Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee believes that the only thing standing between America and another horrific day like 9/11 is an army of blue-gloved unionized government employees.

From Politico:

Handing airport screening duties to private companies could result in another terrorist attack like Sept. 11, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said Tuesday afternoon.

The Federal Aviation Administration authorization bill awaiting President Barack Obama’s signature directs the Transportation Security Administration to let more airports privatize their screening areas.

“My comment: we are looking forward to returning to 9/11,” Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said at a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing.

You know who I wouldn’t want working airport security? A sizable chunk of Congress, starting with Sheila Jackson Lee — and she’s a government employee… go figure.

Note to SJL: It’s not as if the government-run TSA is without its little glitches.

(h/t Weasel Zippers)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

We should make this a series.

Here’s a new one developing…

What happened on United Airlines Flight 944?

A nutball aboard a flight from Chicago to Germany violates airline security rules and locks himself in the bathroom when passengers are supposed to be seated. He scuffles with flight attendants, turns on an electronic device, screws around in the bathroom, and has to be restrained by other crew and passengers.

Another outbreak of Sudden Jihad Syndrome? Another dry run?

Sure doesn’t look to be a Lutheran:

CLEVELAND – The unruly passenger who caused a commercial jet flying from Chicago to Germany to divert to Cleveland Friday is facing federal charges.

The FBI said Monday that Saleh Ali S. Alramakh, aka Saleh Ali S. Alramaleh, age 21, of Riyadh Saudi Arabia, has been charged with interference with flight crew members and attendants.

The incident caused United Airlines Flight 944 — en route to Frankfurt — to divert to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at about 5:30 p.m.

According to the FBI, Alramakh went into the plane’s bathroom and used an electronic device while the plane was taxiing in Chicago. He allegedly refused to follow the flight attendant’s directives that he immediately turn off the device and return to his seat, but eventually returned to his seat.

Shortly after takeoff and while passengers are still required to stay seated, the FBI said Alramakh went into the bathroom again and used an electronic device. He once again refused to follow orders by the flight attendants to immediately return to his seat, investigators said.

At this point, the FBI said flight attendants unlocked and opened the bathroom door, at which point Alramakh became verbally abusive toward the attendants before returning to his seat.

At some point later in the flight, Alramakh got up a third time and approached a flight attendant in a “belligerent, confrontational manner,” the FBI said.

“Alramakh was speaking in a loud tone of voice, using profanity, with his face inches from the flight attendant’s face. The flight attendant asked Alramakh to step back multiple times, but instead Alramakh shoved the flight attendant backwards against the aircraft,” the FBI said in a news release.

All together now: Nothing to see here, move along…

Six year old girls? Check. 95-year-old wheelchair-bound women in adult diapers? Check.

Nigerian men with no ID carrying multiple expired boarding passes not in their own names? Ch… wait, where’d he go?

CBS New York:

CBS News has confirmed that authorities are looking into a shocking security breach that took place at John F. Kennedy International Airport last week.

Investigators say Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, a Nigerian, boarded Virgin America Flight 415 to Los Angeles without a valid passport or identification, using an expired boarding pass for a flight the day before that belonged to someone else.

Officials say Noibi got through security and was able to board the plane. No one noticed until the flight was airborne when a flight attendant realized Noibi was sitting in a seat that was supposed to be vacant.

The story from ABC:

TSA Joke of the Week:

Q: Which does the TSA consider to be the greatest threat to air security — Al Qaeda or Hamas?

A: Depends

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBeremember being

What Happened on AA Flight 1561
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

If you listen to the passengers and crew who flew on American Airlines Flight 1561 last weekend, there’s no doubt about what happened on their harrowing trip: A Yemeni man shrieking “Allahu akbar!” at the top of his lungs more than 30 times rushed the cockpit door twice intending to take down the plane and kill everyone on board.

