Free Republic

<p>A Transportation Security Administration employee was arrested Thursday after he was caught on video stealing cash from a bag going through screening at Orlando International Airport, Orlando police say.</p> <p>Alexander Shae Johnson, 22, who had been with TSA just a few months, was arrested on a charge of third-degree felony grand theft, records show.</p>

An Orlando-bound Northwest Airlines flight was diverted to Nashville this morning after a suspicious item was discovered on board the plane. The item: a Christmas ornament. "A suspicious item was found and out of an abundance of caution, the pilot decided to divert to Nashville," said Delta Air Lines spokesman Carlos Santos, whose company recently acquired Northwest. "Fortunately it turned out to be a harmless article."

PHOENIX – Two men thought to have been acting suspicious aboard a flight bound for Phoenix were detained and questioned by federal anti-terrorism authorities before they were released, the FBI said Sunday. Transportation Security Administration officials said passengers aboard U.S. Airways Flight 192 from Orlando, Fla., on Saturday night reported that two men, described as Middle Eastern, were acting strangely and talking loudly to each other in a foreign language.

PHOENIX — Authorities say they’ve detained two men thought to have been acting suspicious aboard a flight bound for Phoenix. A Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman says passengers aboard U.S. Airways Flight 192 from Orlando, Fla. Saturday night reported that two men were acting strangely.

WASHINGTON (Jan. 2) - A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing. Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

<p>WASHINGTON -- Nine Muslim passengers removed from a flight from Washington to Florida after other passengers reported hearing a suspicious remark about airplane security.</p> <p>AirTran Airways spokesman Tad Hutcheson called the incident on the New Year's Day flight from Reagan National Airport to Orlando, Fla., a misunderstanding, but defended the company's response. He said the airline followed federal rules and did nothing wrong.</p>

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark. Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI. Kashif Irfan,...

Components that potentially could be made into a pipe bomb were found in the luggage of a man preparing to fly from Orlando International Airport to Jamaica on Tuesday, the Orlando Sentinel newspaper said. The Transportation Security Administration confirmed only that "suspicious" items were found in a search of the man's luggage. FBI spokesman David Couvertier, whose agency is handling the case, said the items "generated a high level of concern," but he declined to confirm the newspaper's report that the suspicious items included "unassembled pipes with end caps, metal ball bearings and other potentially explosive materials." The man, whose...