You Try to Do the Right Thing...

...and this is what you get.

This is what I just got from Stephanie Curtis, the correspondence program manager of the Transportation Security Administration. I spent almost 15 minutes downloading Adobe Acrobat for this shit?

Office of the Assistant Secretary

U.S. Department of Homeland Security
60 I South 12th Street
Arlington, VA 22202-4220

Transportation

MAR 23 2009

Security
Administration

Mr. Robert Crawford
crawman2@yahoo.com

Dear Mr. Crawford:

Thank you for your e-mail of February 18,2009, regarding Mr. Hal Turner, who you believe may be a threat to national security, and your suggestion that he be placed on the No-Fly List.

As part of its airport security procedures, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requires airlines to verify the identity of all passengers to ensure that persons on Federal watch lists who are known to pose, or are suspected of posing, a threat to civil aviation or national security receive secondary screening or are denied boarding on commercial aircraft. The Federal watch lists are maintained by the U.S. Terrorist Screening Center in a consolidated Terrorist Screening Database, and are compiled from information provided by Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The Federal watch lists include a No-Fly List and a Selectee List. Individuals on the No-Fly List are prohibited from traveling on commercial aircraft. Individuals on the Selectee List are permitted to fly but receive secondary screening at airport security checkpoints.

DHS can neither confirm nor deny whether an individual is on a Federal watch list because this information is derived from classified and sensitive law enforcement and intelligence information.

We appreciate that you took the time to share your concerns with us. I hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely yours,

Stephanie M. Curtis
Correspondence Program Manager
Office of the Executive Secretariat

Figures. After beating my head against a brick wall for over four years, this is how I go out. Not with a bang but a whimper.

These clueless boobs at Homeland Security are busy giving me the runaround, telling me essentially that it's none of your business to know who's on the list, why or even whether or not you're on it.

What's lost in Ms. Curtis is that I was not asking whether or not Turner ought to be put on either their No Fly or Selectee lists ("Selectee"! How pleasant-sounding, huh? Kind of sounds like a preapproved gold or platinum card membership, doesn't it?). In fact, I wasn't asking for confirmation when I'd written them over a month ago as to whether or not Homicide Harry had made the grade. All I wanted was some proof that they were seriously addressing my very real concerns that he was openly publishing on his blog instructions on how to make ricin and smuggling it on board some public transportation.

Obviously, that's not enough even when you provide proof in the form of hyperlinks that Turner could, conceivably, either pose a risk to national security or convince someone in his phantom army of neonazi psychopaths to do so on his behalf.

Coincidentally enough, I also today got an email, if you want to call it that, from Congressman Paul Butterfield:

Dear Mr. Crawford:

Thank you for taking the time to share your views. I assure you that your thoughts or concerns on this issue have been taken into account. There is much more work to be done in this Congress over the coming months. As we discuss, debate, and vote on this and other similar issues, I will keep your correspondence in mind.

Thank you, again, for your letter and for the privilege of serving you in Washington.

This man plainly has no idea in this catch-all piece of boilerplate what I'm talking about let alone know that I am not in his district or even in his state.

You try to do the right thing instead of sitting on your hands and waiting for the results to show up on the 6 o'clock news and this is what you get from bureaucrats who plainly don't know their asses from their elbows. Bureaucrats who regularly ignore potentially dangerous morons like Turner while putting people like Ted Kennedy and Bush's Brain co-author James Moore on their watch lists.

I just don't want these idiots knocking on my door (whereever I'll end up in 48 hours) if and when Turner's threats are solidified into tragic action.