The clammy, sweaty lone male passenger exhibited classic symptoms of what Middle East scholar and author Daniel Pipes has dubbed “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” — a seemingly random outbreak of threatening behavior or violence by a hysterical Muslim adherent who had not previously exhibited signs of Islamic radicalization. It took at least four men to tackle and restrain Rageh Ahmed Mohammed al-Murisi. “There was no question in everybody’s mind that he was going to do something,” passenger Angelina Marty told the San Francisco Chronicle.

And no, that “something” did not mean enlisting his fellow flyers in a midair flash mob performance of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

Not everyone was so grounded in reality. Bleeding-heart sympathizers seriously speculated that al-Murisi had simply mistaken clearly marked lavatory doors for the clearly marked cockpit door (because, you know, it’s normal to shout “God is great” repeatedly just before relieving yourself as your plane is about to land). Some federal authorities and media whitewashers proclaimed that al-Murisi’s motives were “unknown.”

If only al-Murisi had been screaming phrases from the Constitution. The Selective Motive Determination Machine — the same one that rushed to pin the Tucson massacre on the Tea Party, the GOP and Fox News without a shred of evidence — would have kicked in to full gear.

On Wednesday, a San Francisco judge denied al-Murisi bail. Unburdened by the paralyzing prissiness of political correctness, federal prosecutors noted that “Allahu akbar” was the same refrain invoked by the 9/11 hijackers over Shanksville, Pa., and by the would-be Christmas Day bomber over Detroit. Not to mention Fort Hood jihadist Nidal Hasan, the Frankfurt, Germany, jihadist who killed two U.S. airmen on a bus in March, the young Portland, Ore., Christmas tree lighting bomb plotter, every last suicide bomber across Europe, Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, and every last evil al-Qaida beheader broadcast on video over the past decade.

So how, despite a massive transportation and homeland security apparatus, did al-Murisi get into this country and get on a plane? He had no keys, no luggage, $47 cash, two curious posted checks totaling $13,000, and a trove of expired and current state IDs from New York and California — where relatives said he had not notified them that he was coming. He is young, male, brought no family with him, had no job or other discernible income, and hails from the terror-coddling nation of Yemen. Yes, the same Yemen that is Osama bin Laden’s ancestral home, harbors al-Qaida operatives who are burning the “torch of jihad,” and is deemed a “special interest country” whose citizens warrant increased scrutiny by DHS when they cross the border illegally.

As I reported last month, a federal watchdog revealed that TSA’s counterterrorism specialists failed to detect 16 separate jihad operatives who moved through target airports “on at least 23 different occasions.” Neutered by Islamophobia-phobia and an “overtime over security” mentality, our State Department consular offices’ and airline security bureaucracy’s stance toward the al-Murisis slipping through their snaking lines is:

Nothing to see here; move along.

At least the heroes of Flight 1561 who refused to sit silent learned the proper 9/11 lesson. “I swore to myself that I would never be a victim” after the 2001 attacks, passenger Larry Wright, one of the men who brought al-Murisi down, told reporters earlier this week. The only effective homeland security begins and ends with a culture of self-defense. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no “see no jihad, hear no jihad, speak no jihad” delusionists on airplanes with Allahu akbar-chanting flyers beating down doors.

***

Related video:

Look, up in the air: Classic symptoms of what Daniel Pipes calls “Sudden Jihad Syndrome”.

If you see something, say something — and do something. Fortunately, the crew and passengers of AA Flight 1561 did — tackling a nutball Yemeni Muslim shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he beat on the cockpit door of their plane.

Now, watch law enforcement authorities downplay the incident as nothing-burger:

The passengers sat stunned as they watched a man walk quickly toward the front of American Airlines Flight 1561 as it was descending toward San Francisco. He was screaming and then began pounding on the cockpit door.

“I kept saying to myself: ‘What’s he doing? Does he have a bomb? Is he armed?’” passenger Angelina Marty said.

Within moments Sunday, a flight attendant tackled Rageh Almurisi. Authorities do not yet have a motive.

