White House Locked Down Due To Airspace Violation

The White House and Capitol Building were subject to a lockdown this morning for about half an hour. The cause of the security measure was apparently a small airplane that had wandered into restricted areas around the District of Columbia.

“The White House was locked down this morning due to a potential violation of the restricted airspace in the National Capital Region,” a Secret Service spokesman told CNBC in a statement. “The lockdown has been lifted at this time.”

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said that the airplane was not considered hostile, but the Aerotime Hub reported that fighter jets were scrambled shortly before 9:00 a.m. local time to intercept the errant plane, which was traveling eastward across Washington, DC as federal employees were told to shelter in place.

North American Aerospace Defense Command

✔@NORADCommand

 · 1h

We have tasked aircraft to respond. More details to follow.

North American Aerospace Defense Command

✔@NORADCommand

Senior interagency officials are monitoring the situation on a national event conference call. Our jet fighters are on site and responding. Plane is not considered hostile at this time.

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9:28 AM - Nov 26, 2019

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General aviation operations have been restricted around the District of Columbia since the September 11 attacks in 2001. Under current FAA rules, there is a flight restricted zone (FRZ) within 15 miles of Reagan National airport that extends to 18,000 feet. Civilian operations within the FRZ are limited to scheduled airline and charter flights or air ambulance flights. All civilian flights within the FRZ require special authorization.

An Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) surrounds the FRZ and extends to a 30-mile radius. This airspace is similar to the airspace around the US border and requires special flight plans with a prior clearance. Aircraft operating within the ADIZ are also required to be in contact with air traffic control.

There are several civilian general aviation airports located in Northern Virginia and Maryland that are located near the ADIZ. These airports were present long before the new security rules were established.

In the years after the ADIZ was first established, it was not uncommon for pilots unfamiliar with the area to violate the airspace. These pilots were often punished with suspensions of their pilot licenses and fines. As local and transient pilots were educated about the ADIZ, incursions into the airspace became less common.

Similarly, in the post-9/11 world, Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) are often posted to restrict flight around occurrences such as presidential appearances and sporting events. TFRs have resulted in many pilot violations, especially since they are often posted with little notice.

This morning’s alert is most likely the result of transient pilot who failed to check the notices to airmen (NOTAMs) that detail the restrictions for flying around the District of Columbia. Federal law military and law enforcement takes such transgressions seriously, however, until the perpetrator is shown not to be a threat.

Originally published on The Resurgent

How Many Troops Are Really Needed At The Border?

Much like the federal debt, the number of troops that the Trump Administration is deploying to the Mexican border keeps rising. Speaking to reporters outside the White House yesterday, President Trump said yesterday that he would increase the number of active-duty soldiers on the southern border to between 10,000 and 15,000. This would more than double the number of soldiers on the border.

“As far as the caravan is concerned,” Trump said, “our military is out. We have about 5,800. We’ll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE, and everybody else at the border.”

“Nobody’s coming in,” he continued. “We’re not allowing people to come in. If you look at what happened in Mexico two days ago with the roughness of these people in the second caravan that’s been forming and, also frankly, in the first caravan. And now they have one forming in El Salvador and we are thinking very seriously, immediately, of stopping aid to those countries because frankly, they are doing nothing for the American people.”  

“Immigration is a very, very big and very dangerous – a really dangerous – topic,” Trump added. “We’re not going to allow people to come into our country that don’t have the well-being of our country in mind.”

The Trump Administration seems to have found a strategy to keep Republican voters excited after the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings with its plan to fortify the southwestern border. The deployments began a week ago with Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ announcement that 800 regular army soldiers would join 2,100 National Guardsmen deployed to the border ahead of a migrant caravan last spring. A few days later, that number was increased to 5,000 support troops tasked with assisting federal law enforcement agencies.

Now, apparently seeing the popularity of the previous moves among Republican voters and deciding that more is better, President Trump is increasing the deployment by a factor of three to 15,000. To put that number in perspective, a brigade is typically composed of 3,000-5,000 soldiers. The three brigades worth of soldiers that President Trump is ordering to the border are equivalent to an entire infantry division. This is almost twice as many soldiers as the US has in Afghanistan. The thought of the US border fortified like the Maginot line against an “army” of migrant workers and women and children is, frankly, amusing.

Estimates of the size of the caravan vary, but most analysts put the number at 5,000-7,000. At the upper end of the scale, some sources estimate the group was as large as 14,000 people. The second caravan is reported to number about 2,000. In any case, the numbers are dwindling as the first group, last reported in Juchitan, in extreme southern Mexico, walks north. Contrary to reports in the conservative media, Mexico has denied the group’s requests for buses. At 30 miles per day, the walk to Tijuana, the apparent destination, would take 72 days.

Aside from pushing across the Mexican border from Guatemala, the caravans appear to be largely nonviolent. One person was reportedly killed in clashes with Mexican police two days ago, which is apparently the event that President Trump referred to in his comments. Most of the refugees are actually fleeing political violence in Honduras and are coming to the United States to ask for asylum.

“How many soldiers does it take to keep a caravan of migrant workers from crossing the border?” may seem like the setup for a joke, but the question has serious implications for federal spending and military readiness. Even before the latest announcement of troop increases, the plan to deploy 5,000 soldiers to the border was estimated come with a $50 million price tag. The large number of soldiers now being considered may well affect the ability of units elsewhere to do their jobs.

