MacLean told FlyersRights that the Federal Air Marshal Program (FAM) should never have become an agency in the first place, but remained a detail - ideally made up of federal and local police working as FAM reservists who would be deployed when there is a specific threat.
FR: So, the FAM program is a waste of resources and doesn't provide needed security?
RM: "For the most part. Why isn't every aircraft outfitted with secondary barriers, tasers and restraint systems to control unruly passengers, and install a remote-locked modified shotgun into every flight deck? A short, pistol-gripped, scatter-pellet, pump-action shotgun is EVERY flight deck is much more effective and less hazardous than the .40 cal. handguns too few pilots carry because they have to pay to fly and lodge for the one week of mandatory TSA training. A firearms instructor can teach you how to pump, point, and shoot a scatter-gun in one hour.
Congress needs to pass a law to indemnify hero passengers. Passengers right now are hesitant to act believing there's an air marshal team on board. Google: '
unruly passenger air marshal arrest', why isn't anyone alarmed that an unruly passenger may be a terrorist ruse to ambush an air marshal overly anxious to make his/her first arrest ever after hundreds of missions without incident?"
FR: Are air marshals leaving because they feel the agency is not protecting them as the National Review says, or are they being pushed out to save costs?
RM: "I believe they want to flush out the street-experienced law enforcement officers and hire a bunch of very young yes-men who they can pay significantly less. After three years of being seated and maxed-out in their career field, air marshals can become disgruntled and hard to contain their frustration. An air marshal should have at least five years of street or military experience before planted into a chair only to wait for something that may never happen."
FR: $820 million is spent annually on the Federal Air Marshal program. So you're saying it's better to outfit aircraft with other barriers, i.e. tasers and firearms in the flight deck with NO air marshal onboard?
RM: "Do you really think terrorists are planning to have a gun fight as their attack? The principal threat are hidden bombs. For the "Hollywood doomsday scenario" of a airborne gun-battle: the pilots should have the ability to depressurize the cabin and put to sleep a hyperventilating, tachycardia killer with a gun."
FR: Then why was the FAM program ever invented, if it is unnecessary to thwart an attack?
RM: "It made many retired Secret Service agents very financially comfortable able to collect collect second federal check -- a nice reward for protecting past presidents. The program also made a lot of contractors wealthy, who in turn would hire retired Secret Service-to-TSA executives: "the revolving door."
FR: Lastly, what do you think of TSA's new data-mining program behind PreCheck?
RM: "It's very encouraging. You may not like what I say, but I believe passengers must surrender most of their 4th Amendment rights to fly in a missile of mass destruction. I'm terribly paranoid of a bomb being smuggled or 'muled' into a jet. I strongly believe that if you need that extra privacy, then you should not fly in a crowded tube, 40,000 feet up, at 500 miles per hour.
I do believe in some form of FAM program, but done as a reserve one open to local police. Let's say there's a Tokyo/Seattle threat, you can quickly deploy 100 Seattle area police and sheriff's deputies to fly that route."
Recently I spent many hours with congressional staffers to
address the misappropriation of tax money that the public thinks it's protecting inflight security -- I opened up many eyes very wide."
