http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201504&RIN=2120-AJ42

Finally- The blistering efficiencies of the FSDOs AND the TSA, working together on this one.

I feel safer already.

Will I have to get a freedom grope before I board my own plane as well?

Freedom grope sounds like a good time, where do you sign up for those?

I didn't read the fine print, but unless I'm misunderstanding, it looks like it's just an application for student pilots.

From the other side of the coin, these guys are damned if they do or don't. They're charged with making sure terrible things don't happen, but heaven forbid it inconveniences me.

I'm not for one side or the other, but it's a different view a lot of folks don't bring up. I wish I knew a better way to approach the problem and then I'd drop some constructive criticism on congress.

It looks like they are going back to pre-911 and letting the FAA take care of the TSA check as well. Generally, the closer to ones unit one gets, the greater the security. With so many federal agencies involved, it can get in the way of using common sense at the local level. My state, the school I taught at, etc. can put my picture on my identification. I never had my picture on my pilots license. For pilot inconvenience, the gate is locked. There is no fence all the way around. Charlie can pull up to where I run up and get me with an RPG.

We don't want security, we, and the politicians, want the appearance of security.

CamTom12 wrote:Freedom grope sounds like a good time, where do you sign up for those?

If you're me, generally every time you fly commercial you get complimentary one.

I didn't read the fine print, but unless I'm misunderstanding, it looks like it's just an application for student pilots.

True. An application, background check, probing and snooping.

From the other side of the coin, these guys are damned if they do or don't. They're charged with making sure terrible things don't happen, but heaven forbid it inconveniences me.

I tend to object mighty heavily to any violations of my person or my privacy, particularly when those violations are, at best, nothing more than window dressing for the easily befuddled masses of hooples. I object even more when those same violations further increase the power of an incompetent bureaucracy.

The fact of the matter no amount of strip searching, metal detecting, background checking, or full cavity exploration by the smiling professionals of the TSA will ever stop, or prevent, a single attack.

That said, it certainly won't stop the hooples from getting all up in arms and mortgaging what few liberties we have left when some joker inevitably crashes a jumbo into a packed sporting arena.

I'm not for one side or the other, but it's a different view a lot of folks don't bring up. I wish I knew a better way to approach the problem and then I'd drop some constructive criticism on congress.

The answer is terrifying to politicians and hooples alike- life is dangerous. People will try to kill you, and they will occasionally succeed in doing so (to varying degrees). You can either accept that fact and get on with life, or you can cower in terror and make that losing exchange of individual freedoms for the illusion of security.

I have a better chance of being killed biking to my office than I do of being killed in a terrorist attack.

Alabama Slammer wrote:

CamTom12 wrote:Freedom grope sounds like a good time, where do you sign up for those?

If you're me, generally every time you fly commercial you get complimentary one.

I didn't read the fine print, but unless I'm misunderstanding, it looks like it's just an application for student pilots.

True. An application, background check, probing and snooping.

From the other side of the coin, these guys are damned if they do or don't. They're charged with making sure terrible things don't happen, but heaven forbid it inconveniences me.

I tend to object mighty heavily to any violations of my person or my privacy, particularly when those violations are, at best, nothing more than window dressing for the easily befuddled masses of hooples. I object even more when those same violations further increase the power of an incompetent bureaucracy.

The fact of the matter no amount of strip searching, metal detecting, background checking, or full cavity exploration by the smiling professionals of the TSA will ever stop, or prevent, a single attack.

That said, it certainly won't stop the hooples from getting all up in arms and mortgaging what few liberties we have left when some joker inevitably crashes a jumbo into a packed sporting arena.

I'm not for one side or the other, but it's a different view a lot of folks don't bring up. I wish I knew a better way to approach the problem and then I'd drop some constructive criticism on congress.

The answer is terrifying to politicians and hooples alike- life is dangerous. People will try to kill you, and they will occasionally succeed in doing so (to varying degrees). You can either accept that fact and get on with life, or you can cower in terror and make that losing exchange of individual freedoms for the illusion of security.

I have a better chance of being killed biking to my office than I do of being killed in a terrorist attack.

Hooples? You a Deadwood fan too? [emoji106]

We're not there yet. But, when we get to where Israel is, we will need intelligent agents who score better than the ten percent the TSA did on their last test. Just playing the game doesn't get it. Our TSA agents obviously just see it as a good government job. Since they found ten percent of the test guns and bombs, I expect they will ask for more people and more pay. And I expect they will get It.

