Monday 10-17-11

FBI begins recording call-ins

Next time you call a talk radio station, beware: The FBI may be listening.

According to WMAL.com, "The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet. … The FBI says it is not playing Big Brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence."

The agency's reasons for recording all these radio programs don't get any clearer as the news report goes on. No doubt that is intentional.

Rush Limbaugh

"Don't hold out hope for Palin."

That was Rush Limbaugh's advice to a caller who was clinging to hope that the former Alaska governor would finally enter the 2012 Presidential race.

"You've got practical things like filing deadlines coming up, some are within a week now," Rush explained, "so I think it's time to move on. I think it's time to let go and move on" (FREE audio).

Ken Hoffman at the Houston Chronicle complained that, "Limbaugh is now calling first lady Michelle Obama … 'Moo-Chelle Obama.' Even for El Rushbo, that's stupid and insensitive. Limbaugh reportedly earns $38 million a year and lives in a beachfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla. He can't afford a mirror?"

Michael Savage

This week, Michael Savage labeled Barack Obama a "lifetime Marxist" and renewed concerns about his eligibility to serve as president.

He explained to listeners: Obama is "a man who refuses to show a valid birth certificate, a man who applies for college aid as a foreign student and then denies he's foreign, a man who has a Social Security number from a state he's never even lived in." (FREE audio).

Savage also declared: "The second Bolshevik revolution is beginning in the United States of America, egged on by our first communist president and his cronies. Obama is using the rabble in the gutters to draw attention away from the 'Fast and Furious' Mexican gunrunning scandal, and all the other scandals in this administration":

Sean Hannity

The New York Times shadowed Sean Hannity as part of a story about Fox News' 15th anniversary, and were forced to concede: "Despite the inflammatory rhetoric he instigates, Mr. Hannity is good-natured and humble in person, as interested in his children's tennis matches as in Mitt Romney's foreign policy positions. He rarely agrees to interviews, and when he did last week, he said he did not read negative articles about him, or even the friendly Twitter account all about his abundant head of hair."

Newt Gingrich joined Hannity on the air to analyze the most recent GOP candidate's debate, both his own performance and those of the other potential Republican nominees (FREE audio).

Mark Levin

"These debates are starting to bore me," Mark Levin told listeners this week. He complained that there were too many participants, and none of them will dare take on Mitt Romney (FREE audio).

Speaking of Romney, Levin slammed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for endorsing him. Levin feels neither of these men are "true" conservatives, and he is tired of hearing that "conservatives can't win" (FREE audio).

Laura Ingraham

Two Republican governors offered Ingraham different takes on who could take the White House in 2012.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told Laura and her listeners that Herman Cain would "sweep the South" if he is the GOP nominee (FREE audio).

However, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told her, "If the election were held today, Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama in Pennsylvania – a state the president won by roughly 10 points in 2008."

Rendell warned the party not to select a "wacky" nominee, and stick with somebody "competent." He added, "Sometimes I think the Republican Party has a death wish."

"I actually agree with you on that," Ingraham replied. "In many ways I think the Republicans can screw things up easily."

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck expanded his business empire this week, announcing the launch of his "1791" clothing line.

Beck explained, "The main thrusts of the 1791 line are to remember where we came from as Americans ... and to restore values and efforts that have made America great."

Beck sided with Hank Williams Jr. this week, after the singer/songwriter got in trouble for making a clumsy analogy that mentioned "Hitler" and "Obama" (but contrary to what's been reported, he didn't compare the two.) Beck played excerpts of Williams' new song "Keep the Change," and condemned ESPN and his former employers at Fox News for throwing Williams under the bus (FREE webcam).

And now, from the left side of the dial ...

Did you ever think you'd live to see a cable news host question the "blackness" of a potential president?

That's what happened when Al Sharpton and Prof. Karen Hunter struggled to make sense of Herman Cain's campaign for the Republican nomination (FREE audio).

Weirder still, the producer of progressive Stephanie Miller's radio show made a bizarre on-air suggestion that Cain was an anti-Semite. It was so outrageous even Miller expressed her embarrassment and tried to change the subject.

While these outbursts are painful to listen to, they reveal the unprincipled desperation of people whose worldview is crumbling before their eyes. That's probably the only redeeming social value these radio programs have.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=355881#ixzz1azkIJu6g

Next layer of air security: Chat-downs on top of pat-downs?

As Ingrid Esser hands a Transportation Security Administration officer her identification and boarding pass for a flight from Logan International Airport to Washington, D.C., she faces a flurry of questions.

By Josh T. Reynolds, for USA TODAY
A TSA agent interviews a traveler in Boston as part of Logan International Airport's pilot program for enhanced behavior detection at airport security.
Where is she going? Why? How long is she staying?

"It was a new experience," says Esser, 31, who works in public relations. "It doesn't bother me at all. I understand their job, and it's keeping America safe."

