Aero-Views Follow-Up by Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien
Yesterday, I suggested
that the Transportation Security Administration had yet to hit rock
bottom. A news story I read reassured me that, while the Agency
hadn't hit that elusive target yet, it sure hadn't stopped
trying. The Transportation Security Administration, we
aviators tend to forget, also has responsibilities beyond the
airport fence: it has been working overtime to foul up ground and
sea transport, too. Perhaps the TSA has decided that, now that they
have cracked down enough on aviation that the airlines are reeling
and many general aviation businesses are ruined, they need to
address the real risks in the system.
Like the serious problem of arsonists being licensed to drive
fuel tanker trucks, or cargoes of explosives. Or the granting of
such licenses to foreigners without much of any background check at
all. The TSA is moving on these serious issues. But not the way you
might think.
The TSA is trying to
ENCOURAGE the arsonists to get HAZMAT licenses, and to GRANT the
licenses willy-nilly to Canadian and Mexican citizens, without any
kind of credible background check.
You heard me right. The TSA has filed an NPRM to change the
HAZMAT regs
-- firstly, so that drivers with arson convictions can drive fuel
tankers and explosive trucks. What ever happened to the old
psychological truism, "the best guide to future behavior is past
behavior?" Not to the TSA, evidently. Why do they think arsonists
are cool to drive 30-ton gasoline tankers? "Arson is not always an
act of terrorism," the NPRM explains. Dude, neither is blowing up
or hijacking a plane! The first US airliner destroyed by a bomb was
blasted from the sky in 1955 because, for a young man named Jack
Graham, the miracle of life insurance made his mother more valuable
dead than alive. (He didn't get to spend the money; a jury sent
Graham to go be with Mom).
Think about arsonists for just a minute. Arsonists are people
who deliberately set fires. They do it without regard to the risks;
even abandoned and derelict buildings kill when set on fire; real
firemen lose their lives extinguishing such blazes all the time,
and somewhere in their brains, arsonists know this. Real people are
at risk if a fire spreads beyond the initial building, and
somewhere, arsonists understand that. Arsonists start fires
regardless of these facts, and they do it for one of two reasons.
Each reason indicates a core-deep failing of character: because
they're firebugs, who like to burn things for the sheer joy of
burning things, or because they are soulless Jack Grahams, who will
do anything for money. Neither specimen seems like a good risk to
hold the keys to a tanker full of hydrazine hydrate, let alone
drive the beastly thing. At least not on our planet, where people
tend to do what they've always done, and the laws of physics
apply.
But on TSA planet,
where a 30-ton tanker of nightmare chemistry is lighter than a
feather, and death rides a pale Luscombe that is heavier than a
mountain, and people are no threat unless they are seventy or over,
and terrorists will show up with Al-Qaeda membership cards hanging
on lanyards from their chicken necks -- well, in that alternative
universe, anything can happen, and who knows? Arsonists might
blossom into Eagle Scouts while in the wholesome environment of
Federal or State prison! You gotta give 'em the benefit of the
doubt -- it's not as if they were PILOTS or something suspicious
like that.
TSA Planet might be an interesting parallel universe for a Star
Trek episode. The problem is, that the TSA's bizarro parallel
universe keeps bumping up against ours, letting loose wild-eyed
arsonists with tons of what your fire marshal calls "accelerant."
If you think this is a good idea, I'm amazed you're still in
circulation: I thought TSA had scooped up everyone who was that
delusional, and plugged them in to senior management.
Then there's the alien thing. This Administration just loves
aliens. No idea why. But the sad truth is, if an applicant's a
Mexican, there's a lot less reliable data for the investigators who
do the cursory background checks for HAZMAT licenses to see. So,
most likely, they will not check anything. If they do what will
they find? In Mexico, a country where literally everything is for
sale from the Presidency on down, where in the 21st Century the
oligarchs still live like viceroys of imperial Spain and the common
people still live like Aztec serfs, where the federal police shake
down tourists for protection money and the Army meets drug planes
with trucks loaded with contraband -- how reliable is the birth,
death and employment data that is the raw material of background
checks?
On the other hand, is
there anybody that the TSA has decided NOT to license? Actually,
there is. Since the original rule TSA might have lightened up on
foreigners and firebugs, but the agency has decided to deny the
licenses to murderers. (Which raises the question, why are
murderers driving trucks? Aren't they supposed to be put to sleep
or locked up for good? But that's not the TSA's department, and
it's unfair and unnecessary to blame them for that). So you can
start all the fires you like, and even burn and disfigure people if
you want -- that's A-OK at TSA. But if you actually kill somebody,
then it's no more Mr Nice Guy -- I'm afraid you'll have to turn in
your HAZMAT ticket.
So there you have it. Before you can take a student from Canada
up on to work on the Four Fundamentals, you had both better be
photographed, fingerprinted, and shorn of $130 each by the TSA.
That's before you can kick the tires and light the fires on the
mighty Piper PA-38 Tomahawk, which grosses well under a ton and
never hurt anybody that wasn't foolish enough to be on board.
Meanwhile, the TSA wants more of the guys driving 60,000 pound
fuel trucks to be proven, court-certified arsonists.
I'm feeling more secure every day. You?