A Message From Transport Canada

no joke at airport security gate

Additional proof that TSA is a joke, and the real enemy of the state are the American people.

In the tense new world of air travel, we're stripped of shoes, told not to take too much shampoo on board, frowned on if we crack a smile.

The last thing we expect is a joke from a Transportation Security Administration screener - particularly one this stupid.

Rebecca Solomon is 22 and a student at the University of Michigan, and on Jan. 5 she was flying back to school after holiday break. She made sure she arrived at Philadelphia International Airport 90 minutes before takeoff, given the new regulations.

She would be flying into Detroit on Northwest Airlines, the same city and carrier involved in the attempted bombing on Christmas, just 10 days before. She was tense.

What happened to her lasted only 20 seconds, but she says they were the longest 20 seconds of her life.

After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.

A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.

Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on - the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.

She remembers his words: "Where did you get it?"

Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn't looking.

She'd left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.

Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.

Solomon, 5-foot-3 and traveling alone, looked up at the man in the black shirt and fought back tears.

Put yourself in her place and count out 20 seconds. Her heart pounded. She started to sweat. She panicked at having to explain something she couldn't.

Now picture her expression as the TSA employee started to smile.

Just kidding, he said. He waved the baggie. It was his.

And so she collected her things, stunned, and the tears began to fall.

Another passenger, a woman traveling to Colorado, consoled her as others who had witnessed the confrontation went about their business. Solomon and the woman walked to their gates, where each called for security and reported what had happened.

A joke? You're not serious. Was he hitting on her? Was he flexing his muscle? Who at a time of heightened security and rattled nerves would play so cavalierly with a passenger's emotions?

When someone is trying to blow planes out of the sky, what is a TSA employee doing with his eyes off the ball?

When she complained to airport security, Solomon said, she was told the TSA worker had been training the staff to detect contraband. She was shocked that no one took him off the floor, she said.

"It was such a violation," the Wynnewood native told me by phone. "I'd come early. I'd done everything right. And they were kidding about it."

I ran her story past Ann Davis, regional TSA spokeswoman, who said she knew nothing to contradict the young traveler's account.

Davis said privacy law prevents her from identifying the TSA employee. The law prevents her from disclosing what sort of discipline he might have received.

"The TSA views this employee's behavior to be highly inappropriate and unprofessional," she wrote. "We can assure travelers this employee has been disciplined by TSA management at Philadelphia International Airport, and he has expressed remorse for his actions."

Maybe he's been punished enough. That Solomon's father, Jeffrey, is a Center City litigator might mean this story isn't over.

In the meantime, I think the TSA worker should spend time following passengers through the scanners, handing them their shoes. Maybe he could tie them, too.

India questions WHO's false alarm on swine flu

NEW DELHI: With the WHO now admitting that the seriousness of the swine flu pandemic had been overestimated, India on Tuesday demanded an inquiry on why the global body pressed the panic button in the first place.

Union minister of state for health Dinesh Trivedi on Tuesday said it was important to find out whether there was ever a nexus between pharmaceutical companies and WHO which made the global health watchdog declare H1N1 flu a pandemic virus.

"We definitely demand an inquiry. WHO is not god," he said.

Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad added, "We have been telling people not to panic over the H1N1 virus. The only good thing is that the alarm has left us well prepared for a similar influenza pandemic in the future. In the last six months, virus testing laboratories have increased from the existing two at NICD, Delhi and NIV, Pune to 44 laboratories. Out of these, 26 are in the public sector and 18 in the private sector."

On Monday, WHO director general Margaret Chan said the H1N1 pandemic was not as serious as anticipated. She said that when H1N1 appeared, WHO expected an event similar the 1918 pandemic, which killed 50 million people. Instead, she said what actually happened was probably closer to the much milder 1957 or 1968 pandemics.

She said, "For me, the best health news of the previous decade is the fact that the long overdue influenza pandemic has been so moderate in its impact. The virus initially spread in countries with good surveillance systems. The honesty and speed of early reporting set the standard for the international response. The virus did not mutate to a more virulent form. Resistance to oseltamivir did not become widespread. The vaccine proved safe. Things could have gone wrong in any of these areas."

