Travel

Passenger Attacks US Airways Flight Crew

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– Passenger attacks US Airways flight crew (NBC17, March 28, 2012)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A passenger on US Airways flight 1697 from Charlotte to Ft. Myers, Fla., had to be restrained and put in hand ties after attacking the flight crew, according to police and airline officials.

NBC-17 reporter Jonathan Carlson witnessed the aftermath in the Ft. Myers terminal, and spoke exclusively with members of the flight crew onboard flight 1697.

They say the woman got out of her seat and attacked the crew, kicking them, spitting in their faces and knocking one flight attendant to the ground.

Read morePassenger Attacks US Airways Flight Crew

$179 Annual Fee To Allow People To Move To Front Line At San Francisco International Airport

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– Faster security screening offered for a fee at SFO (San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 1, 2012):

Frequent travelers who use San Francisco International Airport once again will be able to get through security a little faster with the return of a fee-based pre-screening program approved by the Airport Commission on Tuesday.

The CLEAR program, operated by a private company, Alclear LLC, will allow people to move to – or near – the front of the line to get their carry-on items screened. It will allow them to bypass the regular first tier of security where travelers must provide a driver’s license or passport to a Transportation Security Administration employee and instead use an automated kiosk.

“It provides predictability in getting to the front of the line and getting through clearance faster,” said SFO director John Martin.

Participants must pay a $179 annual fee for the special treatment. Spouses or domestic partners can be added on for an extra $50, and their children 17 years old and younger can join for free.

Read more$179 Annual Fee To Allow People To Move To Front Line At San Francisco International Airport

Cupcake Deemed ‘Security Threat,’ Confiscated By TSA – TSA: Frosting Too ‘Gel-Like,’ Posed Risk

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– Cupcake Deemed ‘Security Threat,’ Confiscated By TSA (WCVB Boston, Dec. 23, 2011):

BOSTON — A Peabody woman says a cupcake she tried to take on a flight with her sparked a potential security threat this week.

Rebecca Hains says she was going through security at the airport in Las Vegas when a TSA agent pulled her aside and said the cupcake frosting was “gel-like” enough to constitute a security risk.

Read moreCupcake Deemed ‘Security Threat,’ Confiscated By TSA – TSA: Frosting Too ‘Gel-Like,’ Posed Risk

American Airlines Jetliner Makes Emergency Landing After Passengers Faint

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April 1 (CNN) – An American Airlines 737 jetliner with 134 passengers aboard made an emergency landing in Dayton, Ohio, Friday morning after passengers became ill and at least two fainted, CNN affiliates in Dayton reported.

Shortly after American Flight 547 left Reagan National Airport in Washington bound for Chicago, two flight attendants reported feeling dizzy, WDTN reported, citing American spokesman Tim Smith. Pilots dropped oxygen masks in the cabin, but at least two and as many as four passengers fainted, according to the CNN affiliate reports.

Read moreAmerican Airlines Jetliner Makes Emergency Landing After Passengers Faint

Tokyo Passengers Set Off O’Hare Airport Radiation Alarms

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– Tokyo Passengers Set Off O’Hare Radiation Detectors (ZeroHedge):

No seriously, it is all under control. And furthermore, the radiation detectors only go off on less than dangerous doses. And if that fails, GE can simply raise the sensitivity threshold on its scanners so no more vile, malicious false alarms such as this are set off in the future. “Mayor Richard Daley acknowledged today passengers on a flight from Tokyo had set off radiation detectors at O’Hare International Airport, but he offered no details and said federal officials will be handling the situation.”

From Chicago Breaking News:

“Of course the protection of the person coming off the plane is very important in regards to any radiation, especially within their families and anything else,” Daley said at a downtown news conference to discuss his trip to China this week.

City Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino would only say, “We are aware that occurred yesterday. We are working with Customs and Border Protection on this issue.” She referred reporters to the Department of Homeland Security.