David Lapan, a former Marine who served as the DHS spokesman under President Trump, tweeted, “A military strained by 17 years of war and sequestration doesn't need this.”

While some military support for border enforcement agencies is warranted, we have now reached a point of diminishing returns. The soldiers being deployed are not combat troops that would confront the unarmed migrants. Instead, they are military police, engineers, and technicians who would provide infrastructure support, such as building fences and tent cities, and command-and-control assistance to law enforcement. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last week that there is no “intention right now to shoot at people” from the caravan even if they cross the border illegally, no matter how much some social media trolls may claim to desire this outcome.

The US has the right and the duty to defend its borders and to control immigration, but President Trump has moved from defense of the border to political posturing for his base. The president’s political overkill is set to cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when the federal deficit is projected to top $1 trillion.

My prediction, as I have written previously, is that the entire situation is much ado about nothing. Few refugees from the caravan that caused a panic last spring ever made it to the US border. Those who did mostly sat in Mexico and waited for their turn to apply for asylum. The right to petition for asylum is guaranteed under US law. Ironically, the DHS inspector general reported that the Trump Administration’s policy of metering the processing of asylum-seekers led to an increase in illegal border crossings. In other words, Trump’s policy of slow-walking legal asylum requests led to more illegal immigration.

Americans should rest easy. The migrant caravans are thousands of miles away and only a small percentage of the refugees will ever reach the US border. Of those who do, the evidence points to the vast majority only wanting to seek new lives and economic opportunity in the United States, the same as previous immigrants have done throughout our history. Border security forces, with a ratio of more than one federal agent per refugee, should be able to handle the minority who are looking for trouble.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Treasury Leaker Arrested

Federal prosecutors say a high-ranking Treasury Department official has been arrested in connection with information leaked to a reporter. The information being passed along to an unnamed reporter contained details of suspicious activity reported by banks about Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, suspected Russian spy Maria Butina and the Russian embassy.

Law enforcement officials say that Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, 40, a senior advisor at the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has been arrested and charged with leaking confidential banking records. The Washington Post reports that Edwards, who lives near Richmond, was arrested with a flash drive that “appear to contain thousands of SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports), along with other highly sensitive material relating to Russia, Iran and the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” per the complaint.

The flash drive reportedly contained photos of as many as 24,000 SARs that were arranged into folders. The majority of the reports were in a folder named, “Debacle-Operation-CF.” Subfolders were assigned names such as “Debacle/Emails/Asshat.” The complaint notes drily that “Edwards is not known to be involved in any official FinCEN project or task bearing these file titles or code names.”

Suspicious Activity Reports are filed by banks when they spot transactions that could be illegal. The reports “are not public documents, and it is an independent federal crime to disclose them outside of one’s official duties,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said. Banks filed about 2 million SARs in 2017.

Edwards denied wrongdoing when initially questioned by the FBI and then claimed that the documents were related to a whistleblower case that she had filed. When presented with digital evidence that the FBI had obtained from her phone that included hundreds of text messages with a reporter, she confessed that “on numerous occasions, she accessed SARs on her computer, photographed them, and sent the photographs to Reporter-1” using an encrypted phone app. The reporter was not identified or arrested but has been traced by media outlets to BuzzFeed.

The Post also reports that an associate director of FinCEN who is Edwards’ has also been investigated by the FBI. The boss, identified a co-conspirator in the complaint, has not yet been arrested or charged.

Edwards is being charged with one count of unauthorized disclosures of SARs and one count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. A Treasury spokesman said that Edwards has been placed on administrative leave.

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. called Edwards’ actions a breach of the public trust.  “In her position, Edwards was entrusted with sensitive government information,” he said.   “Edwards violated that trust when she made several unauthorized disclosures to the media.  Today's action demonstrates that those who fail to protect the integrity of government information will be rightfully held accountable for their behavior.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

How to Steal An Airliner

The theft and subsequent crash of a Horizon Air Q400 airliner over the weekend has left many people wondering how it would be possible to steal an airliner from one of the nation’s largest airports in the post-9/11 world. The surprising answer is that is probably easier than you think.

What made Richard Russell’s theft easy to carry out on an apparent whim was that Russell was an airline employee. Russell had worked as a ground service crewman for Horizon for 3-1/2 years prior to Friday’s incident. To be employed in secure areas of the airport, he would have had to pass a five-year background check that included a review of his criminal history as well as prior work history. While aviation background checks don’t delve into an applicant’s mental state, if any psychological problems were apparent they probably would have been noticed during training if they had not been uncovered when Horizon contacted Russell’s previous employers. Russell’s psychological problems probably manifested after he was already on the job and cleared for access to the flight line.

Once he became a Horizon employee, Russell would have been issued a badge that would allow him to access secure areas of the Seattle-Tacoma airport where he worked. Since Russell was an employee who had a legitimate reason to have access to the areas of the airport where the airplanes were parked, getting to the airplane would have been the easy part.

The tricky part would have been starting the engines and taking off, but even that is not as hard as it sounds. The Bombardier Q400 is a turboprop airliner. Jet airliners typically nose into the gate and passengers embark via the retractable jetway. Since turboprop airliners have propellers, they don’t use jetways. Normally turboprops park away from the terminal and passengers walk outside across the open ramp to get onboard. In the case of Russell’s airplane, N449QX was parked in a maintenance area, not at the passenger terminal. Russell used a tug, which he was trained to use as part of his normal duties, to turn the airplane 180 degrees before he took it.