And it is not their fault if we, the people (voters,) don't get our shit together! Our voting percentage is not so good either. Why should bureaucrats, who don't have to get elected and do get blank checks from Congress, change?

gbflyer wrote:

Alabama Slammer wrote:

CamTom12 wrote:Freedom grope sounds like a good time, where do you sign up for those?

If you're me, generally every time you fly commercial you get complimentary one.

I didn't read the fine print, but unless I'm misunderstanding, it looks like it's just an application for student pilots.

True. An application, background check, probing and snooping.

From the other side of the coin, these guys are damned if they do or don't. They're charged with making sure terrible things don't happen, but heaven forbid it inconveniences me.

I tend to object mighty heavily to any violations of my person or my privacy, particularly when those violations are, at best, nothing more than window dressing for the easily befuddled masses of hooples. I object even more when those same violations further increase the power of an incompetent bureaucracy.

The fact of the matter no amount of strip searching, metal detecting, background checking, or full cavity exploration by the smiling professionals of the TSA will ever stop, or prevent, a single attack.

That said, it certainly won't stop the hooples from getting all up in arms and mortgaging what few liberties we have left when some joker inevitably crashes a jumbo into a packed sporting arena.

I'm not for one side or the other, but it's a different view a lot of folks don't bring up. I wish I knew a better way to approach the problem and then I'd drop some constructive criticism on congress.

The answer is terrifying to politicians and hooples alike- life is dangerous. People will try to kill you, and they will occasionally succeed in doing so (to varying degrees). You can either accept that fact and get on with life, or you can cower in terror and make that losing exchange of individual freedoms for the illusion of security.

I have a better chance of being killed biking to my office than I do of being killed in a terrorist attack.

Hooples? You a Deadwood fan too? [emoji106]

I am, and I've found the Al's use of the word to be rather apropos for 98% of the public, voting or otherwise. So, in the spirit of millions before me, I stole it.

Great show. I have watched it a dozen times and always pick up something new. The talent it takes to write script like that is a real gift.

[quote="gbflyer"]Great show. I have watched it a dozen times and always pick up something new. The talent it takes to write script like that is a real gift.[/quote

True.

To get this back on topic, my concerns besides the previously mentioned pointless invasion of privacy, is the creeping authority of an already unmanageable bureaucracy. I've extensive experience with other Governmental entities and I can tell you that the incremental increase in power is never-ending.

Today it's student pilots being investigated, tomorrow it's losing your wings because of PTSD or you became a "threat" based on comments you made somewhere.

This isn't hyperbole, just the experience I've had.

Alabama Slammer wrote: ....The answer is terrifying to politicians and hooples alike- life is dangerous. People will try to kill you, and they will occasionally succeed in doing so (to varying degrees). You can either accept that fact and get on with life, or you can cower in terror and make that losing exchange of individual freedoms for the illusion of security.....

I don't think it's an either / or situation, I think the correct approach lies somewhere in the middle.
Groping grannies before they board a flight to visit their grandkids is over the top, but letting a nervous young middle-eastern gent muttering "Allah akbar", kissing his Koran, and toting a big backpack that he won't let anyone look at just stroll aboard without at least a cursory interview isn't to good an idea either.

.

Anyone who has Porco Rosso as their avatar.... you have my vote for POTUS

Israel has the smartest and best educated airport security and anti-terror people because their survival depends on it every day. They take it more seriously than anyone else because they have to. They also have far less tolerance for political correctness BS getting in the way of reality, while at the same time they manage to maintain the only rational, reasonably fair, and reasonably just democracy in a region that can truthfuly be described as the rectum of the world.

As far as intrusive privacy issues with student pilots, IMHO this is the only way that private aviation is going to survive. As private pilots we're under attack from real estate developers, politicians, news media, and airport neighbors. Not to mention environmentalists screaming about leaded fuel, and airport neighbors screaming about noise. In order to make ourselves a hard target, we need to be above reasonable suspicion, and above even unreasonable suspicion. I'm not saying that the TSA/FAA/DHS is or is not efficient or brilliant. I'm saying that if I agree to a background check and a full mental profile similar to what the nuke-button people at NORAD go through.... it will be much more difficult for some cockroach bureaucrat or news reporter to paint me as a loose cannon danger to the public.

