13 ms·

Air Marshals Will Refuse Orders to Go to the Border, Prefer First Class Cabins

139 points by pessimizer 4y ago

jlukecarlson 4y ago
Seems like a completely failed program to me. Any organization should be able to quantitatively prove their value on some level. As the article points out, for the DHS to say they do “not have information on [the air marshal program’s] effectiveness” while also averaging a cost of $200 million per arrest is an insane statistic that should immediately require changes in the program.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  I haven't checked recently to see if this stat is still true, but at one point the number of people arrested by air marshals was actually lower than the number of air marshals who have been arrested.
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    Like ever? Or while acting as an Air Marshal?
    - mc32 4y ago
      Yeah, that assertion is very open to interpretation and only raises questions than answer anything.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        If you heard that more police officers had been arrested than had ever arrested anyone, would it really matter much if those police officers had been arrested as teenagers, or on the job? It's a program that employs people who have caused more incidents of crime than they have intervened to prevent. Not because they're particularly criminal, but because they are particularly useless.
        mc32 4y ago
        Context is important, lest you prime your reader to make unsupported conclusions. Imagine if instead of doing this to police officers, we insinuated things about arrestees instead.
        pessimizer 4y ago
        > Context is important, No, context can be important. If all context were important, you couldn't talk about one thing without talking about every other thing. If your argument about why context is important in this case rests on if a hypothetical fact that "people arrested by police have collectively prevented more crimes than they have committed" would be uninteresting or even unfair without context, I'd deeply disagree.
        kbenson 4y ago
        > It's a program that employs people who have caused more incidents of crime than they have intervened to prevent. Whether that's problematic depends on a lot of things, including whether arresting people is actually the main benefit of them being present. I have a few dogs. They bark at people walking by on the sidewalk a lot. I've never had someone break into my house. Are the dogs useless as a mechanism to prevent home invasion or burglary, or does knowledge of their presence prevent people from even attempting such? Now consider that I haven't noted whether those crimes are common in my area or not. Maybe those dogs have growled at guests in my house, making them feel uncomfortable. Should my stance be that they've growled at more guests than intruders they've attacked? Do you feel comfortable making a definitive statement on the value of those dogs and whether the costs outweigh the benefits with the given information, or do you think additional information would be important to discerning that?
        Ironchefpython 4y ago
        At the point at which your dogs have broken into and robbed your neighbor's house more often than they have prevented your house from being broken into; that's the point at which you can compare your dogs to the Air Marshal service.
    - Rebelgecko 4y ago
      The latter
  - skorpeon87 4y ago
    The overwhelming majority of the time, "arrests" on airplanes are made by regular passengers and the flight attendants, who beat up the offender then hogtie him with duct tape. Air marshals are completely pointless.
    - staunch 4y ago
      Air marshals may be pointless, but not for this reason. Air marshals are almost certainly trained not to intervene in minor disturbances. Otherwise a team of hijackers could locate the air marshal by having one person act as an unruly passenger.
      - wil421 4y ago
        If the movies are real they flash their gun and badge to the flight attendant and give them a wink.
        EdwardDiego 4y ago
        And then get pounced on by Melissa McCarthy.
      - iso1631 4y ago
        At what point is an air marshal supposed to interfere?
        staunch 4y ago
        (Presumably) only when the fate of the entire aircraft, or a substantial portion of the passengers, is in jeopardy.
        miguelazo 4y ago
        And the probability of them being on the "right" flight to come to the rescue out of thousands would be..?
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I'm sure this has something to do with that entire re-organization feeling more like an excuse to create some contracts for companies connected to administration insiders than it did anything actually useful that couldn't have been accomplished without the creation of a huge new department (and several smaller ones).
- Sakos 4y ago
  Do other countries have anything like this program?
  - Animats 4y ago
    Israel.[1] They had one big success in 1970. [1] https://www.securitysolutionsmedia.com/2018/04/20/air-marshals-a-worthwhile-program/ https://www.securitysolutionsmedia.com/2018/04/20/air-marsha...
- m463 4y ago
  > averaging a cost of $200 million per arrest You could play that game with anything. How much does our military cost? Or maybe, what was the total cost of one 9/11 airplane running into a target? And there is the hidden properties of deterrence
- Karellen 4y ago
  > averaging a cost of $200 million per arrest is an insane statistic That depends on the deterrence of having air marshals. The argument sounds like one that gets brought up here regularly, when executives lay off 90% of the sysadmins because "nothing ever goes wrong, so why are we paying for them?", and teams that are constantly running round looking like heroes for fixing broken stuff all the time get more kudos than the teams that keep things quietly humming along without any issues.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    This was my thought as well, but I still think we need evidence of this. If air marshals are primarily there to deal with terrorist threats (and not things like unruly/drunk/whatever passengers), then my feeling is that two things post-9/11 are responsible for the low risk of terrorist acts involving planes (or even just run-of-the-mill ransom-type hijackings): 1. Would-be hijackers can no longer get into cockpits. Pilots would much rather a hijacker kill every passenger and crew member on the plane than gain control of the plane. 2. Passengers don't take shit anymore. They know that, if terrorists successfully take control of a plane, the most likely outcome is that they're all dead. So they'll attack -- and hopefully subdue -- the hijackers. I expect the effects of #2 have lessened somewhat, given that 9/11 was over 20 years ago, and the memory of it is less raw (not to mention many adults who fly now were young children or not even born in 2001). If air marshals really do act as a deterrence, there must be some evidence to back that up.
