U.S. Begins Tighter Flight School Checks------BEGINS!?!?!?!?!?

[Bluebear]

WASHINGTON - The federal government has begun conducting background checks on all foreigners seeking to attend U.S. flight schools, the Transportation Security Administration said Friday.


The expanded security measures, aimed in part at preventing potential terrorists from taking pilot lessons here as some of the Sept. 11 hijackers did, now apply to any foreigner seeking flight training in the United States, not just those learning to fly larger aircraft. As well, those who want to attend flight school for a second time — for certification to fly a different classification of aircraft, for example — will need to have their backgrounds checked again.

Previously, only those training on aircraft weighing 12,500 pounds or more had their backgrounds checked.

"Fortifying security by knowing who trains at these schools is an integral part of our mission to secure the homeland," said TSA chief David Stone, whose agency expanded the pool to include smaller aircraft on Wednesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041022/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/tsa_flight_schools_1

[aden_nak]

1. They needed time to come up with a color coded alert system first.

[Bluebear]

2. Condi Rice says she needed to know what terrorists from what country...

were applying before she could do anything. No one could imagine.

[aden_nak]

3. I'm so sick of that "no one could imagine" bullshit.

Plenty of people imagined it. CIA spooks imagined it years before it happened. The people TRACKING the hijackers should have imagined it when they saw they were going to flight school. Hell, Chris Carter imagined it and made it the plot of the pilot episode of The Lone Gunman (specificly, the plot concerned using a remote control device to FLY A 767 INTO THE TWIN TOWERS).

I can imagine her ass rotting in a jail cell.

But then again, I have a vivid imagination.

[delete_bush]

4. This is amazing,

considering states require a fairly extensive background check anymore for such homeland security threats as teaching and real estate.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. I repeat -- Begins???

[DemBones DemBones]

6. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! What took them THREE YEARS?!?!?!?!!!

I hope John Kerry brings this up in speeches and it hits the media bigtime.

For three years they've been frisking airline passengers, now they've even started feeling women's breasts, plus making people take off their shoes, making people in wheelchairs stand up, etc., but they weren't doing anything about flight schools?

MORONS!!!

[nonconformist]

7. Bush makes me feel so safe and fuzzy. Such vision... such leadership. nt