Pilot Punished for Video Critical of Airport Security Comes Forward, Won't Back Down

FoxNews ^ | Dec. 28, 2010 | Staff

[La Enchiladita]

The California airline pilot punished by the Transportation Security Administration for posting videos critical of airport security has revealed his identity.

Chris Liu, who calls himself the "Patriot Pilot," says he was just trying to improve airport security when he released a recorded and posted online footage of San Francisco International Airport in which he criticized a number of procedures.

Liu had been part of a federal security program allowing him to carry a gun in the cockpit. But after he posted the video, federal agents showed up at his house Dec. 2 to confiscate his weapon and suspend his Federal Flight Deck Officer credentials.

Liu originally declined to identify himself in fear of retaliation but says he’s now going public in hopes of changing major security flaws.

[Tzfat]

To be an FFDO, he is is subject to a non-disclosure of the FFDO security SOPs. It does not bind him to non-disclosure of everything and anything. What he pointed out is not in the FFDO SOPs.

The security holes are the fact that no airport workers go through screening. They carry backpacks, etc. with no one even looking at them. Only an idiot would try and sneak something through UPSTAIRS with the passengers, when paying someone to carry something through DOWNSTAIRS is an option with zero risk. You could carry a "suitcase nuke" through as a ramp worker and no one would know.

It is not a question of the TSA monitoring all the doors or not, it is just that the pilot pointed out what EVERYONE who knows anything about perimeter security knows: ONE gap, makes all your efforts a WASTE. In otherwords, the passenger screening is a joke. Security theater only. It does not secure the aircraft from a knowledgable terrorist, and if the TSA knows this, why the fake security? Why not really secure the perimeter?

In this case your "woman's intuition" is exactly wrong. Every airline pilot in the US can back up what this guy is saying. Even the women pilots < grin >.

[longjack]

He’s griping about doors, but I’ve never seen TSA guarding doors at any airport I’ve been to

That's exactly the point he's trying to make.

TSA's handling of passengers is a mirage.

The more dangerous security weak points are ignored, specifically tarmac access.

[jazminerose]

Don’t know about your airport, but in mine the workers do go thru screening, at least the ones who are inside the terminal.

As for the mechianics, etc outside, that I don’t know & strikes me as a big potential problem. How do we know that at LAX, “Jose” the mechanic is not actually Mohammed the jihadi?

I just question this pilot’s motives & accuracy. More so now that I’ve seen him on TV.

[jazminerose]

Again, I must ask. Isn’t this the responsiblity of airport ops?

[La Enchiladita]

I am a Captain for a major US airline.

Thanks for stopping by. In my airlines training as a CSA, it was drummed into us that airport security was all of our responsibility to monitor. E.G., you constantly "badge" everyone you see in secure areas, NO ONE is allowed to "piggyback" through a secure door, etc.

[La Enchiladita]

I think you’re right to be sceptical, and that is why I posed my original question at top.

I sense some over-eagerness in his self-promotion and am especially concerned that he did this “whistle-blowing” even though he had been given the additional trust of carrying a firearm.

The real problem with all the kerfuffle re airport security, pat-downs, etc., is the unspoken taboo against profiling.

[La Enchiladita]

The more dangerous security weak points are ignored, specifically tarmac access.

This has long been a problem. As you will recall, the ramp agents in Miami found to be smuggling drugs via their access.

[Tzfat]

Don’t know about your airport, but in mine the workers do go thru screening, at least the ones who are inside the terminal.

I have been in every major airport in the Northern Hemisphere, and the only workers who are screened are those who work in passenger areas. Even gate agents are not screened. Everyone in the airline industry knows this, but please, since you know everything, enlighten us. Where do you work? What airport? What airline?

Who cares what his motives are. He is telling the truth.

[Tzfat]

it was drummed into us that airport security was all of our responsibility to monitor

All true. However, we are not told to search other's belongings. That is the issue. Not that a non-badged person can access the secure area - but that a badged employee can, with ANYTHING in their possession - which negates the strip searches going on upstairs.

In PHL last year, and employee family member wanted to take a firearm to their destination so they asked the employee to carry it into the secure area and then meet them in the waiting area. Another employee turned him in, otherwise it would have gone undetected. In the same employee group last year, a number of airline employees were arrested for burglary, assault, and even murder. The vast majority of airline employees are top shelf, but not all...

[GladesGuru]

“So... is he really the “Patriot Pilot,” or another wikileaker type??”

Put it this way - if Assange were to reveal all about TSA, America would first laugh and then reach for the torches and pitchforks.

Oleg Volk summed up TSA as follows:
TSA - FAST FOOD REJECTS, WITH POLICE POWERS.

I suggest not letting the Bull Dyke distract you from the Regime’s imposition of raw, unadulterated socialism in many parts of America.

Call your CongressCritters regularly.

Email them incessantly.

Insist they put government back into the limits defined in the Constitution.

[Don W]

Our Gov’t is now so huge, and its rules so pervasive, that eventually already, every American will has run afoul of it and will be caught sooner or later.

Much as many hate the statement:

There, fixed it!

[JDW11235]

No Problem, I hope you find it helpful, I first hear dof the book from another Freeper, OneWingedShark.

Also, in case you or anyone else has never seen it, this is probably one of the most informative videos I have ever seen in my adult life. Many have seen it, but too many haven’t. It outlines the 5th amendment, and how it was created to PROTECT the INNOCENT, but how too many feel the 5th amendment is only used by the guilty. It feature a law professor (former criminal defense attorney), AND a police detective that backs up everything he says.

I pray we don’t fall further down the rabbit hold, but know we will, and people NEED to know that there are laws that no one has heard of (The video talks about one, such as owning/having possession of a small lobster). I hope it’s informative, but may you never have to use the info contained therein.

Anyway, here it is:

“Don’t Talk to Police”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

[JDW11235]

I think you may be surprised, but I respect your position. There are laws about anything and everything, and all points in between. For example, talking bad about the beef industry in CO is a FELONY (research “Veggie libel laws”), having possession of a certain sized lobster is a crime, soon with SB510 there’ll be a whole class of “Food Smugglers” farms/individuals without licenses who produce food, etc. And that’s just food. Adultery is a felony in many states (One I agree with, but still unknown to many, nonetheless), there are more laws than you can possibly know, tens of thousands of ways to be a felon, some so abstract then can be applied at the whim of a prosecutor.

You don’t have to take my word for it (I provided a link to a book, and the post before this, of a video), but I hope the warning of the creeping, growing judicial system and coming police state isn’t lost to you, and that it never comes back to bite you or anyone you love in the behind. Good luck, and have a very Happy New Year. May it be a prosperous one too!