    - KerrAvon 4y ago
      (Nitpicking follows. I agree with your points.) I don't think #2 actually goes away. It's a cultural shift. Prior to 9/11, the advice was always to just stay calm and let the authorities negotiate with the terrorist, because that had in the past generally led to passengers and plane surviving the incident. That level of passivity isn't coming back.
- rdtsc 4y ago
  > Any organization should be able to quantitatively prove their value on some level. There is danger there with corrupt and immoral organizations. They might just start generating false incidents and then run to save the day to pad their stats "look how effective we are!". Luckily, that only happens with deeply corrupt organizations. Like for instance FBI [1], when they were sending their informants to mosques in US looking to recruit terrorists. Up until the the members of the mosque ended up reporting the FBI agents to the FBI. --- Niazi and another mosque member had reported Monteilh to the FBI, claiming that Monteilh was espousing terrorist rhetoric and trying to draw them into a plot to blow up shopping malls --- [1] https://www.ocweekly.com/news-the-fbi-the-islamic-center-of-irvine-and-craig-monteilh-who-was-conning-whom-6397941/ https://www.ocweekly.com/news-the-fbi-the-islamic-center-of-...
  - heavenlyblue 4y ago
    > Like for instance FBI [1], when they were sending their informants to mosques in US looking to recruit terrorists. Up until the the members of the mosque ended up reporting the FBI agents to the FBI. I am not saying what FBI does is good, but this reminds me now that the only way to deal with constant threat of phishing is actually to create false fishing attacks all the time, so that people would be aware of the thread. Could be generally a good approach if the methods employed were more public rather than clandestine.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  If air marshals could get rid of security checks, it would be worth the cost
- roflyear 4y ago
  Imagine being the politician or person who cancels the program, only to have a plane hijacked or whatever. Spending a few billion of taxpayer money is fine if the cost is your political career or a hit to your political party.
LatteLazy 4y ago
>“The rank and file air marshals are going to refuse to deploy and risk termination,” David Londo, a 16-year DHS employee and president of the Air Marshal National Council, told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “You’re almost going to have a mutiny of a federal agency, which is unheard of.” I think the US would be better having a clearer line between civilian and military branches. It feels really weird to me that they are (self) describing this as a mutiny and talking about refusing to "deploy". But they are just employees right? Not soldiers?
- staunch 4y ago
  Yeah, too many people seem to accept the idea that law enforcement officers are not civilians. In my view, which seems to be the correct legal definition, anyone that is not a member of the military is a civilian.
  - skorpeon87 4y ago
    What's the real difference between the government stationing armed soldiers in your town to maintain the peace, and stationing armed police in your town to maintain the peace? The former became unfashionable so it was replaced with the later. Such soldiers were renamed for "PR" but the situation is functionally equivalent. Officially there are some differences, like police being accountable to civilian courts instead of military courts... but I think it is now generally acknowledged that civilian courts have a double standard for police. So this distinction is more theoretical than practical. In my view, it's fair to consider anybody who carries a gun for the state as a soldier, in an informal sense.
    - vkou 4y ago
      > What's the real difference between the government stationing armed soldiers in your town to maintain the peace, and stationing armed police in your town to maintain the peace? One's subject to military tribunals[1], while the other is subject to regular courts, which from all evidence seem to be incredibly biased in their favour. [1] Of which I know next to nothing.
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
Fire them all
- nerdponx 4y ago
  No, that's just for air traffic controllers and non-cops.
staunch 4y ago
Seems like we could very safely abolish the air marshal program. It may have been useful pre-9/11 but Flight 93 seems to prove that it's not necessary anymore. Anyone attempting to hijack a flight full of Americans is going to be attacked every single time, and terrorists surely know this, and that's the real deterrent. Hijackers might think they can overpower a single armed officer but they know they can't overpower dozens of passengers that feel forced to fight or die. It might even be a good idea for pre-flight training videos to explicitly tell passengers to immediately attack anyone attempting to hijack the plane. Though this is probably unnecessary, it could act as a strong additional deterrent and help coordinate people in the event.
- jopsen 4y ago
  > It might even be a good idea for pre-flight training videos to explicitly tell passengers to immediately attack anyone attempting to hijack the plane. You'll have a lot of passengers attacking each other for no reason. This is a remarkably bad idea. Fact is: plane hijackings isn't really a problem anywhere. Low-tech solutions like locking the cockpit goes very far. Stopping those really determined is probably hard/impossible, the best tools is probably old school humint. But it's probably best to accept that attacks are not impossible. Spend the money on something else.
  - staunch 4y ago
    > You'll have a lot of passengers attacking each other for no reason. This is a remarkably bad idea. Why are people going to attack each other for no reason? Hijackers typically do very obvious things, like try to break into the cockpit and make announcements/threats to the passengers. The training video could tell passengers to attack anyone trying to break into the cockpit or to wait to attack until the pilot instructs them to, etc. It would take a bit of thought for sure. > Fact is: plane hijackings isn't really a problem anywhere. Low-tech solutions like locking the cockpit goes very far. They're not a problem since 9/11 when passengers attacked the hijackers and then cockpit doors were reinforced. I believe the deterrent is the combination of these two changes.
