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If you haven’t been to the airport recently, consider yourself lucky. Between the lines, delays and removing of shoes, air travel is more aggravating than ever before. Now imagine that your job is to fly the not-so-friendly skies looking for suspicious behavior that may indicate the possibility of terrorism. You do your best, but the diet of peanuts, the lack of oxygen in the planes, and the back problems have you wondering why you took the position of “air marshal.”
In a recent report, former and current air marshals told CNN that the number of marshals assigned to flights is so low that the federal agency overseeing them has drastically lowered its firearms and psychological testing standards just so it can qualify new hires.
Whistle blowers allege that so many federal air marshals have resigned without replacements that airport screeners are being employed to fill the gaps. The Transportation Security Administration denies that claim saying that the rate of those leaving has remained at 6.5 percent a year since 2001.
But a former federal air marshal and weapons trainer who left the agency in 2006 after four years told CNN the situation was so bad that managers at his office fudged the numbers by assigning marshals to short, no-risk flights. That former marshal, who wished not to be identified, said that was done to make it appear that the percentage of manned flights was higher than it was.
"I think it's a national disgrace,'' said the former marshal, who asked not to be identified because he still works in law enforcement.
Air marshal assignments are "intelligence-driven" and "risk-based," the Federal Air Marshal Service told CNN in an e-mail. But many of the marshals interviewed said the program was ore focused on appearances than safety concerns.
"We were questioning how these flights could be intelligence-driven when we were flying from San Diego to Phoenix on another leg to Las Vegas back to Phoenix back to San Diego," said the former marshal. "It's not a threat flying on Southwest Airlines to Las Vegas."
Other air marshals told CNN that the loss of so many experienced agents has forced the TSA to hire airport screeners as air marshals. Agency spokesman Greg Alter said in an email that only "a very small number of air marshals started their careers as airport screeners."
In July 2006, the Federal Air Marshal Service decided that new hires would no longer face mandatory psychological testing, unless the recruit admits that he or she has been treated for a serious mental condition.
In terms of firearms training, a former weapons instructor with air marshals said when recruits could not pass the tough federal tactical pistol course, known as the TPC, it was replaced with a less rigorous shooting test the potential recruits could pass.
"The TPC went away very quickly because they couldn't get enough people through it to pass," said the former air marshal trainer. "So they dropped the tactical pistol course and went to the practical pistol course which is a standard federal law enforcement course. It's not nearly as quick or as dynamic as TPC."
In a separate but related investigation by CNN, air marshals and pilots told the news network that only about 1 percent of the nation's 28,000 daily domestic flights were protected by onboard, armed federal marshals.
The Federal Air Marshal Service disputes that figure. The head of the Transportation Security Administration, Kip Hawley, told members of Congress what CNN heard from the air marshals is wrong.
"I have to just correct on the factual basis on the CNN report about air marshals covering 1 percent. That number is absolutely wrong by an order of magnitude and it was a guess by the folks there, and I just have to say that number is completely false."
Hawley would not say what percentage of flights has air marshals. That's a national security secret. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
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