STORY: 'Chat-downs' latest 'first' in security at Logan since 9/11
In that exchange, Esser became part of an experiment that, if successful, could change how every passenger who seeks to board a commercial flight in the USA is screened: Besides going through a metal detector, and possibly a full-body scanning machine and pat-down, they'd first undergo a "chat-down," or face-to-face questioning by a TSA officer. The tactic is similar to what air travelers in Israel face under a program aimed at averting terrorism in the skies.

Chat-downs, a play on the word "pat-down," describing the physical screening that has angered some passengers as too intrusive, are part of the U.S. government's effort to adopt a broader strategy of sifting out people who might pose a greater security risk among the roughly 1.2 million people who fly each day.

"It means moving further away from what may have seemed like a one-size-fits-all approach to security," TSA Administrator John Pistole says.

Chat-downs already are controversial in their trial stage. Civil-liberties advocates and some critics of the TSA see them as another government invasion of fliers' privacy, a hassle for mostly law-abiding passengers or ineffectual.

"They're asking questions that people have a right not to answer," says Mike German, senior policy counsel at the ACLU. "It's nobody's business — and certainly not the government's business — where you're traveling and why."

So far, only 48 travelers out of about 132,000 who have been questioned here at Logan have refused to answer the questions, and instead their carry-on bags were physically searched.

"If they refuse to answer, we (still) let them catch their flight," says Ed Freni, Logan's aviation director.

Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., says he sees chat-downs as another example of the TSA wasting time and money on "largely law-abiding citizens, for the most part."

'New situation for bad guys'

Chat-downs, which began at Logan in August, feature blue-shirted TSA officers for a few hours each day asking every passenger in Terminal A a series of questions.

TSA officers pose the questions when they check travelers' IDs and boarding passes. The choice of location has changed slightly, after first trying the questioning while travelers were in line before the ID check, or after the ID check and before the metal detectors.

Travelers say the questions typically focus on where they are headed, for how long and the purpose of the trip. More probing questions include whether carry-on bags have liquids or why the traveler is holding so much cash.

The answers aren't all officers are after. They're looking for behavioral clues to possible deception, and hostility that warrants further scrutiny or a referral to law-enforcement officials. Authorities won't describe the physical clues, but research has focused on liars averting their eyes, having an inconsistent head gesture or wringing their hands.

"By adding this level of security, we create a new situation for the bad guys that is much more difficult to overcome," says Rafi Ron, a former director of security at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, who was hired to help beef up Logan's security.

Suspicious travelers can be diverted for further questioning, but only 10 people have been referred to authorities for alleged crimes such as drug possession — not as terrorist suspects.

Despite the low numbers, George Naccara, TSA's federal security director for Logan, says the experiment is a good move by the agency to help narrow their search for potential threats. He says people found carrying fraudulent documents or large amounts of cash could represent terrorists testing airport security.

"We're looking at moving away from such heavy reliance on technology, and now we're looking at the human interaction," Naccara says. "That is a very powerful tool."

Some fliers found chat-downs less obtrusive than the prospect of physical searches they had to undergo on the other side of the metal detectors.

"They do it in Europe, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't do it here," David Jones, a 73-year-old retiree from Shapleigh, Maine, who was heading to Spokane, Wash., says of questions about where he was headed and whether he was traveling alone.

Rich Szulewski, 40, says the questions about where he was from and what he had done during his recent trip reminded him of those he faced growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., when he crossed the Peace Bridge from Canada.

"You're a captive audience, no pun intended," says Szulewski, of Germantown, Tenn., who flies more than 100,000 miles a year peddling contracts for an orthopedics manufacturer to hospitals. "It clearly wasn't just small talk."

Others are offended. "It's a waste of everybody's time," says Allen Crockett, 49, of Clayton, N.C., who travels 150,000 miles a year as vice president of sales for a wireless company.

The questions, he says, interrupted calls and texts he sends while waiting in line. Crockett is eager for development of a pre-screening program that would let him whisk around the long lines — and avoid last-minute questions.

"As a frequent flier, I'm going to take that lost privacy on the chin," Crockett says. "I want to get there five minutes before my flight and get on my plane and go."

TSA is experimenting with a pre-screening program akin to what Crockett says he'd like to see. That program, announced Oct. 4, is designed to expedite the security process for travelers who provide extra background information about themselves in advance. It is for frequent fliers on American Airlines and Delta Air Lines at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas and Miami.

Does it stop terrorism?

TSA expects to continue tweaking the chat-downs through November. If deemed successful, they could be expanded to other airports. But the value of the questioning is a matter of dispute.

Chat-downs are an extension of a program called SPOT, for Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It now fields 3,000 officers at 161 airports at an annual cost of $212 million.

From May 2004 to August 2008, 2 billion people boarded aircraft at SPOT airports and 152,000 were referred for secondary questioning, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in May 2010. About 14,000 passengers were referred to law enforcement officers and 1,100 were arrested during that period.

Rather than charging anyone with terrorism, the SPOT detentions included 427 arrests of undocumented immigrants, 209 for outstanding warrants, 166 for fraudulent documents and 125 for drug possession.

Meanwhile, GAO checked 16 people who had been charged in six terrorist plots during that period and found they had passed unhindered at least 23 times through eight airports where SPOT officers worked.

