Subject: RE: The price of freedom ??
From:
Joe Offer
Date: 14 Sep 01 - 12:35 AM
Kevin, you'd better watch what you say. Some of my best friends are Swedes from Minnesota....
Murray has a good point. We have to do all that is humanly possible to prevent airliners from being hijacked and used as flying bombs. Before Tuesday, such a hijacking was unthinkable. That's no longer the case, and there will be all sorts of Americans who will consider this as a possible way to express their political point of view. Many people were sure it was Arabs who were responsible for Oklahoma City. That wasn't the case, was it?
I hadn't heard of "sky marshals" since the late 1970's when I did security clearance investigations on several when this was a new program. Then came the Air Traffic Controller strike, which forever changed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). I was surprised in the early to mid-1990's when I did a security clearance on another sky marshal, the first I had seen in years. I wondered what had happened to the program, but never got any solid information.
I found a press release from the FAA, dated August 2000 here (click). I'll post it below. Apparently, the program has been running along quietly since the 1970's, and has recently been expanded. As I recall, the job required significant prior law enforcement experience - you just can't walk in off the street and get a job. The actual job title is Civil Aviation Security Specialist (Series 1801). I believe you can get into entry-level positions in that series through the FAA - but you won't go into the air right away.
-Joe Offer, retired investigator, U.S. Office of Personnel Managment-
Fact Sheet: FAA Federal Air Marshal Program
The Federal Aviation Administration's Federal Air Marshal program is an expansion of the Sky Marshal program of the 1970s designed to stop hijackings to and from Cuba. The current program was created shortly after the hijacking of TWA 847 in June 1985. During that incident, two Lebanese Shiite Moslems hijacked a Boeing 727 departing Athens and diverted it to Beirut where they were joined by additional hijackers. During a two-week confrontation, the hijackers demanded the release of Shiite prisoners held by Israel and murdered Robert Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver who was a passenger on board the plane.
In response to this hostage ordeal and the upsurge in terrorism in the Middle East, then-President Ronald Reagan directed the Secretary of Transportation, in cooperation with the Secretary of State, to explore immediately an expansion of the FAA's armed Sky Marshal program aboard international flights for U.S. air carriers. On August 8, 1985, Congress enacted Public Law 99-83, the International Security and Development Cooperation Act, which established the explicit statutory basis for the Federal Air Marshal program.
Since 1985, the Federal Air Marshal program has provided specially trained, armed teams of FAA civil aviation security specialists for deployment worldwide on anti-hijacking missions. The program is based on minimum use of force, but that force can be lethal. The FAA, therefore, sets a premium on the selection, training and discipline of this elite corps of employees. Those who volunteer for the marshals must first pass initial psychological screening and fitness testing. Those who make the force must then undergo sophisticated, realistic law enforcement training. All Federal Air Marshals must meet stringent physical fitness requirements and firearm proficiency standards. In addition, before every mission they fly, the marshals go through recurrent training and standardized preparation.
The Federal Air Marshal tactical training facility and operational headquarters is located at the William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J. The marshals' training facilities are extensive and include three different outdoor ranges with moving targets, a 360-degree live-fire shoothouse configured as both a narrow-body and a wide-body aircraft with computer-controlled targets and a bulletproof observation platform, an indoor laser disc "judgement pistol shooting" interactive training room and a close-quarters countermeasures/personal defense training room with protective equipment and dummies. The program also uses an inactive five-story air traffic control tower, a retired B-727 narrow-body aircraft and a retired L-1011 wide-body aircraft for on-board exercises, a modern classroom, a state-of-the-art fitness facility, and an operations center capable of secure communications worldwide.
As with most areas of civil aviation security, only limited information about the Federal Air Marshal program can be made public. The FAA will not reveal the number or identity of the marshals, the details of their training, nor the routes they fly. No one on board a flight will know an air marshal is present except for the pilot and flight crew. What can be said publicly is that the Federal Air Marshals are a full-time dedicated force that continuously deploys throughout the world on all the major U.S. carriers in areas where terrorist activities indicate the highest probability of attacks. Federal Air Marshals fly every day of the year.
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sj