    - 4y ago
skorpeon87 4y ago
Air Marshals and the TSA are both pointless jobs programs and security theater. The problem of hijackers was solved in the morning of 2001/9/11 when the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 fought back against the hijackers. Since then, there have been numerous cases of passengers beating the shit out of any jackass trying to start trouble on a flight. Locked cabin doors are also good. Metal detectors at airports would be fine, if they were staffed by private security contractors rather than the unaccountable TSA. Also their xray backscatter machines are pointless, their paranoia about shoes is pointless, and their insane paranoia about water-bottles is pointless. Other countries don't have these things, and things are fine for them. By all means have people walk through a metal detector to stop carryon handguns, but the rest of this crap is completely pointless.
- lostmsu 4y ago
  > Other countries don't have these things, and things are fine for them. Hm, is this true in EU?
  - dottedmag 4y ago
    Water bottles paranoia we do, I suspect because it so profitable for the shops past security control. But nothing like air marshals or TSA as they are described.
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    It's been about a decade, but when I spent some time flying around Europe I remember their airport security being considerably less onerous.
    - lostmsu 4y ago
      My memory is exactly like that, but also vague on this specific matter. Hence the question.
    - wyldberry 4y ago
      I recently went from North America -> Africa via Europe. I do have global entry, but i found the CDG experience to be more onerous than the one I have domestically in the US.
andirk 4y ago
mring33621 4y ago
Are they hiring?
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> “You’re almost going to have a mutiny of a federal agency, which is unheard of.” It's not really "unheard of". Air traffic controllers, employed by the FAA, famously went on strike in the early 80s and were subsequently all fired by the Reagan administration. In this case, honestly I'd be like "fine, go ahead and try insubordination, and then get fired." As this article makes exceedingly clear, it will be much easier to continue air travel without air marshals than without air traffic controllers, and the US govt still managed that situation pretty decently.
- csw-001 4y ago
  I thinks that’s the key though - the argument is that the program should be shutdown, not that they should all be put on border patrol duty… assigning them to a random alternative post is going to make recruiting good new folks really hard.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    I mean, it's a win-win for all then? I could certainly understand that, if I were hired to be an air marshal, and then re-assigned to border patrol duties, I'd be like "Peace out, this isn't what I signed up for." But I'm assuming at least some percentage would be OK with it, and the ones who aren't would have to find new jobs. Very similar to when companies downsize one department, but try to find jobs for existing employees by giving them jobs in other departments. Some will take it, some will reject it, but it's a pretty fair outcome for all.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  My reading is a mutiny of armed federal employees is the unheard of part. Be like all the FBI agents refusing to suppress minority groups or something.
  - factsarelolz 4y ago
    > Be like all the FBI agents refusing to prosecute minority groups or something. FTFY. The FBI is a political organization and chooses who they will persecute based on the political leanings of FBI leadership.
thesaintlives 4y ago
AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
dawnerd 4y ago
I've been on two flights now that have had to divert due to a passenger causing issues and in both cases there was no marshal onboard, just the flight attendants and some good passengers. To me it seems the air marshals we have now are just in it for the free vacations. If airlines want their own security they should be able to employ their own in flight guards. And doesn't needing air marshals prove that TSA is a joke?
- x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
  > And doesn't needing air marshals prove that TSA is a joke? The TSA _is_ a joke, but this is not evidence of that. It's typically to have multiple layers of security in case any of them fail.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
  That is some truly trash luck. I have wondered what kind of punishment is likely for someone who ends up diverting a flight.
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    From what I understand they can never fly on that airline again and given how few airlines there are now (and probably fewer in the future) that probably sucks. And I’m totally OK with that.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    If a flight diverts, there are good odds that the offender will be criminally prosecuted under 49 U.S. Code § 46504. Big penalties. Looks like getting a few years in prison isn't uncommon for fairly moderate physical interactions (spitting, pushing).
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      Presumably most of these people are normal members of society with, ya know, shit the feds can just take. So I presume most people lawyer up, plead down to guilty with ton of fines and the feds go on their merry way happy to have enforced the law in a way that's cashflow positive (i.e. basically the same situation as tax prosecution).
pkaye 4y ago
So it will go from 92% unprotected to 99% unprotected? Seems not a big difference since they don't accomplish much.
yamtaddle 4y ago
Air Marshals may be (are) useless at best, but I'm sympathetic to resisting an employer's attempt to radically alter one's job. Sign up for one thing, get told to do something very different that upends your life and may not be anything you're interested in or feel comfortable (for a variety of possible reasons) doing, yeah, that's bullshit.
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  Tell that to the hundreds of thousands that have been laid off this year.
  - factsarelolz 4y ago
    Could you cite a source? I thought unemployment was at an all time low. Where are these hundreds of thousands of laid off workers?
    - krugua 4y ago