While authorities said that Almurisi, 28, of Vallejo, Calif., has no clear or known ties to terrorism, the incident underscored fears that extremists may try to mount attacks to retaliate for the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden last week.

Federal agents are investigating Almurisi’s background. He was carrying a Yemeni passport and a California identification card, authorities said.

…Marty, 35, recalled that she and other passengers on the plane were stunned when they saw Almurisi walking down the aisle. She said a woman in a row across from her who speaks Arabic translated that Almurisi said “God is Great!” in Arabic.

Andrew Wai, another passenger, told KGO-TV on Monday that the wife of one of the men who took Almurisi down later said Almurisi was yelling “Allahu Akbar.”

“There was no question in everybody’s mind that he was going to do something,” Marty said.

A male flight attendant tackled Almurisi, and other crew members and passengers, including a retired Secret Service agent and a retired San Mateo police officer, helped subdue him as he banged on the door, police said. The flight attendant put plastic handcuffs on him.

Funny how you can scream “Allahu Akbar” at the top of your lungs and still have authorities proclaim your motives unknown.

It’s not the first time.

Flashback.

Flashback.

Flashback.

Flashback.

Flashback – It’s the jihad, stupid.

Air traffic controllers have been catching a lot of grief for sleeping on the job lately. But do you know what Transportation Security Administration officials have been doing — or rather, not doing — lately? A federal watchdog revealed this week that TSA’s counterterrorism specialists failed to detect 16 separate jihad operatives who moved through target airports “on at least 23 different occasions.” The name of the TSA monitoring program paying for all this flying-blind failure, I kid you not:

SPOT.

Under the “Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques” plan, TSA’s designated behavior detection officers are supposed to closely watch travelers who pose potential security risks and who exhibit any number of appearances or activities “indicative of stress, fear, or deception.” But long-entrenched, bipartisan American political correctness hampers the kind of effective, efficient national security profiling that Israeli airline security officials practice so well.

The result? TSA’s snoozing SPOT-ters catch nobody — for fear of being accused by the grievance lobby of singling anybody out.

Stephen Lord, who specializes in homeland security issues at the Government Accountability Office, reviewed Justice Department documents showing that “in December 2007 an individual who later pleaded guilty to providing material support to Somali terrorists boarded a plane at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport en route to Somalia. Similarly, in August 2008, an individual who later pleaded guilty to providing material support to al Qaeda boarded a plane at Newark Liberty International Airport en route to Pakistan to receive terrorist training to support his efforts to attack the New York subway system.”

Other terror suspect travelers who slipped through the cracks have been subsequently tied to the 2008 Mumbai bombings; the plots to attack a Quantico, Va., Marine base and New York City infrastructure; and an attack by a Pakistani-trained American jihadi on an Afghanistan base.

Young. Male. Muslim. Traveling to al-Qaida friendly hot spots. How did these at-risk terror tourists escape scrutiny?

The GAO noted that the TSA SPOT team uses a numerical grading system that has no basis in science or research. But TSA deployed it anyway despite the government’s lack of validation. More appalling: Nearly 10 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks highlighted vast gaps in information-sharing and dot-connecting, TSA is still “not systematically collecting and analyzing information obtained … on passengers who may pose a threat to the aviation system.”

Nobody has guidance on how, when or what data to enter into the agency’s “Transportation Information Sharing System.” Nationwide airport access to the system, such as it is, only came online last month.

As usual, the now-unionized TSA is clamoring for fatter taxpayer rewards for their systemic failure. SPOT took in more than $211 million in fiscal year 2010; the Obama administration wants to pour $232 million into it this fiscal year — a 9.5 percent increase in funding — to subsidize 3,350 SPOT personnel.

The Department of Homeland Security wants separate funding of another $254 million to support 350 more SPOT officers. If they get what they want, TSA will have invested over $800 million since fiscal year 2007 in a program that is not spotting anyone. Labor bosses are too busy counting the $30 million in new dues they’re raking in.