And the follow up from Chicago Positive Spin News:

Federal officials found traces of radiation on a United Airlines jet that arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport from Tokyo Wednesday but determined that the plane’s cargo and passengers were safe.

Airline and government officials are reluctant to address their efforts to detect radiation contamination on U.S. aircraft at a time when some members of the public are jittery about possible fallout from Japan’s stricken nuclear plants.

It is unclear if those who set off the alarms will be arrested for smuggling illegal radiation from Japan, where gamma waves are being scared into hiding if one is brave enough to believe the domestic government.

– Japan radiation sets off O’Hare airport alarms (CBS NEWS):

Trace amounts of radiation from Japan have been detected in Chicago, CBS News station WBBM-TV reports.

Travelers coming in from Japan on Wednesday triggered radiation detectors at O’Hare International Airport as they passed through customs. Only very small amounts of radiation were detected.

“We are aware of the radiation,” said Chicago Aviation Department spokeswoman Karen Pride. “We are adding screenings and precautionary measures.”

In one instance, radiation was detected in a plane’s air filtration system. Radiation was also found in luggage and on passengers on flights from Japan.

Read moreTokyo Passengers Set Off O’Hare Airport Radiation Alarms

Customs Officers Ordered NOT to Look For Drug Smugglers at Heathrow Over Christmas

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Customs officers were ordered not to look for drug smugglers at Heathrow over Christmas because of staff shortages.

An extraordinary email was sent to all staff at the UK’s busiest airport on December 23, telling them not to ‘actively seek to identify any passenger with internal concealments’.
The UK border – through which 100,000 people enter every day – was left open for three days thanks to the command, allowing possibly ‘scores’ of drug mules to get in.

Smugglers with hauls of cocaine, heroin and cannabis in their stomachs would have been waved through the airport, which handles 70million passengers a year.

Mark Kennedy, the UK Border Agency’s senior detection manager, blamed staff shortages for the order, which he said should be in force for 72 hours up to and including Christmas Day.

The email, leaked by a whistleblower, also warned officers that if they did arrest smugglers, they would have to work a 24-hour shift guarding prisoners.

Read moreCustoms Officers Ordered NOT to Look For Drug Smugglers at Heathrow Over Christmas

The TSA’s State-Mandated Molestation

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Sexual assault we can take a bath in!

Criminals!

The humiliations of the patdown policy, which Janet Napolitano wants to expand, are an Orwellian assault on American freedom


A TSA officer signals an airline passenger forward at a security checkpoint at Seattle-Tacoma international airport, Washington State. Photograph: Elaine Thompson/AP

The holiday brought bittersweet news: unless the Transportation Security Authority disbands, I’ll never see a certain friend of mine again. His long-term unemployment finally ended, and next month, he starts a great new job. But it’s in Texas, too far to drive; from my place in Connecticut to his new home in San Antonio is 2,000 miles – 500 more than separates London from Moscow.

As an American – that is, someone considered lucky to get seven consecutive days off work – the only way I could possibly travel such distance is to fly. But flying includes the legal obligation I submit to having my genitalia groped by some TSA thug wearing the same latex gloves already shoved down nine dozen other strangers’ underwear. There’s only two ways an American flyer can reliably avoid this: be rich enough to buy your own plane, or a high-ranking congressman or other VIP exempt from the indignities they inflict upon ordinary citizens.

The ACLU maintains an ever-growing database of these indignities, many so graphic they’re illegal to broadcast over public airwaves. Actions that violate FCC standards are embraced by the TSA. “Mary in Texas” reported:

The TSA agent used her hands to feel under and between my breasts. She then rammed her hand up into my crotch until it jammed into my pubic bone … I was touched in the pubic region in between my labia … She then moved her hand across my pubic region and down the inner part of my upper thigh to the floor. She repeated this procedure on the other side. I was shocked and broke into tears.

