Monthly Archives: August 2013

We’re going to get this party started again fairly soon.

  The recent, widely publicized U.S. terror intelligence — which, among other things, speculated upon two new methods by which to potentially be killed by Al-Qaeda on an airplane, including a “Clothes Bomber” and “Frankenbomber” — has led to further speculation … Continue reading →

[Originally published August 10, 2013] OK, so the original title of the story is “Black Women’s Hair Becomes Target of TSA’s Security Theater,” but I couldn’t find it within myself to reproduce that level of sensationalism. In short, MSNBC host … Continue reading →

It’s Kip Hawley week here at Taking Sense Away, apparently. Most of this blog’s readers cross over to the TSA News Blog (the TSA News Blog was the first publication to link to this site, thanks to Lisa Simeone stumbling … Continue reading →

In this scene from my proposed film adaptation of former TSA administrator Kip Hawley’s book “Permanent Emergency: Inside the TSA,” we see one of the historic 2002 meetings that put our 200-million-dollar-per-arrest post-9/11 Federal Air Marshals on airplanes. We’re starting off … Continue reading →

Hawley shares my opinion on a few points. I’m sure Hawley’s been preparing to make some kind of power play for government office or for a spot as CEO at some security consulting firm, hence the publicity, but hey, whatever. His … Continue reading →

ARLINGTON, VA- In light of the vague, unprecedented travel alert issued by U.S. authorities on Friday, an anonymous source at the Transportation Security Administration has indicated that a similarly vague, stupid and unprecedented security measure will soon be rolled out at … Continue reading →

In the Insider’s TSA Dictionary, I defined Permament Emergency, former TSA head Kip Hawley’s tell-all memoir about his first-hand experiences with the formation of the TSA, as a “terrible book.” But I take that back. I am reading Permanent Emergency … Continue reading →

The other day, the GAO issued another one of its frequent reports criticizing the TSA, citing a rise in the number of misconduct cases and a failure on the part of many airports to properly use the TSA’s database to … Continue reading →