In the end, the reckless ethos established by first TSA overseer Norm Mineta still haunts and hamstrings the feds’ indiscriminate grab-and-grope airline security apparatus.

Remember? Asked by CBS reporter Steve Kroft whether “a 70-year-old white woman from Vero Beach, Fla., would receive the same level of scrutiny as a Muslim young man from Jersey City,” Mineta responded in 2001, “Basically, I would hope so.”

Yep, that’s your TSA tax dollars at work: Thousands Standing Around, watching the clock while jihad jet-setters fly by.

We won’t know the final fate of the pilot until James Clapper is clapped-on and alerted to this story at some point next week so he can assist Janet Napolitano in deciding what to do, but from the looks of it, the TSA should be hiring this guy as a consultant instead of considering punishing him:

An airline pilot is being disciplined by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for posting video on YouTube pointing out what he believes are serious flaws in airport security.

The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.

He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.
[...]
The pilot’s attorney, Don Werno of Santa Ana, said he believed the federal government sent six people to the house to send a message.

“And the message was you’ve angered us by telling the truth and by showing America that there are major security problems despite the fact that we’ve spent billions of dollars allegedly to improve airline safety,” Werno said.

Shows you how bright J-Nap’s DHS is — They’re investigating a guy who’s filming airport “secrets” and posting them online, so what do they do? Confiscate his gun and let him keep the camera.

Video from News10:

Janet Napolitano is expected to release a memo stating that behind-the-scenes airport security usually isn’t that lapse, it’s just that this guy happened to be filming on the DHS’s one day off a year, so the skies will be safe for at least the next 364 days. Rest easy, America!

All we know for now is that a system still exists that somehow allows a 16-year-old to stow away in a plane’s wheel — someone who could just as easily have been a terrorist (sorry, I meant “suspected man-caused disaster initiator”) — while the TSA aggressively patted down nuns and Boy Scouts.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

No more calls please — we have a winner! Erick Erickson at Red State relays a story from somebody returning to the US from Afghanistan on a military charter not long ago that might prompt Zucker & Abrahams to sue the TSA for copyright infringement.

Read it here and then come back.

It doesn’t have as much to do with groped junk or the X-Posed Johnson 5000™ full body scanner as it does with good, old fashioned bureaucracy in action.

Speaking of Zucker & Abrahams, the above story reminds me a little bit of this scene from Airplane II:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

You’ve heard of the “no-fly” list.

Now get a load of the no-grope list — a roster of the privileged federal officials and politicians who don’t have to be subjected to TSA’s grabby hands.

Lucky them, huh?

Cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders and an exclusive group of senior U.S. officials are exempt from toughened new airport screening procedures when they fly commercially with government-approved federal security details.

Aviation security officials would not name those who can skip the controversial screening, but other officials said those VIPs range from top officials like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and FBI Director Robert Mueller to congressional leaders like incoming House Speaker John Boehner, who avoided security before a recent flight from Washington’s Reagan National Airport.

The heightened new security procedures by the Transportation Security Administration, which involve either a scan by a full-body detector or an intimate personal pat-down, have spurred passenger outrage in the lead-up to the Thanksgiving holiday airport crush.

But while passengers have no choice but to submit to either the detector or what some complain is an intrusive pat-down, senior government officials can opt out if they fly accompanied by government security guards approved by the TSA.

DHS Secretary Clownitano regularly bypasses security since she travels almost exclusively on government or military planes. Same with AG Eric Holder. ICE head John Morton travels commercial with a security detail and skips the screenings and pat-downs, AP also reports.

DHS motto: Homeland security waivers for we, but not for thee. Now, submit or pay up!

***

Commenter Spare Change says below that this is a step in the right direction of common-sense profiling.

But commenter johnsteele counters: “Does this mean that all of us who went through fingerprinting and FBI criminal background checks to get a Florida Concealed Weapons Permit are now exempt? Didn’t think so, groping is for the little people.”

