“About a decade ago, the FAA developed a plan to address the understaffing at N90 (and perhaps regain some level of management control). The idea was to shift responsibility for approaches and departures for the five New Jersey airports to a well-staffed facility in Philadelphia. This would ease the extent of the controller shortage at N90, by reducing the air traffic they manage by about one-third.
The controllers’ union branch at N90 declared war on the plan, backed by Schumer and his New York congressional allies. So it sat on the shelf for years—until a new FAA Administrator, Mike Whittaker, took office last year. Additional discussions with airlines and the national controllers’ union leadership led to agreement (at last) on this sensible reform, set to take effect on July 28, 2024. On July 17, 17 controllers who’d been slated to transfer to Philadelphia refused to relocate. But 14 others volunteered, and another 10 agreed to a temporary relocation to assist in training the Philly controllers. The airlines (and I) breathed a sigh of relief. This long-standing problem was on the way to being solved, though it would take a few years to get Philly fully up to speed.
But—wouldn’t you know it—on August 2, Schumer, along with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) and five House members from New York, sent the FAA a letter demanding the plan be rescinded. Airlines serving the three main N.Y./N.J. airports support the plan, knowing that it will take a year or two before the transition is completed and FAA flight restrictions can be lifted. A senior airline executive told Politico, “Doing nothing to fix the most chronically understaffed and also busiest airspace in the system was not an option. Long-term, this is the most effective solution.”
Most Americans are unaware that this kind of political meddling is rare in most developed countries. Since 1987, more than 60 countries have depoliticized their air traffic control systems. Instead of being part of a government transportation agency funded by the legislative body, these systems have been converted into self-supporting public utilities. They charge airlines and business jets for their services and can issue revenue bonds to finance facility replacements or expansions. (In contrast, the FAA depends solely on whatever Congress appropriates each year and is not allowed to issue bonds.)
Freeing U.S. airspace from political micromanagement has been proposed many times over the past 50 years but has never come close to happening. The latest effort (between 2016 and 2018) got an air traffic corporation bill through the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, but it went no further. The large coalition (airlines, controllers’ unions, pilots’ unions, and others) that got us that far no longer exists. But someday, our anachronistic system of managing air traffic will be depoliticized as a self-supporting air traffic utility. Perhaps then it can build its way back to being the world’s best, instead of just the world’s largest, air traffic management system.”
https://reason.com/2024/08/23/how-political-meddling-in-new-york-and-new-jersey-causes-airline-delays-in-the-entire-u-s/
“after a successful test run at New York’s JFK Airport, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pursuing talks with airlines and port authorities to start collecting samples from long-haul international flights’ wastewater after they land.”
“”Traveling with cash is not a crime,” notes Institute for Justice senior attorney Dan Alban. “People regularly fly with large amounts of cash for a wide variety of completely legitimate reasons related to their business or personal finances. Allowing authorities to take air travelers’ cash without a criminal conviction, simply because they have a large sum of money, is a blatant violation of their rights. This will lead to innocent people losing their money and is a massive step in the wrong direction by Michigan lawmakers.”
As Rep. Filler (R–DeWitt) tells it, Michigan’s civil forfeiture reforms, which legislators enacted in 2015, 2017, and 2019 after hearing testimony about greedy cops who indiscriminately stole people’s property, invited drug traffickers to carry their ill-gotten gains into and out of Michigan with impunity. “Drug trafficking will not be tolerated in Michigan,” Filler says. “The men and women who keep our airports secure need to have the proper authority to keep drugs and drug money out of our state—and this reform gives them the tools they need to get the job done.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, signed “this reform” into law last week. H.B. 4631, which Filler sponsored, makes an exception to a law requiring a criminal conviction before a forfeiture can be completed. It says that requirement does not apply to airport seizures of cash or other property worth more than $20,000. H.B. 4632, which was sponsored by Rep. Alex Garza (D–Taylor), eliminates a property owner’s right to seek a stay of forfeiture proceedings in such cases pending the outcome of a related criminal case.”
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“Forfeiture affidavits routinely employ vague boilerplate that falls far short of establishing the criminal nexus they allege. This guy was carrying a lot of money, they say, and we suspect it is connected to drug trafficking. He bought a one-way ticket, and he seemed nervous when we grilled him, which reinforced our impression that he must be a drug dealer. Maybe the money came from selling drugs, or maybe it was intended to buy drugs. Either way, we want to keep it.
In Michigan, law enforcement agencies generally get to keep 90 percent of the proceeds from forfeitures they initiate, which is even more generous than the 80 percent they can expect from forfeitures “adopted” by the Justice Department through its “equitable sharing” program. That is a strong motive to claim that large sums of cash are connected to drug trafficking, even when there is little reason to believe that is true. The results of such perverse financial incentives are apparent in one case after another where cops seized an innocent person’s hard-earned money because they assumed he had no legitimate reason to have it.”
“The TSA blog carries constant reports of weapons confiscated from people who forgot to remove them from carry-on bags. But the Homeland Security Red Teams in the 2015 test actively concealed forbidden items just as real criminals and terrorist would. The result was that “TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.”
Two years later, a Red Team test at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport achieved the same 95 percent failure rate to detect explosives, weapons, and illegal drugs. Repeat national tests in 2017 also went badly, “in the ballpark” of an 80 percent failure rate.”