Republican House refuses to PROTECT AIRLINES ! ! !

[JRob]

I watched yesterday on CSPAN as Christopher Cox and the Republican House rubber stamped every Republican amendment (to HR 1817) and systematically voted down every Dem amendment - MOST NOTABLE - an amendment that would have provided legislation and money to scan freight on our airliners etc. which (of course like our sea ports) remain completely unchecked and wide open to anyone, still.

Even after impassioned vivid points were made were made again and again by Dem speakers. Cox snickered and poo=pooed the amendment. One illustration (by a Mass Dem.) was a small box , smaller than a shoe box that could easily hold enough explosive material to bring down several planes was held up. Packages of this size do not get screened… ever. (see links below)

My wife is a flight attendant...

After it was over I wrote to the cavalier Republican Rep. Christopher Cox http://cox.house.gov/

My letter:

Having just listened to your speech as to why you are against the amendment to HR 1817 which would provide funding and a time line on the screening of all airline baggage and freight, what do you say to someone who has a loved one that travels regularly or works as flight crew as does my wife? Imagine how vivid the possibilities are to people like us and the unnecessary tragedy that one incident might represent. We’ve watched billions get spent since 9/11; our friends and coworkers lost their lives that day. It seems that there must exist, somewhere in government the motivation and money to protect the public. No “pork” just legislation and funding that assures that our airliners and all forms of transportation are safe.


REPS. MARKEY, SHAYS, MALONEY PUSH FOR CARGO SCREENING ON PASSENGER PLANES
http://www.house.gov/shays/news/2005/may/mayscreen.htm

Washington, D.C. - Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA) and Christopher Shays (R-CT), senior members of the Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Co-Chair with Shays of the 9/11 Caucus, today announced their intention to offer amendments to the Department of Homeland Security’s authorization bill to require the inspection of all cargo before it is transported on passenger planes. Currently, almost none of the cargo carried on passenger planes is inspected for explosives or other dangerous materials prior to being loaded onboard.

The lawmakers were joined at a press conference today by representatives of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, the Association of Flight Attendants and Mary Fetchet, Founder of Voices of September 11th, Mother of Brad, 24.


Lawmakers debate security of airline cargo
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2003
http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/031116/cargo.shtml

Failures in airline cargo security reported
05/22/2002 - Updated 10:32 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002/05/22/lede-cargo.htm

[silverweb]

1. I will not fly.

Only some kind of extreme family emergency could induce me to get onto a plane again at this point.

The reTHUGs don't really give a damn about our safety. They only mouth the words as an excuse to force more draconian controls and restrictions on us. They are the ones who hate us for our (former) freedoms!

[JRob]

7. If not for our Medical Insurance

My wife would have quit years ago...

[Ysolde]

2. OMG!

How can these people look themselves in the mirror? We're going to strip search passengers, but ignore the vast majority of the cargo hold? This was the exact problem that I got into an argument with my stepdad over. Tell me I'm dreaming and I'll wake up and this will all have been a nightmare. Please?

:banghead:

[FreedomAngel82]

6. Of course

I'm not surprised. It's all "busy" work. They don't want to protect us.

[DemoTex]

3. They need body count to act.

In 1987 an American Airlines MD-80 made an emergency landing at Nashville with a cargo compartment fire melting and buckling the cabin floor. The passengers were evacuated as the aircraft burned on the runway. In flight, that MD-80 was seconds away from disaster.

The NTSB, as a result of that American Airlines incident, recommended that all passenger-carrying airliners be equipped (or retro-fitted) with a cargo compartment fire detection and suppression system. The airline lobby (rat-bastards, all) argued that such a system was not needed (not "cost-effective" although 156 passengers and crew almost died that day on that burning MD-80). The NTSB recommendation (like many, many other NTSB recommendations) was not acted on and slipped down the proverbial memory hole.

Then at about 2:30 pm EDT on May 11, 1996, ValuJet 592, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-9-32, crashed in the Everglades northwest of Miami. A raging fire in the cargo compartment went undetected until it was too late. The 110 passengers and crew on that DC-9 probably died before the impact, from fire and toxic smoke. They never had a chance. Had that DC-9 been equipped with a cargo compartment fire detection and suppression system, May 11 would have probably been nothing more than an inconvenience for those 110 people.

ValuJet 592 was the body count that it takes to get anything done about airline safety in Washington D.C.. The NTSB again recommended fire detection and suppression systems for cargo compartments and in the politically charged environment of the situation those systems were mandated.

[JRob]

9. Truer words... n/t

[KansDem]

4. Typical Republican values...

They don't want to scan freight coming through our ports, but sure as Hell will scan our genitalia with high-tech gadgets as we board an airplane

Republicans:
Scan freight at ports--no-no
Scan genitalia at airports--YEE-HAW!

[JRob]

10. Values ? ! Republican Politics ? ! Isn't that an Oxymoron ?

[DulceDecorum]

5. Bring out yer dead.

http://bushwatch.org/gravedigger.htm

[JRob]

11. nice site n/t

[gratuitous]

8. After the next explosion . . .

Cox will probably be in the vanguard of the Republican Thunderers, screaming to high heaven about how he wanted to enhance airline security, but those darned Democrats kept offering amendments and sullying the purity and the elegant design of the legislation the Republicans wanted to offer, but were thwarted. So, naturally, it will be all the Democrats' fault.