A woman named Chris said:

“In the four times she explored the area where my inner thigh met my crotch, she touched my labia each time, and one pass made contact with my clitoris, through two layers of clothing. I told her I felt humiliated, assaulted and abused … In my work as a nurse, if I did what the TSA did against a patient’s will it would be considered assault and battery, and I did not see how the TSA should have different rules.”

Recipients of such treatment aren’t allowed to show distress. Melissa from Massachusetts did anyway:

“I was shaking and crying the entire time. I was begging them to hurry up but they kept stopping and telling me to calm down. It is impossible to gain composure when a stranger has her hands in your underwear.”

I couldn’t. I know my limits: can’t sprout wings and fly, spin straw into gold, or ooze obedience toward anyone who’d treat me as the TSA treats Melissa, Mary, Chris and countless others. And once I said something rude – even an obscenity-free comment like “Have fun on your knees, sniffing my crotch like the dog that you are” [see top photo] – I’d be arrested on terrorism charges and the media would run sympathetic stories about poor TSA agents disliked for merely following orders. Self-described patriots would say “Disrespecting authority is unAmerican” and recommend harsh punishment for me.

Read moreThe TSA’s State-Mandated Molestation

Angry Passengers Riot at Moscow Airport

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Angry passengers revolted at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on Monday as freezing rain and power cuts disrupted flights for a second day.


Passengers queue in front of ticket and information counters at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport  Photo: AP

A large group of passengers, many stranded for more than 24 hours, stormed the passport control zone, demanding information on their flights.

Despite upbeat statements by the Moscow power grid company and airport officials, “electricity is still largely off, with baggage conveyors and escalators remaining at a standstill,” Interfax news agency reported.

Some 200 flights were cancelled on Monday after freezing rain snapped power lines and cut electricity to Domodedovo the day before, while a lack of de-icing fluid kept planes from taking off at Sheremetyevo, another big Moscow airport.

Sub-zero temperatures and snow are typical for Moscow’s winter months, but the weekend saw an unusually heavy downpour of rare freezing rain that can form a thick layer of ice on power cables, eventually breaking them under its weight.

Read moreAngry Passengers Riot at Moscow Airport

Rep. Ron Paul on CNN: ‘We Don’t Solve Our Problems By Abusing The Rights Of American Citizens!’

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Added: November 19, 2010

See also:

– Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Proposes Full-Body Scanners For Trains, Boats, Metro

– Rep. Ron Paul to TSA: Stop Irradiating Our Bodies and Fondling Our Children!

– US: The TSA Is Totally Out Of Control

Read moreRep. Ron Paul on CNN: ‘We Don’t Solve Our Problems By Abusing The Rights Of American Citizens!’

Head of TSA: No Change in Airport Screening Policy

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WASHINGTON – The head of the Transportation Security Administration says that while new airport screening procedures are more invasive, threats against air travelers rule out policy changes.

John Pistole (PIH’-stohl) tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that the agency has no plans to change its policy of requiring travelers at many major airports to undergo either enhanced body scans or thorough pat-downs.

Pistole says screeners are “really the last line of defense” in the effort to keep the traveling public safe against a “determined enemy” that has proved adept in coming up with new ways to conceal explosive devices.

He says he understands the objections of some passengers.

Read moreHead of TSA: No Change in Airport Screening Policy

US may soon announce security deal with pilots

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A police officers patrols inside the main terminal of Frankfurt’s airport, November 18, 2010.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration could soon announce new airport security screening measures for airline pilots, who have complained about full-body scans and invasive pat downs, a top U.S. official said on Friday.

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole acknowledged in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” that scans and pat downs intended to find explosives and other weapons would offer little protection against any pilot determined to bring down an aircraft.  🙂

“We’ve had a number of very good discussions with pilots and hope to be announcing something very soon in terms of a good way forward for the pilots for that very reason, using a risk-based intelligence driven process,” he said.

Read moreUS may soon announce security deal with pilots

TSA Insanity: Cancer Surviving US Airways Flight Attendant Forced to Remove Prosthetic Breast During Pat-Down

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Video: US: The TSA Is Totally Out Of Control

Unbelievable!

