08-25-2006, 09:43 PM
Reference: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_air_mar.html#comments
This ABC News blog site has a series of stories about gross mismanagement of the Federal Air Marshal Service in which complaints about cronyism and mis-management on the part of top level officials abounds.
The interesting twist is that many of these officials are retired Secret Service managers.
A sampling: "The time has come to shine a little more light into some of the other dark corners of the Federal Air Marshal Service's senior management. John Magaw is the first person that should be looked at if one wants to understand how things got so bad at the Federal Air Marshal Service. John Magaw was the man appointed to lead and build up the newly established Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and its enforcement arm: The Federal Air Marshal Service. Few people understand that the Federal Air Marshal Service started out as a division of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Civil Aviation Security.
When the TSA was created, the Air Marshals were removed from the FAA and placed under Magaw. This is where the problems started. In June of 2002 there were several short articles in USA Today about how the TSA and Magaw had “watered down” the stringent FAA hiring and training standards that had made the US Federal Air Marshals one of the most proficient and effective anti-terrorist organizations in the world.
Later, there were more articles about how the firearms standards for the Air Marshals had been lowered in order to meet a requirement for X number of Air Marshals by X date. Why all the problems all of a sudden? The answer is so ironic and simple, it’s almost hard to believe: The Air Marshal Service had been hijacked by a “good old boy network” composed of former and retired US Secret Service agents."
The author, who signs himself "HQ Federal Air Marshal", goes on to list 22 retired Secret Service agents who held management positions in the Federal Air Marshal Service and to make many more disclosures of alleged corruption and mis-management in the agency.
It is worth your time to read the entire blog.
This ABC News blog site has a series of stories about gross mismanagement of the Federal Air Marshal Service in which complaints about cronyism and mis-management on the part of top level officials abounds.
The interesting twist is that many of these officials are retired Secret Service managers.
A sampling: "The time has come to shine a little more light into some of the other dark corners of the Federal Air Marshal Service's senior management. John Magaw is the first person that should be looked at if one wants to understand how things got so bad at the Federal Air Marshal Service. John Magaw was the man appointed to lead and build up the newly established Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and its enforcement arm: The Federal Air Marshal Service. Few people understand that the Federal Air Marshal Service started out as a division of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Civil Aviation Security.
When the TSA was created, the Air Marshals were removed from the FAA and placed under Magaw. This is where the problems started. In June of 2002 there were several short articles in USA Today about how the TSA and Magaw had “watered down” the stringent FAA hiring and training standards that had made the US Federal Air Marshals one of the most proficient and effective anti-terrorist organizations in the world.
Later, there were more articles about how the firearms standards for the Air Marshals had been lowered in order to meet a requirement for X number of Air Marshals by X date. Why all the problems all of a sudden? The answer is so ironic and simple, it’s almost hard to believe: The Air Marshal Service had been hijacked by a “good old boy network” composed of former and retired US Secret Service agents."
The author, who signs himself "HQ Federal Air Marshal", goes on to list 22 retired Secret Service agents who held management positions in the Federal Air Marshal Service and to make many more disclosures of alleged corruption and mis-management in the agency.
It is worth your time to read the entire blog.