[Clips] [IP] DO READ --- Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance Detection Reports?
R.A. Hettinga
rah at shipwright.com
Wed Jul 26 15:09:15 PDT 2006
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Delivered-To: rah at shipwright.com
Delivered-To: clips at philodox.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:02:29 -0400
To: "Philodox Clips List" <clips at philodox.com>
From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
Subject: [Clips] [IP] DO READ --- Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance
Detection Reports?
Reply-To: clips-chat at philodox.com
Sender: clips-bounces at philodox.com
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Delivered-To: rah at shipwright.com
From: David Farber <dave at farber.net>
Subject: [IP] DO READ --- Quota system for Air Marshal Surveillance
Detection Reports?
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:08:28 -0400
To: ip at v2.listbox.com
Reply-To: dave at farber.net
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Brock N. Meeks" <bmeeks at cox.net>
Date: July 26, 2006 9:45:28 AM EDT
To: dave at 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" <dave at farber.net> wrote:
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Bob Drzyzgula <bob at drzyzgula.org>
> Date: July 25, 2006 10:25:37 PM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave at farber.net>
> Cc: ip at 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 <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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'
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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'
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