If pilots behave like brainless rednecks and do not directly address the public's fears, or political pressures, or FAA/TSA/DHS concerns... then it is a lot easier for people to justify killing off or severely restricting our ability to fly for fun. We can thank the terrorists for this, and we can thank the knee-jerk CYA tendencies of politicians for this. But it doesn't matter where the iceberg came from, our ship is heading toward it. I say we inconvenience ourselves, put down our beers for a moment, and turn the %(@*%^ ship away form the iceberg. THEN we can all figure out a way to torpedo it and sing "payback is a bitch" as it sinks.

Looking at this another way, any new student pilot is being given the tools and the opportunity to take away MY ability to fly MY airplane. and to f**k up MY lifelong pursuit. To hell with what anyone else wants, I want some assurance that this 18 year old student (who may not have been raised with the same values and consequences for their actions that I was raised with) is not interested in visiting the White House lawn on behalf of some imaginary deity.

Agreed, EZflap. We need to keep our heads down. And vote. That will make them keep their heads down a bit.

I wasn't aware that the nation had hordes of terrorists jumping into Cessna 150's and terrorizing and stuff. I guess I need to listen to more paranoid news sources so I quit missing this important news.

There are people on the no-fly list that shouldn't be there, and there is no way to know how a name ended up there or how to remove oneself from the list.

It was a no-brainer for the courts. It was ruled unconstitutional in its present form.

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/29/326718019/hard-to-change-mistakes-led-to-successful-no-fly-list-case

A list that has countless known and unknown false positives and has done nothing beneficial has no business being a law. Putting the process in the hands of the TSA is proof they aren't serious about real security being a motivation.

This is pure theater,and it will cost perfectly innocent Americans their flying privileges.

I think if the 3rd class medical gets punted, the process should be a request to the FSDO and a immediate, reflexive reply with a student pilot license in the mail after a normal procedural check done for any other airman.

We don't have hordes of 150 students plotting terrorist activities. We have ten ot twenty rag-headed scumbags that are always on the lookout for holes in our security system, studying how they can commit a terrorist act and using what tools.

These ten or twenty otherwise insignificant people have the attention of an enormous multi-billion dollar bureaucracy, that always needs to show a purpose, their value, and how well they are plugging the holes in our security.

Theater and saber-rattling notwithstanding, if they get some wannabee extremist terrorist tool-boy to become a student pilot, and this student puts a box of firecrackers into a Cessna 150 and manages to blow up a stop sign in northern Montana.... how beneficial do you think that would be to the rest of us pilots?

I'm the first one to stand up and demand my rights, and fight city hall, etc. wrapped in the flag. But the bureaucracy that is supposed to defend my rights and privileges is often not highly concerned with the rights, privileges, and pursuit of happiness of certain parts of the population.

EZFlap wrote:.

Anyone who has Porco Rosso as their avatar.... you have my vote for POTUS sive privacy issues with student pilots, IMHO this is the only way that private aviation is going to survive. As private pilots we're under attack from real estate developers, politicians, news media, and airport neighbors. Not to mention environmentalists screaming about leaded fuel, and airport neighbors screaming about noise. In order to make ourselves a hard target, we need to be above reasonable suspicion, and above even unreasonable suspicion. I'm not saying that the TSA/FAA/DHS is or is not efficient or brilliant. I'm saying that if I agree to a background check and a full mental profile similar to what the nuke-button people at NORAD go through.... it will be much more difficult for some cockroach bureaucrat or news reporter to paint me as a loose cannon danger to the public.

If pilots behave like brainless rednecks and do not directly address the public's fears, or political pressures, or FAA/TSA/DHS concerns... then it is a lot easier for people to justify killing off or severely restricting our ability to fly for fun. We can thank the terrorists for this, and we can thank the knee-jerk CYA tendencies of politicians for this. But it doesn't matter where the iceberg came from, our ship is heading toward it. I say we inconvenience ourselves, put down our beers for a moment, and turn the %(@*%^ ship away form the iceberg. THEN we can all figure out a way to torpedo it and sing "payback is a bitch" as it sinks.

Looking at this another way, any new student pilot is being given the tools and the opportunity to take away MY ability to fly MY airplane. and to f**k up MY lifelong pursuit. To hell with what anyone else wants, I want some assurance that this 18 year old student (who may not have been raised with the same values and consequences for their actions that I was raised with) is not interested in visiting the White House lawn on behalf of some imaginary deity.

Here's the problem; this "compromise" won't be enough. It never is. Don't believe me? Go talk to some ranchers, farmers, or gun owners.