According to Chan, this was the first pandemic to occur since the revolution in communications and information technologies. For the first time in history, the international community could watch a pandemic unfold, and chart its evolution, in real time.

The 'false' pandemic: Drug firms cashed in on scare over swine flu, claims Euro health chief

The swine flu outbreak was a 'false pandemic' driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of pounds from a worldwide scare, a leading health expert has claimed.


Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, accused the makers of flu drugs and vaccines of influencing the World Health Organisation's decision to declare a pandemic.


This led to the pharmaceutical firms ensuring 'enormous gains', while countries, including the UK, 'squandered' their meagre health budgets, with millions being vaccinated against a relatively mild disease.

A resolution proposed by Dr Wodarg calling for an investigation into the role of drug firms has been passed by the Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based 'senate' responsible for the European Court of Human Rights.


An emergency debate on the issue will be held later this month.


Dr Wodarg's claims come as it emerged the British government is desperately trying to offload up to £1billion of swine flu vaccine, ordered at the height of the scare.

The Department of Health warned of 65,000 deaths, set up a special advice line and website, suspended normal rules so anti-flu drugs could be given out without prescription and told health and local authorities to prepare for a major pandemic.


Planners were told to get morgues ready for the sheer scale of deaths and there were warnings that the Army could be called in to prevent riots as people fought to obtain drugs.


But with fewer than 5,000 in England catching the disease last week and just 251 deaths overall, Dr Wodarg has branded the H1N1 outbreak as 'one of the greatest medical scandals of the century'.


He said: 'We have had a mild flu - and a false pandemic.'


He added the seeds of the scare were sown five years ago, when it was feared the much more lethal bird flu virus would mutate into a human form.


The 'atmosphere of panic' led to governments stockpiling the anti-flu drug Tamiflu and putting in place 'sleeping contracts' for millions of doses of vaccine


Dr Wodarg said: 'The governments have sealed contracts with vaccine producers where they secure orders in advance and take upon themselves almost all the responsibility.


'In this way the producers of vaccines are sure of enormous gains without having any financial risks.


'So they just wait, until WHO says "pandemic" and activate the contracts.'


He also claims that to further push their interests, leading drug companies placed 'their people' in the 'cogs' of the WHO and other influential organisations.

He added that their influence could have led the WHO to soften its definition of a pandemic - leading to the declaration of a worldwide outbreak last June.


Dr Wodarg said: 'In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide.


'They have made them squander tight healthcare resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.'

He does not name any Britons with conflicts of interest.


But last year, the Daily Mail revealed that Sir Roy Anderson, a scientist who advises the Government on swine flu, also holds a £116,000-a-year post on the board of GlaxoSmithKline.


GSK makes anti-flu drugs and vaccines and is predicted to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic.

The Department of Health says that although the disease appears to be on the wane, it cannot rule out a third surge and urges all those entitled to the jab to have it.


Professor David Salisbury, the Government's head of immunisation said there were 'no grounds whatsoever' for Dr Wodarg's claims, saying people with conflicts of interest were kept out of the decision-making process.


A GSK spokesman said: 'Allegations of undue influence are misguided and unfounded. The WHO declared that H1N1 swine flu met the criteria for a pandemic.


'As WHO have stated, legal regulations and numerous safeguards are in place to manage possible conflicts of interest.'


The company, which still employs Sir Roy, said he had declared his commercial interests and had not attended any meetings related to the purchase of drugs or vaccine for either the Government or GSK.

www.dailymail.co.uk

85-Year-Old Woman Terrorized By Airport Security Thugs

Canada's Transport Minister John Baird is framed by a full-body scanner while speaking during a news conference in Ottawa Tuesday. Canada plans to introduce full-body scanners at all its major international airports to tighten security after the failed attack last month on a U.S.-bound plane, Baird said.
Photograph by: Chris Wattie, Reuters

OTTAWA — Transportation Minister John Baird was unapologetic Sunday about the invasive search of an 85-year-old woman conducted by security personnel at the Ottawa Airport.


