay. It's not unusual for an agency to invest $100,000 to get someone from applicant to confirmed (off probation) officer, so they want to recruit people who will stay a while. The applicant lost his lawsuit.

The medium-sized (300 sworn) department where I worked had three members of Mensa in the ranks. I don't think cops are necessarily the smartest people out there, but as a group, they are at least reflective of their communities, if not a cut above Joe Average.

The problem, I think, is that (1) these people would be able to demand higher salaries than TSOs or private security officers, (2) local governments would have to bear that cost, when many are considering laying off the cops they have, and (3) I think you would have difficulty keeping people in such a dull job. At the risk of offending the TSOs that frequent here, many TSOs have the job they do because this is the best they're likely to get. They have a regular check, good bennies, and they work out of the weather.

During my police career, I would occasionally get assigned to the airport security detail, either on overtime or to backfill for someone on vacation or sick. We had a special police officer classification, much like you describe, for the airport detail. Those guys worked only at the airport, never the street. When I was there, I found it mind-numbing. They guys that were on the regular airport detail were mostly older and, frankly, not the brightest lights on the tree.

One alternative, although there might not be enough people to fill out an airport staff, would be to hire retired law enforcement officers as the equivalent of TSOs. Most retired cops are limited in how much they can continue to earn as a public employee (within the same retirement system) while collecting retirement benefits. I know of one court system that hires retired cops to work the security checkpoints at the courthouse. None of them work more than 20 hours per week, they have "special deputy" status that gives them police powers only while on duty, and they already know most of the people who pass through the checkpoints. They make some extra money, and the courthouse gets better security than they would from a regular officer or from a contract security arrangement.

Youtube Trumps Civilian Review Boards
 

The best scenario for Civilian Review Boards is a video on youtube. Case in point, the police officer who walked over to a moving cyclist and shoved him off his bike during a transportation demonstration by cyclists in Times Square, New York. The office then charged him with disorderly conduct and assaulting an officer and obstructing official government duties. After the DA was presented with the youtube video, the PO was charged then he resigned from the department.

Absent the video, a civilian complaint would have gone no where. Even when the complaints are substantiated, the board has no power to penalize the officer. The findings are sent to the police commissioner who has discretion and fails to act on at least 50% of substantiated cases. Chairwoman Franklin H. Stone is set to resign the agency. "She said she though the biggest challenge facing the C.C.R.B. was the fact that the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, has been pursuing disciplinary action in only about 50 percent of the cases the agency is referring to the department. She said the structure of the agency needed to be re-examined. “I think that the structure of the of the agency should be re-examined to consider the other models for police oversight that have been adopted by other jurisdictions around the country.”