A History of the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service

By deploying armed air marshals onboard selected flights, the Fed. Air Marshal Service (FAMS), a component of the Transportation Security Admin., plays a key role in helping to protect approx. 29,000 domestic and international flights operated daily by U.S. air carriers. This testimony discusses: (1) FAMS¿s operational approach or ¿concept of operations¿ for covering flights; (2) an independent evaluation of the operational approach; and (3) FAMS¿s processes and initiatives for addressing workforce-related issues. Also, this testimony provides a list of possible oversight issues related to FAMS. This testimony is based on a Jan. 2009 report, with selected updates in July 2009. Includes recommendations.

The author gives us an unfiltered account of his personal experience as a Federal Air Marshal. The reader will see how a bureaucracy chartered to protect the flying public frustrates the best recruits by discouraging efforts to excel in physical training and marksmanship. Rigid bureaucratic dress codes and less than secure behavior by some managers risk identifying Air Marshals to terrorists. And even worse, some local supervisors abuse the benefits of their positions to make personal flights on the public's dime or engage in office romances with subordinates or steal government property. This book shows us the process by which recruits are taught to stifle dissent and learn to just accept and go along. The author eventually finds it impossible to tolerate these abuses. Someone has to do something about it. But can the Federal Air Marshal Service accept criticism from within? Will a whistleblower be successful? Read and find out.

Flying on Northwest Airlines in mid-2004, journalist and writer Jacobsen (WomensWallStreet.com) decided that a group of Middle Eastern men were acting suspiciously, apparently because the men were talking to each other, were using the bathroom too much, and because of the "cold, defiant look" she reports she got from one with whom she had earlier "exchanged friendly words." When she and her husband shared her concerns with a flight attendant, she writes, she was told that Federal Air Marshals were on the plane and that they were on top of the situation. Although she was later told by investigators that the men were in fact 14 Syrian musicians backing up a well-known Middle Eastern singer (the "Syrian Wayne Newton"), Jacobsen remained convinced that the men were part of a terrorist plot conducting "probes" of American aviation. She wrote up her suspicions for an article that caused a brief Internet sensation: it was publicized by such right-wing writers and proponents of racial profiling as Michelle Malkin and generally greeted with rolling eyes and chortles by those more on the center and left. She has since parlayed the original article into a continuing series on WomensWallStreet.com, much of which has now been distilled into this book, which contains the original article, descriptions of her testimony before Congress, an account of her (not particularly thorough) "investigation" into the Syrian musicians, and a condemnation of government failure to address the issue. Annotation :2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).