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – A Charlotte-area flight attendant and cancer survivor contacted WBTV after she says she was forced to show her prosthetic breast during a pat-down.

Cathy Bossi lives in south Charlotte and has been a flight attendant for the past 32 years, working the past 28 for U.S. Airways.

In early August Bossie was walking through security when she says she was asked to go through the new full body-scanners at Concourse “D” at Charlotte Douglas International.

She reluctantly agreed. As a 3-year breast cancer survivor she says she didn’t want the added radiation through her body. But, Bossi says she did agree.

“The T.S.A. Agent told me to put my I.D. on my back,” she said. “When I got out of there she said because my I.D. was on my back, I had to go to a personal screening area.”

She says two female Charlotte T.S.A. agents took her to a private room and began what she calls an aggressive pat down. She says they stopped when they got around to feeling her right breast… the one where she’d had surgery.

“She put her full hand on my breast and said, ‘What is this?’. And I said, ‘It’s my prosthesis because I’ve had breast cancer.’ And she said, ‘Well, you’ll need to show me that’.”

Cathy was asked to show her prosthetic breast, removing it from her bra.

“I did not take the name of the person at the time because it was just so horrific of an experience, I couldn’t believe someone had done that to me. I’m a flight attendant. I was just trying to get to work.”

Read moreTSA Insanity: Cancer Surviving US Airways Flight Attendant Forced to Remove Prosthetic Breast During Pat-Down

Ron Paul Introduces The American Traveler Dignity Act

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Don’t miss:

– US: The TSA Is Totally Out Of Control

Introducing the American Traveler Dignity Act

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce legislation to protect Americans from physical and emotional abuse by federal Transportation Security Administration employees conducting screenings at the nation’s airports. We have seen the videos of terrified children being grabbed and probed by airport screeners. We have read the stories of Americans being subjected to humiliating body imaging machines and/or forced to have the most intimate parts of their bodies poked and fondled. We do not know the potentially harmful effects of the radiation emitted by the new millimeter wave machines.

In one recent well-publicized case, a TSA official is recorded during an attempted body search saying, “By buying your ticket you gave up a lot of rights.” I strongly disagree and am sure I am not alone in believing that we Americans should never give up our rights in order to travel. As our Declaration of Independence states, our rights are inalienable. This TSA version of our rights looks more like the “rights” granted in the old Soviet Constitutions, where freedoms were granted to Soviet citizens — right up to the moment the state decided to remove those freedoms.

The incident of the so-called “underwear bomber” last Christmas is given as justification for the billions of dollars the federal government is spending on the new full-body imaging machines, but a Government Accountability Office study earlier this year concluded that had these scanners been in use they may not have detected the explosive material that was allegedly brought onto the airplane. Additionally, there have been recent press reports calling into question the accuracy and adequacy of these potentially dangerous machines.

My legislation is simple. It establishes that airport security screeners are not immune from any US law regarding physical contact with another person, making images of another person, or causing physical harm through the use of radiation-emitting machinery on another person. It means they are subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

Read moreRon Paul Introduces The American Traveler Dignity Act

US: The TSA Is Totally Out Of Control

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Must-see!


Added: 15. November 2010

See also:

– Passenger Becomes Internet Sensation For Telling US Airport Security ‘Don’t Touch My Junk’

– Wednesday, November 24, 2010 is NATIONAL OPT-OUT DAY!

– New Jersey Lawmakers Seek to Stop Airport Security Scans

–  German Protesters Strip Down In Airport To Protest Full-Body Scanners

– World’s largest pilot union shuns full-body scanners, warning cites radiation risk

– TSA: 500 Full Body Scanners By The End of the Year, 2,000 Planned

– Pilot to TSA: ‘No Groping Me and No Naked Photos’

– The Full Body Scanner Invasion; New Scanners Break Child Porn Laws

– US prisoners forced to submit to radiation experiments for private foreign companies

– Full-Body Scanners Emitting ‘High-Energy’ Radiation Increase Cancer Risk

– TSA lies exposed: Full-body scanners do save and transmit images, secret documents reveal

– Israeli Airport Security Expert: Full-Body Scanners Are Waste of Money

Passenger Becomes Internet Sensation For Telling US Airport Security ‘Don’t Touch My Junk’

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US airport security is facing growing anger from the public at new anti-terrorism screening procedures considered invasive and harmful.