This morning, Bob Schieffer had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Face the Nation to discuss invasive airport security screenings that are starting to turn off just about any air traveler who doesn’t show up to the airport wearing a leather hood and a ball gag.

When I heard Schieffer ask Hillary if she’d submit to a pat-down, I thought maybe Bob suspected her of smuggling cigarettes to the president, but Schieffer was instead referring to TSA searches:

Asked in the closing moments of an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” if she would submit to “one of these pat-downs” that has caused a national outcry among travelers, Clinton replied, “Not if I could avoid it.”

“No, I mean who would?,” she said with a chuckle.

Video courtesy of Right Scoop — cackle courtesy of Hades:

Who would willingly submit to a pat-down? Certainly not little kids, but we don’t always know what’s good for us. Because of new procedures Joe Biden says we should just put up with, the skies are now safer thanks to strip-searches like this one that would put a person on the sex offender registry if he or she wasn’t wearing rubber gloves and a TSA badge.

Not everybody is feeling powerless during the TSA screening process, because if you happen to be wearing a hijab, you may be allowed to request to pat down yourself. Gee, that will be effective.

Last night, the TSA got some notice on Saturday Night Live, but it’s hard to satirize something that has already self-inflicted its own satire:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Readers know I’ve been one of DHS Secretary Janet Clownitano’s most vocal critics — dating back to 2006, when she supported a disgraceful 9/11 memorial in Arizona poisoned by left-wing radicalism, through 2008, when the shamnesty wolf in enforcement clothing was tapped by Obama to head DHS, and, of course, over the past two years as she demonized conservative activists, botched 9/11 history, and turned homeland security into a bigger joke that it already has been.

J-Nap is now the focus of a massive national backlash over the new, invasive TSA screening procedures. She takes to the pages of USA Today to defend herself:

Nearly a year after a thwarted terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner last Christmas Day, the recent attempt by terrorists to conceal and ship explosive devices aboard aircraft bound for the United States reminds us that al-Qaeda and those inspired by its ideology are determined to strike our global aviation system and are constantly adapting their tactics for doing so.

Our best defense against such threats remains a risk-based, layered security approach that utilizes a range of measures, both seen and unseen, including law enforcement, advanced technology, intelligence, watch-list checks and international collaboration.

This layered approach to aviation security is only as strong as the partnerships upon which it is built. In addition to the more than 50,000 trained transportation security officers, transportation security inspectors, behavior detection officers and canine teams who are on the front lines guarding against threats to the system, we rely on law enforcement and intelligence agencies across the federal government. We require airlines and cargo carriers to carry out specific tasks such as the screening of cargo and passengers overseas. We work closely with local law enforcement officers in airports throughout the country.

And we ask the American people to play an important part of our layered defense. We ask for cooperation, patience and a commitment to vigilance in the face of a determined enemy.

When Obama homeland security officials won’t even name that “determined enemy”, who can blame Americans for refusing to cooperate?

DHS Secretary Clownitano has cuddled with the Muslim Brotherhood, and exhibited extreme delusional behavior and dhimmitude in the face of jihadi threats. Now, she’s telling us to show a “commitment to vigilance?”

The only thing I can possibly say in her defense is that TSA’s credibility problems long predate her tenure.

Two words: Norm Mineta.

Flashback:

[60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft]: Are you saying, at security screening desks, that a 70-year-old white woman from Vero Beach, Florida, would receive the same level of scrutiny as a-a-a Muslim young man from Jersey City?

Mineta: Basically, I would hope so.

Another flashback reminder: The photo now featured on the Drudge Report of a Muslim TSA agent frisking a nun is from 2007:

The caption at Flickr (hat tip – reader KH):

From the photograher, Dean Shaddock:

This was captured as I collected my things from airport security (Detroit Metro Concourse A). I think of it as something like a Rorschach test. Is an elderly Catholic nun being frisked by a Muslim security agent the celebration of blind justice? Or is it simply an admission of absurdity?

