Yesterday's airplane shooting in light of the recent GAO report.

[deminks]

There was a report from the GAO last week stating that Congress had stopped Air Marshall training funding because ...I don't know why. Maybe the marshalls did the right thing yesterday. But it seems to me if the administration took the air marshals seriously, they would fund their training, and not be touting training that does not exist.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_on_go_co/air_marshals

WASHINGTON - Efforts to train thousands of federal agents to protect commercial flights during heightened terror alerts were quietly abandoned more than a year ago because Congress objected to the cost, government investigators said Tuesday.

The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, reported that the federal air marshal service suspended its efforts to develop such a "surge capacity" by training customs and immigration agents to protect passenger airliners.

Ridge announced that the air marshals would be combined with immigration and customs agents in the same agency so agents in both could be cross-trained and used for aviation security. The move would allow more than 5,000 armed federal law enforcement agents to be deployed on commercial aircraft, he said.

By October 2004, Homeland Security had cross-trained some immigration and customs agents, but stopped because of congressional concerns that it was "an ineffective use of resources," the report said.

edited to correct punctuation.

[Spinzonner]

1. Barn door, meet COngress

Not a penny for prevention but billions and billions for remediation

[deminks]

2. Kick in case anyone needs info nt

[deminks]

3. Kick because maybe the air marshals are not trained properly. nt

[deminks]

4. Please read, right or wrong, they are not being funded or trained

I will kick one last time.

[Bucky]

5. This is unsurprising. Homeland Security dollars are just more pork.

Considering the consequences if that guy actually had a bomb, shoot to kill is certainly a reasonable response. Obviously we don't have all the facts yet--but I'll bet now that he was bluffing about having a bomb. Still doesn't matter, of course. The "bomber" was probably just a crazy dude, but you really can't take chances with a thing like that. I'm just glad JC Watts wasn't around at that time. Remember when he joked about being armed at an airport just after 9/11? Had something to do not getting his Congressional parking priviledges recognized in a no-parking zone. Today they'll clock a man for doing that.

[Spazito]

6. Thank you for posting this! I remembered this issue had been

posted on DU previously and believe that the shooting and the GAO report may well be interconnected, especially if it cannot be proven the man ever said he had a bomb which, so far, passenger witnesses directly quoted have either said they did not hear him say that or not addressed the question of what he shouted at all. So far, in all direct quotes on the issue of the man shouting he had a bomb only the official is quoted as saying he did.