Airliners don’t typically have lockable exterior doors so getting into the plane was also easy. From his job, Russell undoubtedly knew how to open and close the door. After September 11, airliners were required to have lockable cockpit doors, but they are normally only locked during flight.

Airliners also don’t have keyed ignitions as cars do. Much has been made of the intricate sequence of setting cockpit controls to start the engines. This also is not as hard as it sounds. The Bombardier Q400 is a new version of the Dash 8, originally built by de Havilland Canada in the 1980s. The Q400 version first flew in 2000 and has modern avionics and engine controls, which are much simpler than in older airplanes.

The Q400 engines include FADEC, full authority digital electronic engine controls, that greatly simplify managing the engines. While I don’t have any firsthand experience with the Q400, I have flown a variety of turbine airplanes both with and without FADECs. A Beechcraft King Air turboprop without a FADEC has three sets of levers for its two engines: The throttles, the prop controls and the fuel levers. Online pictures of Q400 cockpits show only two levers, the throttles. Starting the engines was probably just a matter of turning on the aircraft batteries and pressing the starter button.

Airplane cockpits are checklist-driven environments. Russell could have found a checklist in the airplane and simply followed the steps to help start the engines and set up the airplane for flight. While this would have required some minimal knowledge, such as knowing where controls are and what they are called, it would not have been an insurmountable obstacle for someone who was around the airplanes on a daily basis. The landing gear control is typically one of the easiest things to find in a cockpit. It is normally a big handle that is shaped like a wheel.

Russell’s website also indicates that he took airline trips in his spare time. A fringe benefit for airline employees is the ability to travel on standby tickets at little or no cost. Russell may have been able to observe pilots on some of these trips, perhaps from the jump seat (a third seat in the cockpit behind the pilots).

Once the engines were started, taxiing and taking off would have been relatively easy. You just push the throttles forward, wait for the airplane to accelerate and pull back on the control yoke to raise the nose. Russell’s flying probably wasn’t smooth and professional, but it didn’t have to be. He just had to get the airplane off the ground and high enough to avoid obstacles.

Russell could have been aided by flight simulator software. Microsoft Flight Simulator is a PC-based game that has undergone many revisions since the 1980s. Current versions allow upgrades so that users can pretend to fly many different aircraft, including the Q400.

As a former simulator instructor, I can say that even nonpilots can fly a simulator with a little coaching. It isn’t uncommon for a novice to be able to do loops and rolls in a simulator. Russell reportedly executed aerobatic maneuvers like these with the Q400 and may well have learned them on a PC-based flight simulator. The Q400 is not built to fly aerobatics, however, and there is good chance that Russell could have killed himself earlier in attempting these maneuvers. The flight instrument displays on five screens in the Q400 cockpit really do look like a video game.

Landing is much more difficult than taking off. Landing an airplane is a combination of art and science. The plane’s autopilot could have helped Russell land the plane, but the final seconds of the flight, the landing flare, touchdown and rollout on the runway would have been in his hands. Large jets have autoland, but a regional airline turboprop would not be equipped with such a system.

It seems likely that Richard Russell was intent on ending his life when he took off. There have been several cases of pilots using their airplanes to commit suicide. It seems likely that this was Russell’s goal all along.

Despite all the precautions and security measures, it is impossible to foresee every scenario. If an airline employee passes a background check and gains trust through years of experience on the job, there is no reason to suspect that he would decide to take an airliner for a fatal joyride. Thankfully, most aviation employees are responsible people for whom bending an airplane and using it to hurt people is unthinkable.

Originally published on The Resurgent

TSA allowed illegal aliens on airliners without valid IDs

In July, Breitbart issued an exclusive report that alleged that the Transportation Security Administration was allowing illegal immigrants to travel on airline flights without proper identification. According to the story, Border Patrol officers claimed to have witnessed TSA agents permitting illegal aliens to board domestic airline flights with only a Notice to Appear, a federal citation for illegally crossing the border. To determine whether these allegations were true, Examiner contacted the National Border Patrol Council, a union for Border Patrol officers, and the TSA.

For those unfamiliar with a Notice to Appear, also called Form I-862, Nolo.com explains that it is a charging document that signals the initiation of removal proceedings and means that the recipient must appear in immigration court. The document lists the recipient’s name, aliases, address, alien registration number and date of birth, but does not include a photograph and is easy to duplicate. A sample Form I-862 is available on the Justice Department’s website.

In response to a query from Examiner, the TSA Media Team issued a statement via email which declared, “A Notice to Appear, issued by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), is not an acceptable form of ID at the TSA checkpoint.”

The TSA went on to explain that “for Mexican nationals without a passport who are returning to Mexico” an alternate procedure exists. The Mexican national can apply for a Certificate of Presumptive Nationality of Mexico (CPNM), which is issued by the Mexican government. The CPNM includes a photograph of the traveler and the TSA’s Identity Verification Call Center (IVCC) authenticates the certificate before the traveler is allowed through the TSA checkpoint.

The CPNM must be provided by the Mexican government in PDF form 24 hours prior to the flight and the passenger must undergo enhanced screening. The travel must be completed on the same day and Mexico must be the final destination. According to TSA, about 1,900 CPNMs are issued annually.

The same IVCC can also verify the identities of U.S. citizens who have lost or forgotten their identification. The TSA website lists other acceptable forms of identification.