Baird was asked by media Sunday about the treatment of the four-foot-10, 90-pound woman who was travelling from Ottawa to Toronto on Dec. 28. The woman was asked to remove her boots and then unzip her pants. A female inspection officer then poked at her abdomen.


The woman’s niece, Cynthia Sutcliffe, said that the former federal public servant is now “terrified” of airport security and that the search was “extreme.”


But Baird argued that even people who seem non-threatening cannot be disregarded by security.


“The reality is, as we’ve seen in Iraq, the al-Qaida network has put explosive devices on developmentally disabled adults and then sent them into marketplaces where their bombs were detonated,” Baird said on the Sunday TV show Question Period. “Obviously we have to deal with every concern. I think we should use common sense.”


But Sutcliffe said her aunt’s search doesn’t pass that “common sense” test.


“I still stand by my disappointment in how they treated my aunt, but I understand Baird’s position at the same time,” said Sutcliffe.


Sutcliffe’s aunt was taken from an Air Canada security line during a random search.


“She has osteoporosis and her stomach protrudes a little bit,” Sutcliffe said. “But that is no reason for this kind of search.”


Sutcliffe said her aunt is frightened she will be searched again.


Next time her aunt flies, Sutcliffe said she will get a pass that will allow her to take her aunt to the boarding area, an option she was previously unaware of.


As part of new airport security measures, Baird explained that 44 full-body scanners, at a cost of $11 million, will soon be arriving in major airports across Canada. Twelve scanners are arriving this week while the rest will come in five to 10 weeks.


At Canadian airports, adults will have the option of either going through a full-body scanner or being subject to a pat-down. Youth under 18 will not have to go through a scanner and will be patted down instead, said Baird.


Sutcliffe is skeptical of full-body scans because some elderly people who go through the scanners will be wearing incontinence briefs.


“I want them to catch the bad guys, don’t kid yourself. But if it’s your grandmother or grandfather who is going to be wearing those undergarments for personal incontinence and things, and then they start saying, ‘Well the guy that blew up the plane had the stuff in his underwear,’ where do we stop?”


Ottawa Citizen

Unmanned Police Drones Coming Soon

Domestic Espionage has started in Texas.

WMDs found in Iraq, after all

The precursor for war was accurate, but dismissed leaving Iraqi installations unguarded after the invasion.

By JAMES GLANZ
SAHAB, Jordan, May 26,2004 — As the United States spends billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq's civil and military infrastructure, there is increasing evidence that parts of sensitive military equipment, seemingly brand-new components for oil rigs and water plants and whole complexes of older buildings are leaving the country on the backs of flatbed trucks.

By some estimates, at least 100 semitrailers loaded with what is billed as Iraqi scrap metal are streaming each day into Jordan, just one of six countries that share a border with Iraq.

American officials say sensitive equipment is, in fact, closely monitored and much of the rest that is leaving is legitimate removal and sale from a shattered country. But many experts say that much of what is going on amounts to a vast looting operation.

In the past several months, the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, has been closely monitoring satellite photographs of hundreds of military-industrial sites in Iraq. Initial results from that analysis are jarring, said Jacques Baute, director of the agency's Iraq nuclear verification office: entire buildings and complexes of as many as a dozen buildings have been vanishing from the photographs.

"We see sites that have totally been cleaned out," Mr. Baute said.

The agency started the program in December, after a steel vessel contaminated with uranium, probably an artifact of Saddam Hussein's pre-1991 nuclear program, turned up in a Rotterdam scrapyard. The shipment was traced to a Jordanian company that was apparently unaware that the scrap contained radioactive material.

In the last several weeks, Jordan has again caught the attention of international officials, as pieces of Iraqi metal bearing tags put in place by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, established to monitor Iraqi disarmament during Mr. Hussein's rule, have been spotted in Jordanian scrapyards. The observation of items tagged by the commission, known as Unmovic, has not been previously disclosed.