"Although outstanding warrants and the possession of fraudulent or suspect documents could be associated with a terrorist threat, TSA officials did not identify any direct links to terrorism or any threat to the aviation system in any of these cases," the report said.

German of the ACLU says the program seems ripe for abuse because many people are nervous at the airport, many won't look others in the eye, and some seem arrogant.

"They seem to be doubling-down on a program that has proven ineffective," he says.

TSA and its consultants stand behind the program's value in detecting criminal behavior, if not yet terrorists.

"You've got to realize you're looking for needles in a haystack," says Paul Ekman, a psychology professor emeritus at University of California-San Francisco, who helped develop the SPOT program. "They don't appear very often. It's going to take you a long time to know whether a program is being successful."

Ekman says people's noses don't grow if they're lying. However, he says, they give off clues beyond facial expressions when they're lying or have hostile intentions. Physical tics from head to toe can emerge, he says.

"Concealment looks like concealment," says Ekman, a consultant on the Fox TV show Lie to Me.

Is it profiling?

The TSA says it isn't profiling passengers, but simply questioning everyone in line for several hours each day.

That's in contrast to Israel's system of questioning passengers, in which Ron says Israeli security collects much more information before a traveler arrives at the airport to determine how much scrutiny a person should receive at the airport.

Israeli profiling explicitly labels a 25-year-old Palestinian from Gaza as a higher risk aboard a plane than an elderly Holocaust survivor, Ron says. He acknowledges that system wouldn't work in the United States because of laws against racial and religious discrimination.

"They come in all colors, shapes and ethnic backgrounds," Ron says of terrorists. He points to threats from John Walker Lindh, an American convicted of fighting for the Taliban; Jose Padilla, a Hispanic U.S. citizen convicted of aiding terrorists; and attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid, a British citizen of Jamaican descent.

"I think personally in the United States it would be a grave mistake to use racial profiling," he says.

Rep. Broun, whose subcommittee monitors the TSA, says that as a doctor he's skeptical the agency can train workers to spot terrorists.

Naccara, TSA's security chief at Logan, says chat-down officers get extra training after being chosen from among the 70 behavior-detection officers who each have several years of experience. "Those are the people getting the additional training, so they are not people off the street," Naccara says.

Passengers haven't been slowed by the extra layer of security so far. Lines backed up 20 minutes one day during initial testing because of a lack of staffing. Freni, Logan's aviation director, says the problem was corrected the next day.

The vast number of exchanges are brief, with questions lasting about 40 seconds. "We're not pushing people through," Freni says, "but we can make an adjustment."

Back in the security line at Logan, banker Russell Chong, 40, shrugs off the added security step as he heads to a flight home to New York City.

"No problem," he says with a wink, "as long as it doesn't slow things down."

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2011-10-13/Next-layer-of-air-security-Chat-downs-on-top-of-pat-downs/50757204/1

Florida hotel fires worker for wearing US flag pin

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Just before firing Sean May the day after he was sent home for wearing an American flag pin, the Casa Monica Hotel answered some questions in an email Friday.

"The Casa Monica Hotel located in St. Augustine, Florida, is an American-based, homegrown historic hotel," the email reads. "The property reflects its pride in America and great patriotism by flying the Stars and Stripes high over the hotel. The American flag greets every guest and employee with its symbolism of our belief in this great country."

"However, our employee handbook clearly states, 'No other buttons, badges, pins or insignias of any kind are permitted to be worn.' No matter an individual's national preference, political views or religious affiliation, it is a standard regulation which ensures equality for all Grand Performers (employees)."

The Casa Monica Hotel's response has angered many people, some who say the policy is backwards and that American flag pins shouldn't be banned but should be embraced.

"The dress code should include a lapel pin for everybody," said Bruce Whalen, who served in the Air Force and takes this incident personally.

Whalen said he is so offended by the hotel's policy that he's writing to the hotel, along with his entire email list, and he's calling on friends to boycott the hotel and its parent company.

"Anybody who takes a chance on his livelihood to take a stand for patriotism is a hero and should be treated like a hero," Whalen said.

May, the 26-year-old now-former front desk supervisor at Casa Monica Hotel in the heart of downtown St. Augustine, was told to take the pin off Thursday because it violates company policy, but he refused and was sent home.

St. Johns county Commissioner Mark Miner issued this statement on the issue:

"The Casa Monica Hotel and Kessler Enterprise certainly have the legal right to forbid their employees from wearing an American flag pin. However, their inability to discern between the flag of our nation and other pins and buttons that their policies forbid is of great concern to me. St. Johns County is home to nearly 20,000 military veterans and is made up of an ideologically and culturally diverse population whose collective love for the United States is second to none. I want to make clear that the actions taken by the Casa Monica Hotel and Kessler Enterprise do not represent the patriotism shared by St. Johns County residents and businesses."
"I hope Kessler Enterprise will act quickly to correct the disrespect they have shown the flag of our great nation and end the embarrassment they have brought upon St. Johns County."

Miner is a two-time veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and has been a member of the Florida Army National Guard since 2002.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/29487987/detail.html