Shawn Moran, media contact for the National Border Patrol Council, stands by the original allegations made by Hector Garza, a spokesman for Local 2455. Moran told Examiner that Border Patrol officers observed TSA agents allowing illegal aliens to board flights in Laredo, Tex. with only a Notice to Appear as identification. When asked if these were international flights that would return the aliens to their countries of origin, Moran answered, “These were solely domestic flights.”

Moran was unaware of the CPNM procedure that was touted by the TSA. He noted, “At the time our agents observed this, there was no procedure. There may be now.”

A crucial distinction is that the CPNM procedure, according to the TSA, is for foreign nationals “returning to their own country.” The claim made by the Border Patrol officers is that foreign nationals were flying, not only without a CPNM, but on domestic flights traveling to points within the United States. If true, this would not be permissible under the TSA policy.

Moran claims that the “TSA flat out lied when the story broke” about the policy of allowing aliens to fly with a Notice to Appear. “They have since changed the policy,” he says.

When asked if there is evidence to the claim beyond the testimony of TSA officers, Moran answers, “I’m sure there is, but it would all reside with TSA. They wouldn’t have gone out of their way to clarify this if it wasn’t happening.”

The smoking gun in the allegations is a letter from the TSA to Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Tex.). The letter, first reported by the Gateway Pundit and dated August 7, 2014, explicitly says that passengers with only a Form I-862 can fly under certain conditions, such as with confirmation “that the I-862 was issued to an individual with the name provided”:

“If a passenger can only present a Form I-862, TSA will attempt to establish the passenger’s identity through DHS partner Components, such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). If other DHS Components are able to provide corroborating information (such as that the I-862 was issued to an individual with the name provided) to permit TSA to verify an individual’s identity when taken together with all other information available, the passenger is permitted into the screening checkpoint to undergo screening.”

The full letter can be viewed on the website of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

When Examiner asked the TSA about the letter to Marchant, a spokesman replied, “The letter is very clear regarding the other verification methods used. The letter speaks for itself.”

After receiving the TSA letter, Rep. Marchant introduced the VALID (Verified and Legitimate ID) Act on Sept. 10. The bill would “prohibit the TSA from accepting Notice to Appear Forms as valid personal identification for clearing airport security,” according to Marchant.

It appears that the TSA was allowing illegal aliens to board domestic airliners with only a Notice to Appear at one time. The TSA has apparently now changed that policy and requires further documentation from the alien’s home country. If Rep. Marchant’s bill becomes law, this change would be made permanent.

Read the full story on Aviation Examiner

TSA Pre-check eases burden on frequent fliers

 

Just in time for the holiday travel season, the Transportation Security Administration has rolled out new security measures that are less intrusive and faster for travelers. The program is called “Pre-check” and I had the chance to try it first hand on an airline trip from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (airport details on GlobalAir.com). The program expanded to several new airports on Dec. 16.

To participate in the Pre-check program, travelers must be U.S. citizens and members of frequent flyer programs who meet certain TSA criteria, the Pre-check application program, or the Trusted Traveler program. Members of the U.S. military also qualify for Pre-check. U.S. citizens who do not fall into one of these categories can apply for Pre-check status on the TSA website. If you are a member of a frequent flyer program, you may already be approved for Pre-check.

Pre-check is not available at all airports. A list of approved airports and airlines is also available on the TSA website. The list includes hours of operation for Pre-check lanes, but times are subject to change.

Once approved, taking part in the Pre-check is easy. Boarding passes will be printed with the “TSA Pre✓™ ” logo. When the traveler goes to the TSA security checkpoint, a TSA officer will direct them to the Pre-check lane if your trip is eligible. This lane will allow travelers to go through security screening without removing their shoes, belts or lightweight jackets, which greatly speeds the process of clearing security. Laptops and 3-1-1 compliant liquids may be kept in their bags and children under 12 can accompany their adult travel companions.

On my trip, I arrived at the checkpoint after a brief wait and was referred to the Pre-check line by the TSA officer who pre-screened my boarding pass and identification. I carried my roller bag to the Pre-check line which was shorter and moved quicker than the traditional screening lines.

At the head of the line, another TSA officer verified the Pre-check logo on my boarding pass and crosschecked it with my ID again. As we moved toward the checkpoint, TSA officers reminded us that we did not have to remove our shoes, belts or lightweight jackets. On this cold day in Atlanta, most travelers had heavy overcoats that did have to go through the x-ray machines with our bags, however. They did not offer reminders that laptops or 3-1-1 bags did not have to be removed.

My travel documents were examined a third time as I approached the screening area. The screening process was also made quicker by the fact that the Pre-check travelers were screened by a traditional metal detector rather than one of the controversial body scanners. A scanner was present at the checkpoint so presumably it could be used if conditions warranted. Travelers who set off the metal detector were still singled out for a pat-down by TSA officers, but this seemed to happen infrequently.

The TSA Pre-check program is definitely something that the TSA got right. The agency has taken much criticism in recent years for excesses such as pat-downs of children and the elderly who posed no threat. Many videos of TSA pat-downs went viral and outraged the public. The Pre-check program is an attempt to restore sanity and convenience to the traveling public.

Although TSA Pre-check is not available on a national basis, it does hold promise. For frequent flyers, the program should take some of the stress and frustration out of going to the airport. For less frequent travelers, relief will hopefully come soon.