A software engineer has gained national notoriety after posting an internet blog item saying he had been ejected and threatened with a fine for refusing a groin check after turning down a full-body scan at San Diego airport.

The passenger, John Tyner, said he told a Transportation Security Administration agent: “If you touch my junk, I’m going to have you arrested.”

Tyner’s individual protest quickly became an internet sensation, but questions also came from travel business groups, civil liberties activists and pilots, raising concerns both about the procedures themselves and about the possibility of delays caused by passengers reluctant to accept the new procedures.

Thanksgiving Day, a harvest festival, is the fourth Thursday in November in the United States, and marks one of the busiest travel weeks of the year.

Across the country passengers are simmering over being forced to choose scans by full-body image detectors or probing pat-downs. Top federal security officials said that the procedures were safe and necessary sacrifices to ward off terror attacks.

“It’s all about security,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. “It’s all about everybody recognising their role.”

Read morePassenger Becomes Internet Sensation For Telling US Airport Security ‘Don’t Touch My Junk’

TSA: 500 Full Body Scanners By The End of the Year, 2,000 Planned

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– Opt Out of a Body Scan? Then Brace Yourself (New York Times):

The T.S.A.’s position is that anyone can “opt out” of a body scan for reasons of privacy or whatever, but will then be subjected to a thorough physical pat-down and careful search of belongings.

In my case, I had been routinely using a normal metal detector checkpoint, when I was ordered to switch lanes and instead go to one of the new machines. I said I would prefer not to, given that my carry-on bag, laptop and shoes were already trundling along the regular machine’s conveyor belt, out of sight. That’s when the shouting started.

As of Monday afternoon, the agency had not responded to several requests for comment on this. Last week, the agency did tell me that there were 317 of the advanced imaging technology machines now in use at 65 airports around the country.

About 500 should be online by the end of the year, the agency said, and another 500 are expected to be installed next year. Ultimately, the agency plans to have the new machines replace metal detectors at all of the roughly 2,000 airport checkpoints.

See also:

– Pilot to TSA: ‘No Groping Me and No Naked Photos’

– The Full Body Scanner Invasion; New Scanners Break Child Porn Laws

– US prisoners forced to submit to radiation experiments for private foreign companies

– Full-Body Scanners Emitting ‘High-Energy’ Radiation Increase Cancer Risk

– TSA lies exposed: Full-body scanners do save and transmit images, secret documents reveal

– Israeli Airport Security Expert: Full-Body Scanners Are Waste of Money

Rail Strike Shuts Down Belgium, Severely Disrupts International Travel

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A 24-hour strike has shut down rail service in Belgium and severely disrupted travel in northwestern Europe. Disruptions are expected to last until Tuesday morning.


Brussels is at a standstill

A 24-hour strike by one of Belgium’s main rail unions has forced the cancellation of nearly all high-speed rail service in and out of the country and severely disrupted the national network.

The strike, which began affecting the international trains linking Belgium to France, Germany the United Kingdom and the Netherlands on Sunday evening, has shut down the country and led to massive traffic jams.

“Not one train is rolling in [the Southern province of] Wallonia or in Brussels. In [the Northern province of] Flanders, only a handful of trains are moving,” a spokesman for Belgian rail network operator Infrabel told the Belga news agency.

Eurostar, Thalys cancel service

Eurostar canceled trains between the northern French city of Lille and Brussels until 10 p.m. local time Monday, though said the Paris-London line would not be affected.

