RUTHFULLY YOURS

Terrorism: A pilot who posted a YouTube video documenting flaws in TSA’s airport security has his home raided and federally issued firearm confiscated. Body scanners and junk-touching are just the beginning.

Ever watchful all 364 days of the year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has discovered a new security threat — pilots who fly our planes and have questions about the TSA’s security practices and policies.

Three days after a 50-year-old veteran pilot living outside Sacramento, Calif., posted a YouTube video to shed light on the security gaps he believes exist at major U.S. airports, he had his home raided by four federal air marshals and two sheriff deputies, including members of an anti-terrorism task force.

The pilot, who was deputized by the TSA to carry a handgun in the cockpit as a federal flight deck officer (FFDO), had his federally issued firearm and badge confiscated. A follow-up letter from the sheriff’s department said his CCW (carry a concealed weapon) permit would be revaluated pending a federal investigation.

Sacramento’s ABC TV affiliate News10 reports that the pilot, who has asked that neither his name nor his airline be disclosed pending the investigation, on Nov. 28 posted six video clips taken from a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport.

The pilot also provided News10 with video of the confrontation on his driveway, which he recorded on a camera positioned at an upstairs window.

The posted videos showed TSA’s current practice of forcing pilots to go through TSA screening while ground crew members who service the aircraft are able to access sensitive areas merely by swiping a card at an unmanned door.

“As you can see,” the pilot narrates on the videos, “airport security is a kind of farce. It’s only smoke and mirrors so you people actually believe there is something serious going on here.”

The pilot did not appreciate the irony of his being allowed to carry a gun in the cockpit, yet being forced to submit to TSA screening procedures. Video shot in the cockpit shows a rescue ax on the flight deck available to a flight crew forced to go through metal detectors.

“I would say a two-foot crash ax looks a lot more formidable than a box cutter,” the pilot remarked.

The TSA’s explanation for the raid in a letter dated Dec. 6 was that the “content and subject of these videos may have violated regulations concerning disclosure of sensitive security information.”

Like there being a rescue ax in the cockpit? Likelier the TSA’s emperors don’t like pilots saying they aren’t wearing clothes.

The pilot has resigned his status as an FFDO, and the TSA has said it may terminate the federal investigation.

But was the raid needed as a security measure? Was the pilot considered a threat? Or was this calculated to intimidate pilots and others who might also question TSA policies and practices?

“Pilots are the primary line of defense in case a terrorist tries to take over an aircraft,” the pilot’s attorney noted, “so rather than embrace the pilot’s suggestion that we have a major national security problem, they send four federal air marshals to his house in a show of force to retrieve a weapon that we could have, quite frankly, FedEx-ed back to them for $20.”

All this reminds us of the recent incident involving the 100 Indiana National Guardsmen returning from duty in Afghanistan who were forced to exit their plane during a stop. They were all carrying unloaded M4 Carbines and M-240B machine guns.

One of the soldiers had his multitool kit confiscated and, we are not making this up, had to give up his nail clippers because a soldier on his way home from protecting his country might use them to take over the aircraft.

“How effective is security when everybody on board is screened and everybody on the ground isn’t?” the pilot dared to ask.

How effective indeed.