Every inch you give up now for "reasonable compromise" is just allowing them to get to the mile they want. These people; be it the EPA, FAA, TSA, Concerned hippies, enviro-whackos, or what have you don't believe in "compromise".

They believe in you giving us everything and them giving up nothing. And every time some idiot does something stupid, or questionable, or something that can be painted as crazy/stupid/questionable/weird it will be used to drive more concessions out of us,. They will destroy us in the court of public opinion and then turn any concessions we have made into fair accompli "reasonable restrictions".

This is a dance I've done far too many times. Do not give up an inch.

"We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

^ that is the attitude we need to take, because that is the attitude they have taken. Anything else is the political equivalent of showing up to a nuclear arms exchange with a throwing knife.

I don't know why this hasn't moved to hot air yet. I stop way short of throwing this issue in with every bureaucratic frustrations one has.

Some make the mistake of thinking that doing something about mythological security threats is the same as actually improving security. The two have been very separate things for a long time now. The TSA has found more guns and knives and toe nail clippers and oversized toothpaste tubes, but those things existed well before things went south with security culture over a decade ago. If we doubled the size and budget of the TSA, we would end up with the same security outcomes as if we had halved its size and budget.

There are really only two possible conclusions I can draw to explain a near lack of an outbreak of terrorism in quite a while.

(A) The TSA has been razor sharp and 100% effective:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102746539
-or-
(B) the threat of terrorism is not what the antiterrorism industrial complex has been claiming:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2006-09-01/there-still-terrorist-threat-myth-omnipresent-enemy
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/07/islamist-terror-threat-out-proportion-former-mi6-chief-richard-dearlove

Because the TSA is so ineffective, I am left with (B) as the only reasonable conclusion.

The TSA's involvement in conducting normal law enforcement checks on a student pilot certificate will not stop a handful of real (or, more likely, imaginary) terrorists because increased scrutiny addresses a non-existent problem. Mandating full body cavity searches on all applicants and their relatives will have the same impact as having no program resembling the new one at all- none. And worse, given the unrepentant and uncorrected mistakes the TSA makes every day, some innocent Americans will have flying privileges denied.

I know I'm pretty much in the minority on this, but to return to actual flying issues, I just hope the clouds part, a double rainbow appears, reports of pigs flying appear in the news, and the FAA and TSA surprise us by defying decades of institutional obsolescence in executing this program in a way that provides punctuality, transparency, and accuracy.

The last time I heard about pigs flying was....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Carcas

Alabama Slammer wrote: ...Here's the problem; this "compromise" won't be enough. It never is. Don't believe me? Go talk to some ranchers, farmers, or gun owners. Every inch you give up now for "reasonable compromise" is just allowing them to get to the mile they want. ....

I am a gun owner & NRA life member, and believe in not allowing my gun rights to be eroded away. But every day I see people who make me glad that background checks are required for firearm purchases. That is a compromise I can live with.

Our Constitution and greater than 50% voter turnout has given us a long history of republican democracy. Two major changes have taken place, however. We have gone below 50% turnout in most elections and all branches of government have quit bothering with amendments to make what they do constitutional. These shortcuts will cost our descendants their Constitution and their freedom.

hotrod180 wrote:

Alabama Slammer wrote: ...Here's the problem; this "compromise" won't be enough. It never is. Don't believe me? Go talk to some ranchers, farmers, or gun owners. Every inch you give up now for "reasonable compromise" is just allowing them to get to the mile they want. ....

I am a gun owner & NRA life member, and believe in not allowing my gun rights to be eroded away. But every day I see people who make me glad that background checks are required for firearm purchases. That is a compromise I can live with.

Are you saying the ATF hasn't capriciously changed rulings on ammunition and firearms? Or that arias haven't been used to bypass congress and ban entire types of weapons from being imported?

Have background checks stopped anti-gunners from trying to get more restrictions, or adding other groups to the banned list? Have any compromises stopped the EPA from going after ranges and hunters for using lead shot? Has it stopped HOAs and environmental lobbying groups from litigating against gun ranges for lead and noise pollution?

No it hasn't. That is my point, giving in now won't stop anything else.

Remember all the grumbling that came from folks with the new sleep apnea guidelines? Just wait until the next guy flies an airplane into an IRS office or a gyro copter onto the lawn of the White House and actually hurts someone. I expect that by the time my oldest is flying there will be significantly more stringent psych checks on private pilots.