TSA: Keeping you safe
From bloggers:
As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.
TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.
Via insty.
December 31st, 2009 at 11:24 am
How can the TSA do that? I didn’t think they had law enforcement powers.
December 31st, 2009 at 12:29 pm
In the rules when created there is one about documents that are not for the general public and are to be released only on apporval, which this did not have.
The bloggers are on thin ground, but there are questions that should be answered. As news providers they should not be required by law to reveal the source. However if the TSA is able to get a court to say that a blogger is not a source of news, just think of the trouble that could cause.
Do not forget the TSA is a federal agency with police type powers. Other wise agents could not be armed nor could they search and detain you againest your will.
December 31st, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Just make sure that they check the bloggers’ feminine undergarments before detaining them. We wouldn’t want more egg on the TSA face.
January 1st, 2010 at 11:31 pm
There’s a very big difference between a subpoena and a warrant. Seems to this practitioner, the TSA lawyer and his very special agents went to great lengths to confuse the bloggers into thinking they were being hit with warrants. The fact that the agents took a computer from someone’s house while they were “serving” a subpoena (I and every other lawyer on earth just send subpoenas by certified mail), tells me someone at TSA is cruising for a very big ethics bruising.
January 1st, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Sorry, when I said “someone at TSA,” I meant Dan Kurtz, the attorney who signed said subpoenas and authorized Federal agents to “serve” them. Mr. Kurtz should be facing Rule 11 sanctions, at a minimum, for sending Federal agents into someone’s home armed with only a subpoena and instructions to take the person’s computer.
Dan Kurtz.