"Unmovic has been investigating the removal from Iraq of materials that may have been subject to monitoring, and that investigation is ongoing," said Jeff Allen, a spokesman for the commission. "So we've been aware of the issue," he said. "We've been apprised of the details of the Rotterdam incident and have been in touch with Jordanian officials."

Recent examinations of Jordanian scrapyards, including by a reporter for The New York Times, have turned up an astounding quantity of scrap metal and new components from Iraq's civil infrastructure, including piles of valuable copper and aluminum ingots and bars, large stacks of steel rods and water pipe and giant flanges for oil equipment — all in nearly mint condition — as well as chopped-up railroad boxcars, huge numbers of shattered Iraqi tanks and even beer kegs marked with the words "Iraqi Brewery."

"There is a gigantic salvage operation, stripping anything of perceived value out of the country," said John Hamre, president and chief executive of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington research institute, which sent a team to Iraq and issued a report on reconstruction efforts at the request of the Pentagon last July.

"This is systematically plundering the country," Dr. Hamre said. "You're going to have to replace all of this stuff."

The United States contends that the prodigious Middle Eastern trade in Iraqi scrap metal is closely monitored by Iraqi government ministries to ensure that nothing crossing the border poses a security risk or siphons material from new projects. In April, L. Paul Bremer III, the occupation's senior official in Iraq, and the Iraqi Ministry of Trade established rules for licensing the export of scrap metal from the country.

The sites now being monitored by the atomic energy agency include former missile factories, warehouses, industrial plants and sites believed to contain "dual use" equipment like high-precision machine tools that could be used either for civilian purposes or for making components for nuclear and other weaponry. Mr. Baute said that the analysis had been completed at about a dozen sites and that the agency was working to prepare a report on the entire monitoring program.

Sam Whitfield, a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said that penalties for not obtaining a license or abiding by its terms were severe for a trucker. "If he does not have it or is found to be exporting scrap illegally, not only can his load be seized but his truck can be seized," he said.

Mr. Whitfield said that the overall quantity of scrap might not be surprising, considering that there were, for example, an estimated 3,000 damaged tanks and other military vehicles in Iraq as a result of a series of wars. Those vehicles are being legitimately scrapped, he said.

"There's huge volumes of scrap out there, just all over Iraq," he said.

A senior American intelligence official said the idea that the material to build missiles or nuclear devices might be being exported from the military-industrial sites was "far-fetched."

"It's conceivable that some of this material might be dual-use in nature," the official said, adding that "what appears to be happening is simply looting."

Mr. Whitfield asserted that the coalition had put a stop to widespread looting in Iraq. But a visit to an enormous scrapyard on the side of a dusty hill surrounded by goat herds in this town about 10 miles southeast of Amman raises serious questions about that assertion. Cranes and men with torches pick through seemingly endless piles of steel, aluminum and copper that workers there say has come almost exclusively from Iraq.

On a recent afternoon, roughly 100 trucks, many with yellow Iraqi license plates, were lined up near the entrance to the scrapyard or maneuvering with inches to spare inside, their engines snorting as they kicked up the flourlike dust.

Yousseff Wakhian, a scrapyard worker wearing a gray jumpsuit and a cap with a New York Yankees insignia, said that 60 to 100 trucks had come in that day from Iraq and 50 had left with loads of the scrap to be sold elsewhere.

Some of the piles contain items that might — or might not — have arrived as part of legitimate scrap operations. There is stripped copper cable from a high-voltage electrical system, jumbled piles of tank treads, big engine blocks and crankshafts and thick steel walls connected to a door with lettering indicating that it was part of a building at an airport.

Last year, there were widespread reports of looting of electrical transmission lines and military bases, among other things.

But Muhammad al-Dajah, an engineer who is technical director Jordanian free-trade zones like the Sahab scrapyard, pointed with chagrin to piles of other items that hardly looked as if they belonged in a shipment of scrap metal. There were new 15-foot-long bars of carbon steel, water pipes a foot in diameter stacked in triangular piles 10 feet high, and the large flanges he identified as oil-well equipment.