 

Originally published on Aviation Examiner

TSA says no knives on airliners after all

The Transportation Security Administration announced on Wednesday that it was reversing its previous decision to allow small knives and other previously prohibited items to be carried on airline flights. In March, the TSA had announced that it would allow airline passengers to carry small folding knives with blades less than 2.36 inches long and less than half an inch wide in carryon baggage. Sporting equipment such as golf clubs, hockey and lacrosse sticks and miniature baseball bats would also have been allowed.

The items have been prohibited from carryon baggage since the September 11 attacks. The TSA focus on knives and small, sharp objects led some to joke that the agency’s acronym stood for “taking scissors away.”

The proposed changes were part of move by the TSA to transition toward risk-based security initiatives which recognize that the majority of airline passengers do not pose a risk, even if they carry a knife or hockey stick. Risk-based security focuses on determining which passengers pose a greater risk through behavior analysis, interviewing, and screening out low-risk passengers through additional information provided voluntarily through programs like Pre-check and Clear.

Even though risk-based screening has a proven history in Israel, the technique has sparked criticism in the United States. According to a USA Today report, a Homeland Security inspector general cited problems with assessing the effectiveness of risk-based screening and the lack of a comprehensive training program. Critics have also alleged that the system amounts to racial profiling.

The proposed changes to the prohibited items list drew opposition from a wide range of groups. 133 members of Congress, primarily Democrats, wrote to TSA administrator John Pistole to oppose the change. Flight attendants, air marshals, and other law enforcement officials also opposed the new rule.

Airline travelers can find a comprehensive list of acceptable items for both carryon and checked baggage on the TSA website. As a general rule, knives and other items that are considered weapons are permitted only in checked baggage. Chemicals and flammable items may not be permitted at all. When in doubt, travelers should also contact their airline.

See the 10 dumbest things people try to get through airport security.

Originally published on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/tsa-decides-not-to-allow-knives-on-airliners

Keep eye on Iran during Korean crisis

Over the past few weeks, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has engaged in increasingly serious saber rattling. Over the past few weeks, North Korea has severed communications avenues with the South, renounced the 1953 armistice that ended combat operations in the Korean War, and placed its armed forces on standby for war.

War rumblings are nothing new on the Korean peninsula. Since the 1950s, the “hermit kingdom” of the North has been involved in literally dozens of incidents against South Korean and American forces. What makes the current situation more serious than those of the past is North Korea’s newfound strategic nuclear capability. The current situation is so serious that President Obama deployed missile interceptors to protect the American West Coast and sent two B-2 Stealth bombers on mission to South Korea to show force.

The North Korean nuclear program was discovered in 1992, six years after the country signed the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) according to the Arms Control Association. The years following gave saw a now familiar pattern of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, subterfuge by the North Koreans, and an “Agreed Framework,” negotiated in part by Jimmy Carter, which the former president might well have hailed as the key to “peace in our time.”

The Agreed Framework was followed by 12 years of diplomatic maneuvering in which the U.S. repeatedly imposed sanctions on North Korea and the North Koreans repeatedly assured the world at several rounds of Six Party Talks that they were willing to stop working toward nuclear weapons. In 2006, the North Koreans finally exploded their first nuclear weapon. A second nuclear weapon was tested in 2009 and a third on February 12, 2013.

While working on nuclear weapons, the North Koreans were also developing their ability to deliver their nuclear payloads to South Korea and beyond. One of North Korea’s newest missiles, the Unha-3, potentially has the ability to carry a nuclear payload to the American West Coast.

While the danger presented by the North Koreans is real (the North Koreans have routinely fired upon and killed South Korean and American soldiers and sailors and have even kidnapped Japanese citizens from their homes), many foreign policy experts believe that Kim Jong Un is merely making a show of force either to get concessions from the international community or to consolidate power at home. The North Korean dictator must realize that if he provokes a nuclear war with South Korea, and by extension the United States, he and his nation will cease to exist. A materialistic leader like Kim is unlikely to be suicidal.

As the crisis is resolved or fades away, the world should learn a lesson from the Korean nuclear proliferation. North Korea’s path to nuclear status is strikingly similar to Iran’s recent nuclear history. Since Iran’s nuclear program was unveiled to the world in 2002, the country has engaged in the same pattern of engaging in diplomatic talks to delay and mitigate sanctions that was so successful for the North Koreans.

Iran’s nuclear program was delayed on several occasions by sabotage ranging from the Stuxnet computer virus to the assassinations of prominent Iranian nuclear scientists. Nevertheless the Iranian government is drawing ever closer to becoming a nuclear power.

The danger of a nuclear Iran can be seen in North Korea’s war rumblings and threats toward its neighbors. Likewise, as a conventional power, Iran has long waged covert wars and operations against its neighbors. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards prop up Hezbollah in Lebanon, aid President Assad’s struggle against rebels in Syria, and have engaged in combat with American soldiers in Iraq.

Iranian proxies have engaged in terror attacks around the world. In 1983, Iran was linked to the Beirut car bomb that killed 241 American soldiers. Iranian agents were responsible for the murder of four dissidents in Germany in 1992. More recently, Iran was implicated in a plot to use Mexican drug gangs to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States by blowing up a Washington, D.C. restaurant in 2011.

Iran is an avowed enemy of both Israel and the United States. Although Iran has not joined directly in the previous Arab-Israeli Wars (Iranians are Persians, not Arabs), Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made no secret of Iran’s goal of destroying Israel. As previously documented by Examiner, Ahmadinejad has said that his goal is “to have a world without the United States and Zionism.”