But trains coming from London to Brussels will end at Lille, with buses taking passengers the rest of the way to the Belgian and European Union capital. All Thalys service to and from neighboring countries has been stopped.

Read moreRail Strike Shuts Down Belgium, Severely Disrupts International Travel

Pilot to TSA: ‘No Groping Me and No Naked Photos’

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See also:

– The Full Body Scanner Invasion; New Scanners Break Child Porn Laws

– US prisoners forced to submit to radiation experiments for private foreign companies

–  Full-Body Scanners Emitting ‘High-Energy’ Radiation Increase Cancer Risk

– TSA lies exposed: Full-body scanners do save and transmit images, secret documents reveal

– Israeli Airport Security Expert: Full-Body Scanners Are Waste of Money

Must-read!

October 15, 2010 – My name is Michael Roberts, and I am a pilot for ExpressJet Airlines, Inc., based in Houston (that is, I still am for the time being). This morning as I attempted to pass through the security line for my commute to work I was denied access to the secured area of the terminal building at Memphis International Airport. I have passed through the same line roughly once per week for the past four and a half years without incident. Today, however, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents at this checkpoint were using one of the new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) systems that are currently being deployed at airports across the nation. These are the controversial devices featured by the media in recent months, albeit sparingly, which enable screeners to see beneath people’s clothing to an extremely graphic and intrusive level of detail (virtual strip searching). Travelers refusing this indignity may instead be physically frisked by a government security agent until the agent is satisfied to release them on their way in what is being touted as an “alternative option” to AIT. The following is a somewhat hastily drafted account of my experience this morning.

As I loaded my bags onto the X-ray scanner belt, an agent told me to remove my shoes and send them through as well, which I’ve not normally been required to do when passing through the standard metal detectors in uniform. When I questioned her, she said it was necessary to remove my shoes for the AIT scanner. I explained that I did not wish to participate in the AIT program, so she told me I could keep my shoes and directed me through the metal detector that had been roped off. She then called somewhat urgently to the agents on the other side: “We got an opt-out!” and also reported the “opt-out” into her handheld radio. On the other side I was stopped by another agent and informed that because I had “opted out” of AIT screening, I would have to go through secondary screening. I asked for clarification to be sure he was talking about frisking me, which he confirmed, and I declined. At this point he and another agent explained the TSA’s latest decree, saying I would not be permitted to pass without showing them my naked body, and how my refusal to do so had now given them cause to put their hands on me as I evidently posed a threat to air transportation security (this, of course, is my nutshell synopsis of the exchange). I asked whether they did in fact suspect I was concealing something after I had passed through the metal detector, or whether they believed that I had made any threats or given other indications of malicious designs to warrant treating me, a law-abiding fellow citizen, so rudely. None of that was relevant, I was told. They were just doing their job.

Eventually the airport police were summoned. Several officers showed up and we essentially repeated the conversation above. When it became clear that we had reached an impasse, one of the more sensible officers and I agreed that any further conversation would be pointless at this time. I then asked whether I was free to go. I was not. Another officer wanted to see my driver’s license. When I asked why, he said they needed information for their report on this “incident” – my name, address, phone number, etc. I recited my information for him, until he asked for my supervisor’s name and number at the airline. Why did he need that, I asked. For the report, he answered. I had already given him the primary phone number at my company’s headquarters. When I asked him what the Chief Pilot in Houston had to do with any of this, he either refused or was simply unable to provide a meaningful explanation. I chose not to divulge my supervisor’s name as I preferred to be the first to inform him of the situation myself. In any event, after a brief huddle with several other officers, my interrogator told me I was free to go.

Read morePilot to TSA: ‘No Groping Me and No Naked Photos’

And now: Ryanair to sell £5 tickets for standing-room only flights

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Ryanair is planning to run flights where passengers stand during the journey at a cost of just £5 per ticket.

Michael O’Leary, the airline’s chief executive, will set out proposals today that include charging customers to use the loo.

A standing area with “vertical seats” will be introduced at the back of its fleet of 250 planes.