      Layoffs and discharges levels and rates by industry and region, seasonally adjusted: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm
    - throwaway5959 4y ago
      Have you not seen what’s happened in tech over the last six months?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
csw-001 4y ago
This article very clearly articulates at length that there is a problem hiring (and one can assume, retaining) good Air Marshals. Seems to me that randomly reassigning them to border duty is highly unlikely to fix that problem. The premises here don’t reach the stated conclusion.
throwaway5959 4y ago
We should just ban alcohol on flights. It’s a few hours, people can suck it up. So many of these flights where people get unruly involve alcohol.
- cheeze 4y ago
  I'm a heavy drinker and I agree with this
- Arrath 4y ago
  > It’s a few hours, people can suck it up. While I completely agree, this would just shift the problem to the terminal, where people would gulp down as much as they can at airport bars, and become unruly when denied boarding at the gate due to inebriation.
  - mjevans 4y ago
    They would also sneak it on in flasks... So presumably they'd be compelled by police for a breathalyzer or comparable blood test at the destination terminal if they consume all of the drink.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      That's still risky. All airlines (in the US at least, possible legally mandated) have a policy of not allowing people to drink their own liquor they've brought on board. Get caught, and you're in for a bad time. If alcohol were banned on flights entirely, I imagine the consequences for sneaking a drink would get worse.
  - delecti 4y ago
    Even if it ended up being true, and it caused more trouble at terminals, that's still better. Airports already have security, and security in an airport is already able to easily move around the airport. It would take fewer security officers per-flight to secure unruly travelers at the gate than in the air.
  - maximilianburke 4y ago
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
> No air marshal has ever stopped a terrorist or hijacker since the service was founded in 1962. At this point, I'd say they are completely useless.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Isn't the existance of Air Marshalls providing a 'chilling effect' on potential troublemakers? How would we show the dimensions of that effect? Until that's done, it's disingenuous to claim that Air Marshalls have prevented only thus-and-such incidents. That's not counting what didn't happen just because they are there (or might be there). E.g. a reasonable argument is to diminish the Air Marshall service because they are individually problematic, while keeping the rumor that they may be on any flight. That doesn't fly in the face of statistics but uses it to reinforce an argument.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  You can't just go around running expensive government programs on the basis of there being no proof that they don't help, that would lead to an infinite number of programs and a huge disincentive to run those studies.
  - surfpel 4y ago
    It’s flying bus that a) can be rather easily converted to a missile, and b) is sealed until it touches down so any craziness is locked in for hours possibly. I’m more comfortable as a flyer and as someone who’d like to do business in the US if I know that there are air marshals. Surely this pays for itself this way, especially given the ever increasing accessibility of air travel. I say this an American who knows how crazy our population can be.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  The impression I get is that in-flight crimes (or general disturbances) have increased roughly proportionately (and sometimes beyond pace) with the flying population. If the object of the Air Marshals is to provide a "chilling effect," that effect has not been demonstrated.
- ericmcer 4y ago
  Is a single air Marshall more effective than an entire plane of passengers? Post 9/11 a plane full of people is not going to let a guy with a knife take control of the plane. It is pretty unlikely that one Marshall is going to notice a suspicious person versus the 12 people sitting within 6 feet of them.
miguelazo 4y ago
Wow, even worse than I thought. Just fire them all already.
fedeb95 4y ago
Just pointing out that the "no marshal have ever stopped a terrorist" is a bad argument. It may be a deterrent. We don't know
- kelnos 4y ago
  We shouldn't be spending billions of dollars on a 60-year experiment for possible benefits that we can't quantify. Certainly there are ways to measure if the air marshal program works as a deterrent. Even if there isn't, I'd argue we still need to axe the program, given the cost, abuse, risks, and lack of clear benefits.
  - fedeb95 4y ago
    Yes, reasonable measures must be adopted, and if none justifies the program, it makes sense not to continue it. I'm talking about the argument alone, it doesn't add anything
- trgn 4y ago
  Reminds me of the elephant powder joke https://www.reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/4pqgjk/how_to_keep_elephants_away/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/4pqgjk/how_to_kee...
  - fedeb95 4y ago
    "May" is the keyword there. Also there may not be elephants in a city, while there may be terrorists on planes (I think some incident happened in the past, but I'm unsure). The conclusion is that it's unknown, and calls for a proper evaluation of the matter. The argument by itself is useless. Why are you using a seat belt to prevent mortal incidents, when there aren't mortal incidents with seat belts?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
miguelazo 4y ago
Is this where our "September 11th Security Fee" goes? UGH
rendall 4y ago
This is not a very good article. What does "go to the border" even mean? If it means "act as border control" they are right to refuse, as it's not their job. It plays with numbers in a sketchy way, as well. "5,000 incidents" out of how many flights? 148 arrested out of how many employed? "Between 2002 and 2012" but what about since then? "$200 million per arrest" but "deterrent effect is unknown". That's really it for data. The rest are anecdotes. The "not trained" link was to a NY Post interview with a former air marshal expressing an opinion. Maybe there is a serious problem with the program, but this article does not do much more than try to get its readers upset.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  Just a hit piece, not even a very good one - simply a pile-up of unfavorable anecdotes. A waste of time. Could not even figure out what "going to the border" was.
steve76 4y ago