Unlike North Korea, Iran cannot be reliably assumed to not be suicidal. In recent years, the Iranian government has become more and more apocalyptic. When giving speeches, President Ahmadinejad routinely invokes the Mahdi, a messianic figure in Shia Muslim theology, who many believe will return in the latter days to usher in a worldwide Islamic caliphate. It is quite possible that Ahmadinejad believes that it would be worth risking his entire nation to destroy Israel and to summon the Mahdi.

In fact, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one time president of Iran and still a highly placed Iranian official said as quoted in Examiner “… application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.” In other words, a nuclear strike that did not destroy the entire Muslim world would be an acceptable sacrifice to destroy Israel.

Iran’s links to terrorism also mean that it would be dangerous as a nuclear power. North Korea, also a state sponsor of terrorism, began trying to export its nuclear technology as soon as it acquired it. Less than a year after North Korea’s first nuclear test, Israeli warplanes destroyed a secret North Korean nuclear facility in Syria. The Syrian civil war might present an entirely different and more serious threat to the region if this site had not been attacked prior to the Arab Spring.

There is every reason to believe that Iran would also be an active proliferator of nuclear technology. Iran might be able to avoid national destruction by transferring a nuclear weapon to a terrorist group that would detonate it anonymously. Without a visible missile launch to point to the origin of the attack, the world might never know who was responsible for the nuclear terrorism.

Iran has worked hard in recent years to expand its sphere of influence in the Middle East, working with both sympathetic Muslim governments and terrorist proxies. With the U.S. role in the region fading as President Obama retreats from Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran’s stature in the region is growing. Even without actually using a nuclear weapon, Iran could exert its influence on the Persian Gulf to threaten vital oil supplies to the rest of the world. An Iranian nuclear weapon would necessarily spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as other powers such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey struggle to defend themselves from Iranian pressure.

It is becomingly increasingly apparent that Iran and North Korea may actually be working together. The World Tribune notes that since the 1980s, when Iran faced a threat, North Korea would rattle its sabers to distract the world. According to Reuters, collaboration between Iran and North Korea may go even further. A United Nations report from 2010 suggested that North Korea may have aided Iran and Myanmar with nuclear technology in addition to Syria.

In the best case scenario, the current North Korean threat will soon fade away, leaving the world to deal with the rapidly maturing Iranian threat. In the worst case scenario, the current North Korean threat may be purposely distracting from an Iranian threat that is more advanced that believed. In either case, President Obama and the United States should watch Iran closely while dealing with North Korea.

Originally published on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/keep-eye-on-iran-during-korean-crisis?cid=rss

How to avoid TSA hassles

Many Americans will soon head to the airport to take off on a holiday journey. As these passengers head for their flights, they will have to pass through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints for security screening. For many travelers, the prospect of a TSA screening is daunting, but the process can be made quick and stress free with a little preparation.

Making your TSA experience stress free begins with packing correctly. The TSA website contains a list of prohibited items. In general, anything with a blade or anything that can be considered a weapon cannot be in a carryon bag. Many items, from knives to guns, can be placed in checked baggage, but some items, such as flammable products, cannot be carried on aircraft at all. If in doubt, the TSA website offers a search engine where travelers can search for information on specific items.

Most liquids are still not permitted to be carried through security. To carry liquids, gels or aerosols, passengers must adhere to the 3-1-1 rule. Containers must be 3.4 ounces or less and stored in a one quart or liter zip-top bag. Only bag is allowed per person.

If a greater amount of a liquid is required for medical reasons, just tell the TSA officer. Extra medical liquids can be carried but will be subject to additional screening. The TSA recommends that these medications be labeled to assist in the screening process. Many airports have special lanes for passengers that require special assistance.

If you are carrying gifts, leave them unwrapped until you reach your destination. If they need to be inspected by a TSA officer, they might have to be unwrapped otherwise.

On the day of your flight, be sure to allow adequate time for check-in and screening. Lines can be long during the holidays. Plan to arrive at the gate at least 30 minutes prior to the flight’s departure time. This may require arriving at the airport at least two hours early. Be sure that you have your identification and boarding pass handy when you arrive at the screening checkpoint.

When you arrive at the checkpoint, remove your shoes and place them in one of the plastic bins to be screened. If you have on outer clothing such as a jacket, that must also be removed. Items from your pockets should also be placed in the bin. Belt buckles, cell phones, keys, change and other metal items can cause the alarm to go off when you step through the metal detector.

Some airports now have Advanced Imaging Technology scanners. The TSA recommends that you remove all items from your pockets if you are screened by one of these devices. If you don’t want to go through the body scanner, you can opt for a pat down. Travelers might also be subjected to a pat down if they set off an alarm.

If you are traveling with children who cannot walk through the detector without assistance or animals, you should carry them through the metal detector. Strollers, child seats and pet carriers must be scanned by the X-ray machine with your baggage. Children under 12 can leave their shoes on. Children will not be separated from their parents.

The TSA website contains many other tips for travelers. There is also a My TSA app for smart phones that contains guides to TSA policies as well as information on current TSA wait times. Your airline’s website also contains information about baggage policies. The holiday travel season is a hectic and busy time, but, with a little planning and preparation, at least the trip through the TSA checkpoint can be quick and easy.