He said that charging customers £1 to make use of facilities would encourage travellers on one hour flights to use lavatories at the airport instead of on the aircraft.

The Irishman said he intended to introduce coin-operated loos and added: “The other change we’ve been looking at is taking out the last 10 rows of seats so we will have 15 rows of seats and the equivalent of 10 rows of standing area.”

Read moreAnd now: Ryanair to sell £5 tickets for standing-room only flights

Australia: Travellers laptops and mobile phones to be searched for porn

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Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search incoming travellers’ laptops and mobile phones for pornography, a spokeswoman for the Australian sex industry says.

Fiona Patten, president of the Australian Sex Party, is demanding an inquiry into why a new question appears on Incoming Passenger Cards asking people if they are carrying “pornography”.

Patten said officials now had an unfettered right to examine travellers’ electronic devices, marking the beginning of a new era of official investigation into people’s private lives. She questioned whether it was appropriate to search people for legal R18+ and X18+ material.

“Is it fair that customs officers rummage through someone’s luggage and pull out a legal men’s magazine or a lesbian journal in front of their children or their mother-in-law?” she said.

Read moreAustralia: Travellers laptops and mobile phones to be searched for porn

‘Just Kidding’: TSA Worker Places Bag of Fine White Powder Into Passengers Bag

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Related article: – TSA Agent Arrested at LA (NBC LA):

A TSA agent was arrested on January 3rd in Terminal One at LAX, a source told NBCLA. He had just gotten off duty and was behaving erratically, saying, “I am god, I’m in charge.”


Update: Ann Davis, the TSA spokeswoman, said this afternoon that the worker is no longer employed by the agency as of today. She said privacy laws prevented her from saying if he was fired or left on his own.

Rebecca Solomon
Rebecca Solomon said the security worker’s action “was such a violation.”

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.

Read more‘Just Kidding’: TSA Worker Places Bag of Fine White Powder Into Passengers Bag

TSA lies exposed: Full-body scanners do save and transmit images, secret documents reveal

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tsa

(NaturalNews) The TSA has been lying to the American people about full-body scanners. The agency has insisted that these “digital strip search” machines are incapable of saving, storing or transmitting the images they take. This, we are told, makes it okay for people to be digitally strip-searched.

But secret documents uncovered by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (www.EPIC.org) have revealed that these machines do indeed posses precisely such capabilities. According to TSA specification requirement documents that have been uncovered by the EPIC, all full-body scanners purchased by the TSA must have the ability to both save and transmit the scanned images of air passengers.

The documents were obtained by EPIC through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. They have also been shared with CNN, which has viewed the documents and published a story about what they reveal.

These documents contradict the claims of the TSA, which include the statement that “the system has no way to save, transmit or print the image.”

TSA misleads the public

The TSA’s own “imaging technology” page (http://www.tsa.gov/approach/tech/im…) claims, “This state-of-the-art technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image. In fact, all machines are delivered to airports with these functions disabled.”

That in itself is an interesting statement because by stating those functions are “disabled,” it also admits that the machines inherently have these functions. And just because the machines are delivered with the functions disabled doesn’t mean those functions can’t be re-enabled at the flick of a switch.

In other words, these machines are designed and constructed with the ability to save, store and transmit the images.

“I don’t think the TSA has been forthcoming with the American public about the true capability of these devices,” said the Executive Director of EPIC, Marc Rotenberg in a CNN interview. “They’ve done a bunch of very slick promotions where they show people — including journalists — going through the devices. And then they reassure people, based on the images that have been produced, that there’s not any privacy concerns. But if you look at the actual technical specifications and you read the vendor contracts, you come to understand that these machines are capable of doing far more than the TSA has let on.” (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/…)

In other words, the TSA is telling the public and the press one thing, but the machines they’re buying are capable of something far more insidious, these documents reveal. Is the TSA intentionally lying to the public in order to mislead people over the real capabilities of these machines?

