Airport Security Ignored As TSA Ramps Up Invasive Passenger Searches and Scans
Airport Security Ignored As TSA Ramps Up Invasive Passenger Searches and Scans
By Andrew W. Griffin
Red Dirt Report, editor
March 22, 2011
WXII12.com Delvonte Tisdale managed to breach airport security in NC and crawl into an airplane wheel well
OKLAHOMA CITY – As airline passengers get groped and radiated while merely trying to get from Point A to Point B, the Transportation Security Administration continues to ignore the real problems that the agency faces – namely unprofessionalism and knee-jerk reactions to criticism.
And while we hear about the thuggish behavior of some TSA personnel, or the sticky-fingered government goons pretending to protect us from nogoodniks while stealing laptops, cash and more, we see a situation in a major American city that is beginning to makes some waves in Washington and bringing a spotlight to the security theater that is taking place at our nation’s aiports.
Specifically, I’m talking about the bizarre case of Delvonte Tisdale. If that name doesn’t ring a bell it’s because it quickly went down the media memory hole – one of those weird stories that defies a quick explanation.
And it involves serious security matters too.
Somehow, this 16-year-old North Carolinian managed to get through the security fence at the Charlotte/Douglas International Airport last Nov. 15 and proceeded to crawl his way into the wheel well of a US Airways Boeing 737 that was on a flight to Boston.
How did Tisdale do it? Why did he decide to stowaway? No one really knows because apparently when the landing gear was engaged over suburban Boston, he tumbled to his death, his body found in the suburb of Milton, Massachusetts.
Sadly, we have heard these stories before. Desperate people sneaking into airplane wheel wells, usually dying from a lack of oxygen and frigid cold temperatures as the jet flies high in the atmosphere. Again, we are not sure how Tisdale died. All we know is he wasn’t where he was supposed to be – exposing the fact that the Charlotte airport is not as secure as we are led to believe, some nine years after 9/11. Ironically, this plane was flying into Boston Logan International Airport where some of the 9/11 hijackers launched their attacks, if you buy into the official story.
U.S. Rep. William R. Keating, a Massachusetts Democrat, is starting to ask some tough questions about airport security.
In the Boston Globe earlier this month, in a story headlined “Tisdale death still baffles N.C. police,”we find Rep. Keating to be pretty upset about the whole sad story, particularly in the area of security and that Tisdale breached that security perimeter.
Keating, newly elected to Congress, is concerned that the TSA and Homeland Security are not eager to solve the Tisdale mystery. This, while they are introducing more and more of these dangerous and intrusive naked body scanners in our nation’s airports.
Keating had already told the Boston Herald that “(t)here has to be a sense of urgency on perimeter and tarmac security. To me, this is just hard to comprehend, that it’s still happening.”
And from that aforementioned Globe story: “We don’t want to wait until we’re looking back at a tragedy to say we had the opportunity to do something, and we did nothing,’’ said Keating, who was Norfolk district attorney when Tisdale’s battered body was found Nov. 15. “I remain astonished that more comprehensive action hasn’t taken place. The sense of urgency I feel doesn’t appear to be shared by Homeland Security.’’
The Globe continued noting that Keating spoke a day after Charlotte officials described, in somewhat vague detail, the findings of their investigation into the death of Tisdale. The North Carolina investigators did not have much to say at the time. And now, in an update on this story, Charlotte officials now admit that details of their findings were not “sealed, by the United States government,” as they admitted but wanted to make sure there was nothing in their findings that was “security sensitive.”
Again, the report on Tisdale was never ordered sealed. Sort of reminds me of the TSA not wanting to admit their mistakes in the radiation levels being emitted from their dangerous naked body scanners.
Note the Charlotte Observer editorial, “City undercuts itself with Tisdale secrecy,” where that paper’s editorial board ask the city of Charlotte to assure them and their readers that actual security issues be addressed.
This, while TSA and Homeland Security (and local officials in Charlotte) bungle this investigation, innocent Americans and others are being harassed, poked and prodded.
Forgotten in this story is the family of Delvonte Tisdale. On the Black Political Buzz website they report that Tisdale’s family has hired a law firm to “expose truth, negligence and national security risk.”
In a press release at that site, the Tisdale family attorney, Christopher Chestnut, writes: “(I)t’s now time this story be tiold and all facets of it explored – including the considerable ominous implications to our national security at large.”
It makes one wonder if this could happen here at Will Rogers World Airport or up at the airport in Tulsa?
And one can’t help but think of our perilous border situation where illegal aliens easily cross into the U.S. while American citizens have more and more of their rights abused or ignored by government “officials.”
So, is security really what TSA and Homeland Security is seeking? In the Tisdale case they were sleeping on the job long enough for this teen to stowaway on a plane at a major American airport. So, what else is happening right under their nose as they grab grandma’s breasts or tell your child to take off their shirt?
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