From Thousands Standing Around to Taking Scissors Away to Touching Sensitive Areas, TSA has stood for an incompetent, political correctness-addled, homeland security bureaucracy from day one.

As the historian Arnold Toynbee put it so well: “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”

Hands-off for law-breakers, hands-all-over for everyone else.

The old joke about TSA used to be that it stood for “Thousands standing around.”

Now TSA stands for “Touching sensitive areas.”

Or, to put it more bluntly: “Thousands squeezing asses.”

Reader Wes sent me a link to a few new wardrobe items he’s offering to discourage the homeland security gropers.

Check ‘em out:

The San Diego News Network reports that TSA allowed a phony U.S. marshal to log in at San Diego’s international airport with bogus ID, escort a “prisoner” through security, and leave the facility no questions asked:

A Hemet man who passed himself off as a U.S. Marshal was able to enter the international airport in San Diego with a “prisoner” after convincing airport security officers he was a federal agent, a TSA spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday.

Suzanne Trevino, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said in a telephone interview that an investigation has revealed that someone who presented “falsified law enforcement documents” was able to get past security and eventually make it to a gate with a prisoner. The individual presented himself as a law enforcement officer and followed the proper procedures, including logging in, she said.

The agency learned about the incident after being contacted by “local law enforcement” about the potential breach in security.

“We are working with law enforcement and other departments to make sure this does not happen again,” Trevino said.

Trevino declined to discuss what law enforcement officers are required to do to verify their status, or what policy changes have taken place since the incident.

After the “prisoner” took off in a plane, Trevino said, the individual left the airport.

The Transportation Security Administration, which is responsible for security at airports, and the U.S. Border Patrol were informed by Hemet police about the incident after investigators learned that a woman had been “deported” by someone who claimed to be a U.S. Marshall, said Lt. Duane Wisehart.

Gregory R. Denny, 37, was booked last month and booked on suspicion of kidnapping, false imprisonment and impersonating a peace officer, Wisehart said. John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorney’s office, said Monday the case against Denny is still under review and he did not have an estimate on how soon a decision will be made on whether charges will be filed.

News 8 has recently revealed serious flaws in the way the FAA licenses mechanics who fix planes.

There is evidence of years of problems in testing these mechanics. There is also evidence that hundreds of mechanics with questionable licenses are working on aircraft in Texas.

Now there is evidence of repair facilities hiring low-wage mechanics who can’t read…

… There are more than 236 FAA-certified aircraft repair stations in Texas, according to the FAA’s Web site. News 8 has learned that hundreds of the mechanics working in those shops do not speak English and are unable to read repair manuals for today’s sophisticated aircraft.

Former FAA inspector Bill McNease told News 8 he regularly encountered applicants for pilots’ licenses who tried to pretend they could speak English — but could not.

“When I was based in Dallas, I had that happen every week,” McNease said. “It was not uncommon at all to have foreign flight students. We had mechanics, but I handled the pilot end of it…. and I turned down people every week because they couldn’t speak English.”

“There are people [where I work] who do not know how to read a maintenance manual as they are spelled out, because they don’t have a clue,” said one certified aircraft mechanic who works at a Texas aircraft repair station. He wished to remain anonymous to protect his employment.

To certify a part for flight or repair an engine, a mechanic must be licensed by the FAA as an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic, known in the business as an “A&P.”

News 8 discovered that mechanics at one licensing center in San Antonio were being tested in Spanish as late as last fall. The FAA ultimately shut the facility down.

Celebrate diversity!

Feel safer? Not me:

After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of aircraft and rammed them into buildings.

Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.

The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections of pilots.

This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The 12,000 Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law enforcement agency…

…Since Mr. Obama’s election, pilots have told us that the approval process for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week the problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers – the pilots who have been approved to carry guns – indicate that the approval process has stalled out.

Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots who act in any way that causes a “loss of confidence” in the armed pilot program risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program. Despite these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have raised real concerns in multiple interviews.