If these full-body scanners can save, store and transmit images, then it’s only a matter of time before some rogue TSA employee finds a way to copy off the images or display them on the screen so that they can take snapshots with their own portable cameras.

Read moreTSA lies exposed: Full-body scanners do save and transmit images, secret documents reveal

UK: Gas supply rationed as temperature drops to -21C

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The same is happening in China:

– Freezing Beijing rations gas supply (Financial Times)

– Chinese cities not ready for harsh winter (Xinhua):

Seven provinces and regions in eastern and central China have reported power rationing and Beijing declared an emergency due to the gas shortage after the new cold snap gripped much of China, resulting in soaring energy demand as coal supplies were already tight in most of the areas struck by the severe winter weather.

The China Meteorological Administration issued a cold-snap warning on Tuesday, saying temperatures in northern China had plummeted to minus 20 and 32 degrees Celsius, and the temperature in central China, including Hubei and Jiangxi provinces and the eastern coastal provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, nudged close to minus 8 and minus 5 degrees Celsius respectively.

nasa-satellite-image-of-a-snow-covered-uk
A Nasa satellite image of a snow-covered UK: ‘It’s very unusual to have such uniform coverage,’ said the forecaster Michael Dukes

The gas was turned off for nearly 100 businesses yesterday to protect domestic power supplies after unprecedented demand brought on by the cold weather.

The national grid was forced to reduce the supply to companies in the North West and East Midlands shortly after issuing its second warning in three days that the system was running out of gas. Demand in recent days has been 28 per cent above seasonal norms and is likely to increase today after temperatures fell to minus 21C in some areas overnight — the coldest night of the winter so far.

Business groups and politicians criticised the Government’s attempts to safeguard the supply and called for more gas storage facilities to be built. “The longstanding vulnerability in our energy system has today been exposed and as a nation we now need to take security of our energy supply more seriously,” said Roger Salomone, the energy adviser of EEF, the engineering employers organisation.

John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, said: “We are on the edge when it comes to our power supplies and there is no safety margin.”

National Grid issued a warning that the system would run short when pressure dropped in a pipeline that brings gas from Norway to a terminal at Easington on the East Coast of England. It said that it had been the first time in six years it had been forced to curtail the supply.

Britain’s biggest salt mine and the Government are drawing up rationing plans as councils run out of supplies to grit roads. Gordon Brown asked Salt Union, which runs the Winsford Rock Salt Mine, in Cheshire, to increase production as Richard Stokoe, of the Local Government Association, said that some councils such as West Berkshire had enough for only one round of gritting.

– Supplies reach dangerous levels in arctic UK (NEWS.com.au)

Thousands of minor roads and residential streets were icebound last night. The A628 in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, the A66 in Cumbria, the A1(M) in Co Durham and the M20 in Kent all remained closed along with several roads in Wales. Bus services in Cornwall were cancelled.

Thousands of people were left waiting for delayed flights and trains and hundreds were trapped underground for two hours after a Eurostar train broke down in the Channel tunnel.

Read moreUK: Gas supply rationed as temperature drops to -21C

All US-bound passengers to face full body search

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Security chiefs last night threw a ring of steel around every airport serving America – amid growing fears of a new al-Qaeda onslaught.

And experts warn all US-bound passengers could face full body searches in a bid to thwart future bomb outrages.

Body-searches have already been introduced at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport following a plea from American officials.

Judith Sluiter, a spokeswoman for the Dutch National Co-ordinator for Counter-terrorism, said: “The extra measures apply on all flights to the US for an indefinite period.”

Schiphol is one of Europe’s busiest airports with a heavy load of transit passengers from Africa and Asia to North America.

It strictly enforces EU security rules that only allow small amounts of liquid in hand-luggage if it is in a clear plastic container.

Scanners Bosses at Schiphol have spent the past year testing full-body scanners that allow security staff to see the outline of a passenger’s body beneath their clothes.

Read moreAll US-bound passengers to face full body search