139 points by pessimizer 4y ago

Seems like a completely failed program to me. Any organization should be able to quantitatively prove their value on some level. As the article points out, for the DHS to say they do “not have information on [the air marshal program’s] effectiveness” while also averaging a cost of $200 million per arrest is an insane statistic that should immediately require changes in the program.

Rebelgecko 4y ago
I haven't checked recently to see if this stat is still true, but at one point the number of people arrested by air marshals was actually lower than the number of air marshals who have been arrested.
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Like ever? Or while acting as an Air Marshal?
  - mc32 4y ago
    Yeah, that assertion is very open to interpretation and only raises questions than answer anything.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      If you heard that more police officers had been arrested than had ever arrested anyone, would it really matter much if those police officers had been arrested as teenagers, or on the job? It's a program that employs people who have caused more incidents of crime than they have intervened to prevent. Not because they're particularly criminal, but because they are particularly useless.
      - mc32 4y ago
        Context is important, lest you prime your reader to make unsupported conclusions. Imagine if instead of doing this to police officers, we insinuated things about arrestees instead.
        pessimizer 4y ago
        > Context is important, No, context can be important. If all context were important, you couldn't talk about one thing without talking about every other thing. If your argument about why context is important in this case rests on if a hypothetical fact that "people arrested by police have collectively prevented more crimes than they have committed" would be uninteresting or even unfair without context, I'd deeply disagree.
      - kbenson 4y ago
        > It's a program that employs people who have caused more incidents of crime than they have intervened to prevent. Whether that's problematic depends on a lot of things, including whether arresting people is actually the main benefit of them being present. I have a few dogs. They bark at people walking by on the sidewalk a lot. I've never had someone break into my house. Are the dogs useless as a mechanism to prevent home invasion or burglary, or does knowledge of their presence prevent people from even attempting such? Now consider that I haven't noted whether those crimes are common in my area or not. Maybe those dogs have growled at guests in my house, making them feel uncomfortable. Should my stance be that they've growled at more guests than intruders they've attacked? Do you feel comfortable making a definitive statement on the value of those dogs and whether the costs outweigh the benefits with the given information, or do you think additional information would be important to discerning that?
        Ironchefpython 4y ago
        At the point at which your dogs have broken into and robbed your neighbor's house more often than they have prevented your house from being broken into; that's the point at which you can compare your dogs to the Air Marshal service.
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    The latter
- skorpeon87 4y ago
  The overwhelming majority of the time, "arrests" on airplanes are made by regular passengers and the flight attendants, who beat up the offender then hogtie him with duct tape. Air marshals are completely pointless.
  - staunch 4y ago
    Air marshals may be pointless, but not for this reason. Air marshals are almost certainly trained not to intervene in minor disturbances. Otherwise a team of hijackers could locate the air marshal by having one person act as an unruly passenger.
    - wil421 4y ago
      If the movies are real they flash their gun and badge to the flight attendant and give them a wink.
      - EdwardDiego 4y ago
        And then get pounced on by Melissa McCarthy.
    - iso1631 4y ago
      At what point is an air marshal supposed to interfere?
      - staunch 4y ago
        (Presumably) only when the fate of the entire aircraft, or a substantial portion of the passengers, is in jeopardy.
        miguelazo 4y ago
        And the probability of them being on the "right" flight to come to the rescue out of thousands would be..?
yamtaddle 4y ago
I'm sure this has something to do with that entire re-organization feeling more like an excuse to create some contracts for companies connected to administration insiders than it did anything actually useful that couldn't have been accomplished without the creation of a huge new department (and several smaller ones).
Sakos 4y ago
Do other countries have anything like this program?
- Animats 4y ago
  Israel.[1] They had one big success in 1970. [1] https://www.securitysolutionsmedia.com/2018/04/20/air-marshals-a-worthwhile-program/ https://www.securitysolutionsmedia.com/2018/04/20/air-marsha...
m463 4y ago
> averaging a cost of $200 million per arrest You could play that game with anything. How much does our military cost? Or maybe, what was the total cost of one 9/11 airplane running into a target? And there is the hidden properties of deterrence
Karellen 4y ago
> averaging a cost of $200 million per arrest is an insane statistic That depends on the deterrence of having air marshals. The argument sounds like one that gets brought up here regularly, when executives lay off 90% of the sysadmins because "nothing ever goes wrong, so why are we paying for them?", and teams that are constantly running round looking like heroes for fixing broken stuff all the time get more kudos than the teams that keep things quietly humming along without any issues.
- kelnos 4y ago
  This was my thought as well, but I still think we need evidence of this. If air marshals are primarily there to deal with terrorist threats (and not things like unruly/drunk/whatever passengers), then my feeling is that two things post-9/11 are responsible for the low risk of terrorist acts involving planes (or even just run-of-the-mill ransom-type hijackings): 1. Would-be hijackers can no longer get into cockpits. Pilots would much rather a hijacker kill every passenger and crew member on the plane than gain control of the plane. 2. Passengers don't take shit anymore. They know that, if terrorists successfully take control of a plane, the most likely outcome is that they're all dead. So they'll attack -- and hopefully subdue -- the hijackers. I expect the effects of #2 have lessened somewhat, given that 9/11 was over 20 years ago, and the memory of it is less raw (not to mention many adults who fly now were young children or not even born in 2001). If air marshals really do act as a deterrence, there must be some evidence to back that up.
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    (Nitpicking follows. I agree with your points.) I don't think #2 actually goes away. It's a cultural shift. Prior to 9/11, the advice was always to just stay calm and let the authorities negotiate with the terrorist, because that had in the past generally led to passengers and plane surviving the incident. That level of passivity isn't coming back.
rdtsc 4y ago
> Any organization should be able to quantitatively prove their value on some level. There is danger there with corrupt and immoral organizations. They might just start generating false incidents and then run to save the day to pad their stats "look how effective we are!". Luckily, that only happens with deeply corrupt organizations. Like for instance FBI [1], when they were sending their informants to mosques in US looking to recruit terrorists. Up until the the members of the mosque ended up reporting the FBI agents to the FBI. --- Niazi and another mosque member had reported Monteilh to the FBI, claiming that Monteilh was espousing terrorist rhetoric and trying to draw them into a plot to blow up shopping malls --- [1] https://www.ocweekly.com/news-the-fbi-the-islamic-center-of-irvine-and-craig-monteilh-who-was-conning-whom-6397941/ https://www.ocweekly.com/news-the-fbi-the-islamic-center-of-...
- heavenlyblue 4y ago
  > Like for instance FBI [1], when they were sending their informants to mosques in US looking to recruit terrorists. Up until the the members of the mosque ended up reporting the FBI agents to the FBI. I am not saying what FBI does is good, but this reminds me now that the only way to deal with constant threat of phishing is actually to create false fishing attacks all the time, so that people would be aware of the thread. Could be generally a good approach if the methods employed were more public rather than clandestine.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
If air marshals could get rid of security checks, it would be worth the cost
roflyear 4y ago
Imagine being the politician or person who cancels the program, only to have a plane hijacked or whatever. Spending a few billion of taxpayer money is fine if the cost is your political career or a hit to your political party.