"It's still new," Mr. Dajah said, "and worth a lot."

"Why are they here?" he asked rhetorically, and then said, referring to the devastation in Iraq. "They need it there."

The scrap operation has not been without incident, Mr. Dajah said. A few months ago workers cutting apart an automobile at Zarqa, another free-trade zone, set off a concealed bomb that killed one of them, he said.

An Iraqi truck driver at Sahab, Ahmed Zughayer, said the trip from Karbala, where he picked up a load of tank parts that were still piled in the back of his truck, was insufferable because of delays at the Jordanian border.

"First time and last," he said when asked how often he had made the trip. "Seven days at the border being inspected. And here two days."

Mr. Zughayer said Jordanian military personnel had combed through the load and probed it with detection equipment. Officials at the atomic energy agency said that since the Rotterdam incident, radiation detectors at Iraq's borders had repeatedly picked up generally weak radioactive emissions from deep within loads of scrap.

The agency said that in one incident on May 15, radiation detectors began clicking when a truck carrying a load of scrap stopped at the Habur border crossing with Turkey; the truck was turned back.

Several Middle Eastern analysts said that the widespread traffic in Iraqi scrap did not have all the hallmarks of an above-board operation.

"What we are finding out in Iraq, there are gangs, some of them from the old days, some of them new with corruption, and they can get away with it," said Walid Khadduri, an Iraqi who is editor of the Middle East Economic Survey in Cyprus and was in the country as recently as January.

"It is really mayhem," Mr. Khadduri said. "There is no law."

Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political analyst who has done business in Iraq under the oil-for-food program, said that there was in fact much talk in the business community of deals "to ship new things under the title of scrap."

Beyond what has been seen at the scrapyards, Mr. Kamhawi offered no specific evidence that those deals were taking place. But a former high-ranking Jordanian military official said that functioning pieces of, say, sophisticated electronics from surface-to-air missile batteries or precision machine tools almost could not avoid being passed around with scrap, since it is so difficult to destroy such equipment completely.

The official also said there was far from just a single Jordanian scrapyard doing a brisk business in Iraqi machinery and scrap. He said that only a few days before, he had seen nearly an entire Russian-made T-55 tank with Iraqi markings, its muzzle cut off by a blowtorch, sitting on a flatbed truck outside a steel plant near the road from Amman to the main commercial airport.

On a recent day, the plant, identified on a sign as part of the United Iron and Steel Manufacturing Company, a Jordanian business, had three trucks with Baghdad license plates idling out front. At a tumbledown shack on the way toward piles of steel in the distance, a wiry, weathered security guard with a three-day growth of beard stopped a car carrying an American journalist and two Jordanians.

"No, you can't go in," said the guard, who identified himself as Azzam Tamimi. "I have orders."

A Jordanian asked Mr. Tamimi what was down among the piles of steel to warrant barring visitors from the area.

"Nothing is in there," Mr. Tamimi said. "There is only destroyed Iraqi tanks from the war."

Slovaks Place Plastic Explosives on Flight to Ireland

(AP)

Slovak officials on Wednesday blamed "a silly and unprofessional mistake" for a failed airport security test that led to a man unwittingly carrying hidden explosives in his bag aboard a flight to Dublin.

Dublin security chiefs said it was foolish for the Slovaks to hide bomb parts in the luggage of innocent passengers under any circumstances.

Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak expressed "profound regret" to the Irish government for the oversight and the three-day delay in alerting Irish authorities about the Saturday incident.

The explosives never posed a danger to the flight, the interior ministry said Wednesday, even as it ordered an immediate halt to such tests and took steps to prevent a repeat of failed security test.

Tibor Mako, the head of Slovakia's border and foreign police whose people carried out the exercise, offered his resignation Wednesday. There was no immediate word on whether it would be accepted.