This article was originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/avoiding-hassles-with-tsa-security-screenings?cid=db_articles

Benghazi security scandal may sink Obama campaign

On Wednesday, October 10, Congress began hearings on the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. In the aftermath of the attack, Obama Administration officials claimed that the attack was the spontaneous response to “The Innocence of the Muslims,” an internet video that also allegedly sparked protests in other Muslim countries.
Doubts were cast upon the administration’s story almost immediately. According to timelines compiled by CNN and USA Today, the president of Libya contradicted Obama’s movie claim on September 16. It was not until September 18 that an administration official, Director of National Intelligence Matthew Olsen, acknowledged publicly that the attack was a terrorist attack. It was not until September 26, more than two weeks after the attack, that the attack was carried out by Al Qaeda. The Obama Administration also denied that there was any intelligence that the attack was imminent and that officials had no knowledge of the impending danger.
Now State Department officials are testifying before congress that both claims were not true. According to CNN coverage of the hearings, Eric Nordstrom, the former regional security officer, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he had made repeated requests for more manpower at the Benghazi facility. At the time of the attack, there were five security officers, three who were assigned to the consulate and two who had traveled with Ambassador Stevens. Nordstrom had requested a total of twelve agents.
According to Wall Street Journal coverage of the hearings, Lt. Col. Andrew Wood of the Utah National Guard and former commander of the Site Security Team, security was actually cut at the consulate prior to the attacks. The 16 member team was replaced by Libyans trained by the State Department.
The State Department disputed Nordstrom and Wood’s testimony. House Democrats noted as well that budget cuts by Republicans had led to diplomatic security funding below what the White House had requested.
The congressional testimony is supported by Ambassador Stevens own journal, which was discovered by CNN. According a Huffington Post report, the journal showed that Stevens was concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism and Al Qaeda in Libya. Stevens noted that there were constant threats to security and even believed himself to be on an Al Qaeda hit list.
The reports of the Obama Administration’s failure to take Al Qaeda seriously and protect American diplomats are explosive. This is especially true considering that they come only a month before the presidential election. President Obama is already slipping in the polls after his lackluster debate performance last week and the new revelations about the Libya attacks present a new obstacle to his recovery.
If the matter is not pursued in the press, it almost certainly will be by Mitt Romney and the Republicans. The unfolding story of the Benghazi attacks and how they occurred will certainly be an issue in the upcoming presidential debates. The third debate between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney is dedicated to foreign policy and will be held on Oct. 22. The subject will probably also be raised at tonight’s vice presidential debate between Vice President Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan as well the town hall debate between Obama and Romney on Oct. 16.
President Obama has largely avoided fallout from several other administration scandals. He was elected in spite of his ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and ‘60s radical Bill Ayres. The Solyndra scandal never totally captured the attention of the press and media. The president was able to maintain his distance from the Fast and Furious program, in which the federal government allowed illegal guns to cross the border into Mexico. One of those guns resulted in the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. The publicity surrounding the Benghazi security scandal may mean that President Obama is unable to avoid damage to his reelection campaign.
Originally published on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/benghazi-fallout-threatens-obama-campaign

More 9/11 myths

In memory of the victims of the 9/11 attacks and the casualties in the war against the terrorists since then, the Atlanta Conservative Examiner is addressing some of the conspiracies surrounding 9/11 in the hope that sanity will prevail and that Americans can once against unite against a very real and common enemy instead of wasting time and resources chasing phantoms. Six Georgians died in the attacks, eight Georgians died in Afghanistan and 124 Georgians were killed in Iraq. Let us honor their memory and the sacrifice of the thousands of other Americans and Georgians who served or were wounded in action by fighting the real enemy: Al Qaeda and radical Islam.

After the recent Atlanta Conservative Examiner article, “the truth about the September 11 attacks,” there was a lot of feedback, both from conspiracy believers and skeptics. Conspiracy believers pointed out several conspiracies that were not addressed in the article. Some of these other theories and claims will be addressed here.

A potentially explosive claim made by one conspiracy site is that the cockpit door on American 77, the flight that hit the Pentagon, was monitored on the flight data recorder and that this data showed the door was never opened. The site claims that the FDR data was obtained from the NTSB under the Freedom of Information Act and that the cockpit door parameter shows that the door did not open in flight. The site claims that this information was discovered eight years after the fact by an Australian researcher.

This claim cannot be closely examined because the link on the site’s page that purports to allow a download of the FDR data is a dead link. As a professional pilot, I can say that it is unlikely that the cockpit door was monitored on the FDR. Prior to 9/11, cockpit doors were not hardened as they are today and it is unlikely that they were monitored.

An acquaintance who worked in the training department at Delta Air Lines before and after 9/11 agrees that cockpit doors were probably not monitored. He suspects that the monitoring parameter on the FDR, if it actually existed at all, may have represented an electric mechanism that allowed the pilots to unlock the cockpit door without getting out of their seats. This mechanism could be monitored, but the door could also be opened manually.

He also notes that the sound of the door opening might have been picked up on the cockpit voice recorder. Unfortunately, CVRs only record for about 30 minutes. Additionally, according to the NTSB report, the CVR was extensively damaged and the magnetic tape inside was “fused into a solid block of charred plastic.” A photo of the CVR shows the damage from the crash.