LatteLazy 4y ago

>“The rank and file air marshals are going to refuse to deploy and risk termination,” David Londo, a 16-year DHS employee and president of the Air Marshal National Council, told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “You’re almost going to have a mutiny of a federal agency, which is unheard of.” I think the US would be better having a clearer line between civilian and military branches. It feels really weird to me that they are (self) describing this as a mutiny and talking about refusing to "deploy". But they are just employees right? Not soldiers?

staunch 4y ago
Yeah, too many people seem to accept the idea that law enforcement officers are not civilians. In my view, which seems to be the correct legal definition, anyone that is not a member of the military is a civilian.
- skorpeon87 4y ago
  What's the real difference between the government stationing armed soldiers in your town to maintain the peace, and stationing armed police in your town to maintain the peace? The former became unfashionable so it was replaced with the later. Such soldiers were renamed for "PR" but the situation is functionally equivalent. Officially there are some differences, like police being accountable to civilian courts instead of military courts... but I think it is now generally acknowledged that civilian courts have a double standard for police. So this distinction is more theoretical than practical. In my view, it's fair to consider anybody who carries a gun for the state as a soldier, in an informal sense.
  - vkou 4y ago
    > What's the real difference between the government stationing armed soldiers in your town to maintain the peace, and stationing armed police in your town to maintain the peace? One's subject to military tribunals[1], while the other is subject to regular courts, which from all evidence seem to be incredibly biased in their favour. [1] Of which I know next to nothing.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago

Fire them all

nerdponx 4y ago
No, that's just for air traffic controllers and non-cops.

staunch 4y ago

Seems like we could very safely abolish the air marshal program. It may have been useful pre-9/11 but Flight 93 seems to prove that it's not necessary anymore. Anyone attempting to hijack a flight full of Americans is going to be attacked every single time, and terrorists surely know this, and that's the real deterrent. Hijackers might think they can overpower a single armed officer but they know they can't overpower dozens of passengers that feel forced to fight or die. It might even be a good idea for pre-flight training videos to explicitly tell passengers to immediately attack anyone attempting to hijack the plane. Though this is probably unnecessary, it could act as a strong additional deterrent and help coordinate people in the event.

jopsen 4y ago
> It might even be a good idea for pre-flight training videos to explicitly tell passengers to immediately attack anyone attempting to hijack the plane. You'll have a lot of passengers attacking each other for no reason. This is a remarkably bad idea. Fact is: plane hijackings isn't really a problem anywhere. Low-tech solutions like locking the cockpit goes very far. Stopping those really determined is probably hard/impossible, the best tools is probably old school humint. But it's probably best to accept that attacks are not impossible. Spend the money on something else.
- staunch 4y ago
  > You'll have a lot of passengers attacking each other for no reason. This is a remarkably bad idea. Why are people going to attack each other for no reason? Hijackers typically do very obvious things, like try to break into the cockpit and make announcements/threats to the passengers. The training video could tell passengers to attack anyone trying to break into the cockpit or to wait to attack until the pilot instructs them to, etc. It would take a bit of thought for sure. > Fact is: plane hijackings isn't really a problem anywhere. Low-tech solutions like locking the cockpit goes very far. They're not a problem since 9/11 when passengers attacked the hijackers and then cockpit doors were reinforced. I believe the deterrent is the combination of these two changes.
  - 4y ago