Security experts said the episode illustrated the inadequacy of security screening of checked-in luggage - the very point the Slovak authorities had sought to test when they placed real bomb components in nine passengers' bags Saturday.

"The aim of the training was to keep sniffer dogs in shape and on alert in a real environment," the ministry said.

Eight items were detected. But one bag had two bomb components in it. The sniffer dog found one but the police officer in charge failed to remove the second, which was not detected by the dog, because he was busy, the ministry said.

That allowed 90 grams (3 ounces) of RDX plastic explosive to travel undetected through security at Poprad-Tatry Airport in central Slovakia onto a Danube Wings aircraft. The Slovak carrier launched services to Dublin last month.

"The police officer made a silly and unprofessional mistake, which turned the good purpose of protecting people into a problem," the statement said.

Slovak authorities realized their error and told the pilot of the Danube Wings flight, who then decided to still take off with the sample on board, the ministry statement said.

"No one was in danger, because the substance without any other components (needed to bring it to a detonation) and under the conditions it was stored, is not dangerous," the ministry said.

Slovak border police subsequently traced the man and told him where the explosive was planted so that he was able to find it Monday evening, said the ministry. Kalinak, the interior minister, called him to apologize.

The man was not identified. Slovak media said he is a 49-year-old electrician who works and lives in Ireland.

The ministry said it contacted Irish authorities and explained the situation on Tuesday, prompting Irish police to raid the man's Dublin apartment. A major north Dublin intersection was shut down Tuesday and neighboring apartment buildings were evacuated as a precaution while Irish Army experts inspected the explosive.

The man was detained for several hours then released without charge.

Irish police said they initially were led to believe the man might be a terrorist until the Slovaks explained the situation further.

Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said Dublin police eventually confirmed that the explosive "was concealed without his knowledge or consent ... as part of an airport security exercise."

The Slovak statement criticized the Irish police action.

"For an incomprehensible reason for us, they took the person into custody and undertook further security measures," it said.

Authorities in Slovakia were considering "new forms of sniffer dog training" to avoid a repeat of the scare, the ministry said.

Underwear Bomber boarded plane without passport

False Flag CIA Operation is the precursor to full body scans at all US airports.

Taylor lawyer suspects a cover-up

By NAOMI R. PATTON
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

A Taylor lawyer says he thinks authorities are seeking to discredit his account that an older, well-dressed Indian man helped terror defendant Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board Flight 253 from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit without a passport.

Kurt Haskell said Thursday that two FBI investigators who questioned him Tuesday morning asked the same basic questions they asked passengers just after the flight ended. He said he suspects sloppy security has led to a cover-up.


Sandra Berchtold, an FBI spokeswoman in Detroit, and a Department of Justice representative in Washington, D.C., both declined to comment.


Haskell is the only known passenger to provide an account of Abdulmutallab being helped by a second man. Haskell's wife, Lori Haskell, said she was distracted by the couple's card game.

Exclusive Audio: Was Bomber Ushered on to Flight 253 Without Papers?

by Larry O'Connor

Earlier today, while guest hosting on The Dennis Miller Show, Andrew Breitbart interviewed Kurt Haskell from Taylor, Michigan. Mr. Haskell was a passenger on the now infamous Flight 253 on Christmas day from Amsterdam to Detroit. We all know now how this flight ended (with the Flying Dutchman careening across multiple seats to stop a would-be-suicide bomber from exploding the plane and hundreds of innocent lives). But, Mr. Haskell shared his story of what he witnessed before anyone even boarded the plane.
While waiting in the holding area in the Amsterdam airport, in a room designated for only the passengers of Flight 253, Mr. Haskell saw a well-dressed man of apparent Indian descent accompany a young, poorly attired man of African descent to the boarding gate. What Mr. Haskell saw and heard next is of seemingly great significance:

“I could clearly hear the conversation… the Indian man said: ‘This man needs to board the plane, he doesn’t have a passport….’ The ticket agent responded, ‘you’ll need to see my manager…’. That was the last time I saw the Indian man and it was the last time I saw the black man until later in the day when he tried to blow up our plane.”