Another claim is that Marvin Bush, brother to President Bush, was in charge of security at the World Trade Center on 9/11. This claim is easily disproved. The real head of security for the WTC was John O’Neill, a retired FBI agent. O’Neill was killed in the attacks. Ultimately, the WTC was owned by the Port Authority of N.Y. and N.J. so the Port Authority Police were responsible for security.

911myths.com goes further to debunk the Marvin Bush claim. Bush’s company, Securacom (later called Stratesec), did have a contract to help

install security systems in the WTC after the 1993 bombing. This contract ended in 1998 according the company’s SEC filings. Bush left the company in 2000, and despite claims to the contrary, there is no evidence that Wirt Walker, the firm’s current head, is a Bush relative. Even if Bush’s company had been actively working at the WTC on 9/11, it would be irrelevant since the towers were attacked from the outside by airliners. Additionally, the mere presence of a Bush family member is not evidence of any crime or conspiracy.

The conpiricists charge that the WTC must have been destroyed by explosive charges, claiming that it was the first time in history that a steel building collapsed from a fire. In particular, they point to Building 7, which was not struck by an airliner, and the fact that the buildings seemed to fall straight down, rather than to the side. In reality, no steel skyscraper had ever been hit by an airliner before. No steel-framed buildings had ever been left to burn for six hours without firefighting.

Charles Zimmerman, a Ga. Tech educated Structural Engineer, explains what happened: “Under normal temperatures, the bolted connections of the beams to girders or columns are simple shear connections and do not induce any significant tension in the bolts. However, under much higher sustained temperatures, the steel beams begin to sag like a cable, which introduces tension forces into the bolts in addition to the shear forces for which they were designed, causing brittle failures of the connections. If it is a girder connection to a column, it may cause an entire bay of floor beams to collapse onto the next lower level. The impact load of a floor collapsing onto the floor below is a dynamic load and is a much greater force than just its weight, because it is a moving load. This creates a collapse mechanism called "pancaking" which can continue all the way down the building with one floor collapsing onto the floor below, causing it to collapse, and so forth. While the loss of floors at some levels of a building reduces loads on the columns that once supported them, it also increases their unbraced lengths, which weakens their strength and their ability to support the floors above the removed floors. So the columns begin to fail at the levels [where] floors are lost and the entire building above begins to collapse.”

Zimmerman continues: “Where the fire was located on WTC 7, there were a number of collection girders and trusses to allow more open spaces uninterrupted by columns at lower levels, such that the failure of one of these collection elements due to the heat of the fire made it more vulnerable to progressive collapse. The Murrah Building in Oklahoma City was likewise vulnerable to progressive collapse for this reason, but from blast rather than fire loads.”

With respect to the failure of the Air Force to intercept the airliners, Col. Marc Sasseville, one of the first fighter pilots launched on 9/11, recently told his story in the Wall Street Journal. Sasseville was given the authority to shoot down threatening aircraft. The problem was that his aircraft, launched on short notice, had no missiles and carried only training ammunition. Sasseville decided that if he had to, he would try to disable a hijacked aircraft by crashing his fighter into it.

Additionally, there was not enough time to perform an intercept in most cases. According to the 9/11 Commission report (pp.32-33), in the case of American Flight 11, the first place to be hijacked and the first to crash into the WTC, there were only 27 minutes between the notification of the hijacking and the crash. United Flight 75, the second plane to hit the WTC, crashed 11 minutes after the hijacking was discovered. American Flight 77 went the longest between discovery of the hijacking and crashing at 32 minutes, but NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector) was only notified by the FAA three minutes prior to the crash at the Pentagon. United Flight 93 was discovered to have been hijacked 29 minutes before it crashed. NEADS was not notified by the FAA until after the crash. On all except UAL 175, the transponders were turned off by the hijackers, making it more difficult to track the planes. On UAL 175, the hijackers evidently tried to turn off the transponder, but only succeeded in changing it to a different code.

Another claim made on some sites is that the phone calls from the hijacked aircraft could not have happened because that technology had not been invented on 9/11. The reality is that phones were installed on airliners as early as the 1980s. As the planes flew lower to approach their targets, even personal cell phones may been able to make calls.

There are further holes in the 9/11 conspiracies as well. Apparently no one has developed a rational motive for anyone except al Qaeda to have carried out the attacks. If it was as an excuse to attack Iraq, then why blame Osama bin Laden, attack Afghanistan, and then wait 18 months to invade Iraq? Claims that it was to provide a rationale for cracking down on civil liberties or installing a U.S. dictatorship have been proven false by events. Likewise, no New World Order has arisen from the ashes of the WTC. Theories about Israel’s involvement seem similarly fanciful.

Osama bin Laden admitted to the attacks in a video message in 2004. Al Qaeda had a history of attacking American targets that included the 1993 WTC bombing, bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. In a prelude to the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda agents assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, on September 9, 2001. This was meant to enable the Taliban to crush the Northern Alliance and prevent U.S. aid against the Afghan overlords. Conpiricists typically ignore these facts or else claim that they are hoaxes, as they do to anything that does not fit their narrow worldview.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in the reasoning of the conpiricists is the existence of the conspiracies themselves. Would a government or entity that would sacrifice 3,000 people allow its actions to be made public? It seems more likely that such an organization would squelch the publication of books and movies that exposed their nefarious deeds and make the authors quietly disappear. Perhaps Alex Jones and his fellow conspiracy mongers should watch out.

Read the rest of this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/more-9-11-myths-cockpit-doors-marvin-bush-and-building-7