skorpeon87 4y ago

Air Marshals and the TSA are both pointless jobs programs and security theater. The problem of hijackers was solved in the morning of 2001/9/11 when the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 fought back against the hijackers. Since then, there have been numerous cases of passengers beating the shit out of any jackass trying to start trouble on a flight. Locked cabin doors are also good. Metal detectors at airports would be fine, if they were staffed by private security contractors rather than the unaccountable TSA. Also their xray backscatter machines are pointless, their paranoia about shoes is pointless, and their insane paranoia about water-bottles is pointless. Other countries don't have these things, and things are fine for them. By all means have people walk through a metal detector to stop carryon handguns, but the rest of this crap is completely pointless.

lostmsu 4y ago
> Other countries don't have these things, and things are fine for them. Hm, is this true in EU?
- dottedmag 4y ago
  Water bottles paranoia we do, I suspect because it so profitable for the shops past security control. But nothing like air marshals or TSA as they are described.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  It's been about a decade, but when I spent some time flying around Europe I remember their airport security being considerably less onerous.
  - lostmsu 4y ago
    My memory is exactly like that, but also vague on this specific matter. Hence the question.
  - wyldberry 4y ago
    I recently went from North America -> Africa via Europe. I do have global entry, but i found the CDG experience to be more onerous than the one I have domestically in the US.

andirk 4y ago

mring33621 4y ago

Are they hiring?

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

> “You’re almost going to have a mutiny of a federal agency, which is unheard of.” It's not really "unheard of". Air traffic controllers, employed by the FAA, famously went on strike in the early 80s and were subsequently all fired by the Reagan administration. In this case, honestly I'd be like "fine, go ahead and try insubordination, and then get fired." As this article makes exceedingly clear, it will be much easier to continue air travel without air marshals than without air traffic controllers, and the US govt still managed that situation pretty decently.

csw-001 4y ago
I thinks that’s the key though - the argument is that the program should be shutdown, not that they should all be put on border patrol duty… assigning them to a random alternative post is going to make recruiting good new folks really hard.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  I mean, it's a win-win for all then? I could certainly understand that, if I were hired to be an air marshal, and then re-assigned to border patrol duties, I'd be like "Peace out, this isn't what I signed up for." But I'm assuming at least some percentage would be OK with it, and the ones who aren't would have to find new jobs. Very similar to when companies downsize one department, but try to find jobs for existing employees by giving them jobs in other departments. Some will take it, some will reject it, but it's a pretty fair outcome for all.
UncleEntity 4y ago
My reading is a mutiny of armed federal employees is the unheard of part. Be like all the FBI agents refusing to suppress minority groups or something.
- factsarelolz 4y ago
  > Be like all the FBI agents refusing to prosecute minority groups or something. FTFY. The FBI is a political organization and chooses who they will persecute based on the political leanings of FBI leadership.

thesaintlives 4y ago

AlgorithmicTime 4y ago

dawnerd 4y ago

I've been on two flights now that have had to divert due to a passenger causing issues and in both cases there was no marshal onboard, just the flight attendants and some good passengers. To me it seems the air marshals we have now are just in it for the free vacations. If airlines want their own security they should be able to employ their own in flight guards. And doesn't needing air marshals prove that TSA is a joke?

x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
> And doesn't needing air marshals prove that TSA is a joke? The TSA _is_ a joke, but this is not evidence of that. It's typically to have multiple layers of security in case any of them fail.
0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
That is some truly trash luck. I have wondered what kind of punishment is likely for someone who ends up diverting a flight.
- throwaway5959 4y ago
  From what I understand they can never fly on that airline again and given how few airlines there are now (and probably fewer in the future) that probably sucks. And I’m totally OK with that.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  If a flight diverts, there are good odds that the offender will be criminally prosecuted under 49 U.S. Code § 46504. Big penalties. Looks like getting a few years in prison isn't uncommon for fairly moderate physical interactions (spitting, pushing).
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Presumably most of these people are normal members of society with, ya know, shit the feds can just take. So I presume most people lawyer up, plead down to guilty with ton of fines and the feds go on their merry way happy to have enforced the law in a way that's cashflow positive (i.e. basically the same situation as tax prosecution).

pkaye 4y ago

So it will go from 92% unprotected to 99% unprotected? Seems not a big difference since they don't accomplish much.

yamtaddle 4y ago

Air Marshals may be (are) useless at best, but I'm sympathetic to resisting an employer's attempt to radically alter one's job. Sign up for one thing, get told to do something very different that upends your life and may not be anything you're interested in or feel comfortable (for a variety of possible reasons) doing, yeah, that's bullshit.

throwaway5959 4y ago
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands that have been laid off this year.
- factsarelolz 4y ago
  Could you cite a source? I thought unemployment was at an all time low. Where are these hundreds of thousands of laid off workers?
  - krugua 4y ago
    Layoffs and discharges levels and rates by industry and region, seasonally adjusted: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm
  - throwaway5959 4y ago
    Have you not seen what’s happened in tech over the last six months?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

csw-001 4y ago

This article very clearly articulates at length that there is a problem hiring (and one can assume, retaining) good Air Marshals. Seems to me that randomly reassigning them to border duty is highly unlikely to fix that problem. The premises here don’t reach the stated conclusion.

