RE: [Clips] [IP] DO READ --- Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance Detection Reports?

This was predictable... Eventually, someone would start to ask exactly what we're getting by spending all those billions on the fight against TERROR! and so yuou know there'd be a huge demand for 'incidents'. -TD

From: "R.A. Hettinga" To: cypherpunks@jfet.org Subject: [Clips] [IP] DO READ --- Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance Detection Reports? Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:09:15 -0400

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Delivered-To: rah@shipwright.com Delivered-To: clips@philodox.com Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:02:29 -0400 To: "Philodox Clips List" From: "R.A. Hettinga" Subject: [Clips] [IP] DO READ --- Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance Detection Reports? Reply-To: clips-chat@philodox.com Sender: clips-bounces@philodox.com

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Delivered-To: rah@shipwright.com From: David Farber Subject: [IP] DO READ --- Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance Detection Reports? Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:08:28 -0400 To: ip@v2.listbox.com Reply-To: dave@farber.net

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From: "Brock N. Meeks" Date: July 26, 2006 9:45:28 AM EDT To: dave@farber.net Subject: Re: [IP] Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance Detection Reports?

Well, it so happens that I was the one that BROKE this story... way back in 2004. There were at least two offices, Miami and Las Vegas that had this quota system for writing up and filing "SDRs."

The requirement was totally renegade and NOT endorsed by Air Marshal officials in Washington. The Las Vegas Air Marshal field office was (I think he's retired now) by a real cowboy at the time, someone that caused a lot of problems for the Washington HQ staff. (That official once grilled an Air Marshal for three hours in an interrogation room because he thought the air marshal was source of mine on another story. The air marshal was then taken off flight status and made to wash the office cars for two weeks... I broke that story, too. And no, the punished air marshal was never a source of mine.)

Air marshals told they were filing false reports, as they did below, just to hit the quota.

When my story hit, those in the offices of Las Vegas and Miami were reprimanded and the practice was ordered stopped by Washington HQ.

I suppose the biggest question I have for this story is the HYPE of what happens to these reports. They do NOT place the person mention on a "watch list." These reports, filed on Palm Pilot PDAs, go into an internal Air Marshal database that is rarely seen and pretty much ignored by other intelligence agencies, from all sources I talked to.

Why? Because the air marshals are seen as little more than "sky cops" and these SDRs considered little more than "field interviews" that cops sometimes file when they question someone loitering at a 7-11 too late at night.

The quota system, if it is still going on, is heinous, but it hardly results in the big spooky data collection scare that this cheapjack Denver "investigative" TV reporter makes it out to be.

The quoted former field official from Atlanta, Don Strange, did, in fact, lose his job over trying to chance internal policies. He was the most well-liked official among the rank and file and the Atlanta office, under his command, had the highest morale in the nation.

On 7/26/06 7:25 AM, "David Farber" wrote:

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From: Bob Drzyzgula Date: July 25, 2006 10:25:37 PM EDT To: David Farber Cc: ip@v2.listbox.com Subject: Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance Detection Reports?

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/9559707/detail.html

| DENVER -- You could be on a secret government database or | watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some | federal air marshals say they're reporting your actions | to meet a quota, even though some top officials deny it. | | The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, | told 7NEWS that they're required to submit at least one | report a month. If they don't, there's no raise, no bonus, | no awards and no special assignments. | | "Innocent passengers are being entered into an | international intelligence database as suspicious persons, | acting in a suspicious manner on an aircraft ... and they | did nothing wrong," said one federal air marshal. | | These unknowing passengers who are doing nothing wrong | are landing in a secret government document called a | Surveillance Detection Report, or SDR. Air marshals told | 7NEWS that managers in Las Vegas created and continue to | maintain this potentially dangerous quota system. | | [...] | | That's why several air marshals object to a July 2004 memo | from top management in the Las Vegas office, a memo that | reminded air marshals of the SDR requirement. | | The body of the memo said, "Each federal air marshal is | now expected to generate at least one SDR per month." | | "Does that memo read to you that Federal Air Marshal | headquarters has set a quota on these reports?" Kovaleski | asked. | | "Absolutely, no doubt," an air marshal replied. | | A second management memo, also dated July 2004, said, | "There may come an occasion when you just don't see | anything out of the ordinary for a month at a time, but I'm | sure that if you are looking for it, you'll see something." | | [...]

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-- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _______________________________________________ Clips mailing list Clips@philodox.com http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips

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-- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'