throwaway5959 4y ago

We should just ban alcohol on flights. It’s a few hours, people can suck it up. So many of these flights where people get unruly involve alcohol.

cheeze 4y ago
I'm a heavy drinker and I agree with this
Arrath 4y ago
> It’s a few hours, people can suck it up. While I completely agree, this would just shift the problem to the terminal, where people would gulp down as much as they can at airport bars, and become unruly when denied boarding at the gate due to inebriation.
- mjevans 4y ago
  They would also sneak it on in flasks... So presumably they'd be compelled by police for a breathalyzer or comparable blood test at the destination terminal if they consume all of the drink.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    That's still risky. All airlines (in the US at least, possible legally mandated) have a policy of not allowing people to drink their own liquor they've brought on board. Get caught, and you're in for a bad time. If alcohol were banned on flights entirely, I imagine the consequences for sneaking a drink would get worse.
- delecti 4y ago
  Even if it ended up being true, and it caused more trouble at terminals, that's still better. Airports already have security, and security in an airport is already able to easily move around the airport. It would take fewer security officers per-flight to secure unruly travelers at the gate than in the air.
- maximilianburke 4y ago

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

> No air marshal has ever stopped a terrorist or hijacker since the service was founded in 1962. At this point, I'd say they are completely useless.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

Isn't the existance of Air Marshalls providing a 'chilling effect' on potential troublemakers? How would we show the dimensions of that effect? Until that's done, it's disingenuous to claim that Air Marshalls have prevented only thus-and-such incidents. That's not counting what didn't happen just because they are there (or might be there). E.g. a reasonable argument is to diminish the Air Marshall service because they are individually problematic, while keeping the rumor that they may be on any flight. That doesn't fly in the face of statistics but uses it to reinforce an argument.

whatshisface 4y ago
You can't just go around running expensive government programs on the basis of there being no proof that they don't help, that would lead to an infinite number of programs and a huge disincentive to run those studies.
- surfpel 4y ago
  It’s flying bus that a) can be rather easily converted to a missile, and b) is sealed until it touches down so any craziness is locked in for hours possibly. I’m more comfortable as a flyer and as someone who’d like to do business in the US if I know that there are air marshals. Surely this pays for itself this way, especially given the ever increasing accessibility of air travel. I say this an American who knows how crazy our population can be.
woodruffw 4y ago
The impression I get is that in-flight crimes (or general disturbances) have increased roughly proportionately (and sometimes beyond pace) with the flying population. If the object of the Air Marshals is to provide a "chilling effect," that effect has not been demonstrated.
ericmcer 4y ago
Is a single air Marshall more effective than an entire plane of passengers? Post 9/11 a plane full of people is not going to let a guy with a knife take control of the plane. It is pretty unlikely that one Marshall is going to notice a suspicious person versus the 12 people sitting within 6 feet of them.

miguelazo 4y ago

Wow, even worse than I thought. Just fire them all already.

fedeb95 4y ago

Just pointing out that the "no marshal have ever stopped a terrorist" is a bad argument. It may be a deterrent. We don't know

kelnos 4y ago
We shouldn't be spending billions of dollars on a 60-year experiment for possible benefits that we can't quantify. Certainly there are ways to measure if the air marshal program works as a deterrent. Even if there isn't, I'd argue we still need to axe the program, given the cost, abuse, risks, and lack of clear benefits.
- fedeb95 4y ago
  Yes, reasonable measures must be adopted, and if none justifies the program, it makes sense not to continue it. I'm talking about the argument alone, it doesn't add anything
trgn 4y ago
Reminds me of the elephant powder joke https://www.reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/4pqgjk/how_to_keep_elephants_away/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/4pqgjk/how_to_kee...
- fedeb95 4y ago
  "May" is the keyword there. Also there may not be elephants in a city, while there may be terrorists on planes (I think some incident happened in the past, but I'm unsure). The conclusion is that it's unknown, and calls for a proper evaluation of the matter. The argument by itself is useless. Why are you using a seat belt to prevent mortal incidents, when there aren't mortal incidents with seat belts?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

miguelazo 4y ago

Is this where our "September 11th Security Fee" goes? UGH

rendall 4y ago

This is not a very good article. What does "go to the border" even mean? If it means "act as border control" they are right to refuse, as it's not their job. It plays with numbers in a sketchy way, as well. "5,000 incidents" out of how many flights? 148 arrested out of how many employed? "Between 2002 and 2012" but what about since then? "$200 million per arrest" but "deterrent effect is unknown". That's really it for data. The rest are anecdotes. The "not trained" link was to a NY Post interview with a former air marshal expressing an opinion. Maybe there is a serious problem with the program, but this article does not do much more than try to get its readers upset.

B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
Just a hit piece, not even a very good one - simply a pile-up of unfavorable anecdotes. A waste of time. Could not even figure out what "going to the border" was.

steve76 4y ago