Sender: <marv@lancaironline.net>
To:  lml@lancaironline.net
Date: Wed, 28 May 2014 14:14:19 -0400
Message-ID: <redirect-6909240@logan.com>
Received-SPF: pass
 receiver=logan.com; client-ip=204.186.29.65; envelope-from=liegner@ptd.net
From: jeffrey liegner <liegner@ptd.net>
In-Reply-To: <987464567.25364250.1401279201603.JavaMail.zimbra@ptd.net>
Subject: NPR: After Private Pilots Complain, Customs Rethinks Intercept
 Policy
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Thread-Topic: After Private Pilots Complain, Customs Rethinks Intercept Policy
Thread-Index: L/OEPt0jD3CvLRYC49QdJeQhNs0xww==


http://www.npr.org/2014/05/28/316319441/after-private-pilots-complain-custo=
ms-rethinks-intercept-policy

NPR: After Private Pilots Complain, Customs Rethinks Intercept Policy

audio: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=3D1&t=3D1&islis=
t=3Dfalse&id=3D316319441&m=3D316552677

Federal border security agents have sharply reduced intercepts of general a=
viation aircraft, following complaints by pilots that excessive police acti=
on at small airports is restricting the freedom to fly.

An official with U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Air and Mar=
ine Operations told NPR his agency has heard pilots' grievances and the pro=
gram is being altered so as not to needlessly affront law-abiding pilots.

In recent years, more and more pilots have reported their aircraft stopped =
for warrantless searches by aggressive officers.

Stopping Grandma And Grandpa

Tom and Bonnie Lewis love to fly airplanes so much that they live in a resi=
dential airpark near Fort Worth, Texas, where their garage is a hangar.

Two years ago, they packed their bags, loaded them into the airplane, and t=
ook off for Nashua, N.H., to visit their daughter and her family. Mid-route=
, they stopped at an airport in Frankfort, Ky., to refuel and spend the nig=
ht, when they noticed that a small jet had landed directly behind them, wit=
h no radio communication.

Four federal agents shouldering assault rifles scrambled out of the jet and=
 surrounded the Lewis's little two-seater plane, asking for IDs.

"Asking where we'd been, basically checking us out," says Tom Lewis. "It di=
dn't take them too long to figure out they had grandma and grandpa that wer=
e taking a trip to New Hampshire to visit the grandkids."

He says the CBP agents were courteous and professional.

After they realized the bewildered, gray-haired couple were not drug smuggl=
ers, they lightened up. The officers said they'd taken off from a base in M=
ichigan and chased the red-and-white, aluminum airplane across the country =
because it was flying a known drug air route from Texas to the northeast. T=
om Lewis thinks this is absolute nonsense.

"It's a growing infringement of our freedoms as Americans to travel within =
the country without fear of being stopped and inspected every time we turn =
around," he says.

Exasperated pilots say incidents like this, in which law enforcement offici=
als stop and request to search a private aircraft without a warrant, are no=
t isolated.

But according to the agency, the problem is being fixed.

Trying To Be More Judicious

Eddie Young, deputy assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection=
 for Air and Marine Operations, says they have taken new steps to preserve =
good relations with the general aviation community.=20
He says his agents are calling police on private pilots less often, and are=
 more judicious in how they choose their targets.

He tells NPR that in some cases local police departments, acting on a CBP t=
ip, have responded to a suspect aircraft with excessive show of force.

In one case last December, a private pilot drove away from the Lansing, Mic=
h., airport after landing his small plane there. He was surrounded by 25 po=
lice vehicles containing 40 officers, some with guns drawn. Their explanati=
on: Homeland Security flagged his plane as suspicious.

"When we do make a mistake and we come up against somebody that necessarily=
 didn't need to be, I think that's where we do our best to ensure that we d=
on't repeat those mistakes again," Young says.

According to the FAA, there are more than 7 million personal, instructional=
 or business flights a year of about two hours each. CBP operates a sophist=
icated air and marine tracking center in Riverside, Calif., that watches th=
ousands of these flights every day. If one looks suspicious because it's fl=
ying a strange route or it looks like it's trying to evade radar, agents ca=
n alert local law enforcement.

Young says since Jan. 1, CBP has researched 474 flights and made law enforc=
ement contacts with 25 pilots on the ground, resulting in eight violations:=
 seven criminal and one an FAA violation.

"A 32-percent success rate is not bad in the law enforcement community," Yo=
ung says.

Stopping Without Reasonable Cause

It's the other 68 percent of cases that have angered fliers, says Mark Bake=
r, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, a group with 35=
0,000 members. He says 54 pilots in his organization have reported police c=
onfrontations at airports in the last two to three years.

"You get a call from the feds that you may have illegal activity around thi=
s aircraft, they get pretty excitable at these local airports," Baker says.=
 "Certainly in many of these cases they have overreached what we consider t=
o be the due process."

It was Baker's meeting with top CBP officials last month that prompted the =
decrease in aircraft intercepts.

One of the incidents reported to the pilots' association happened to a 36-y=
ear-old mechanical engineer, who was taking a fishing trip with his brother=
 and their three kids to the Texas gulf coast.

Zimmermann flew from his home in San Antonio to the sleepy municipal airpor=
t in Rockport, where they were met by local police in body armor; they said=
 they got a tip from CBP that this was a drug plane. Zimmermann was told to=
 keep his hands in the air =E2=80=94 in front of his children =E2=80=94 whi=
le the officer checked his FAA papers.

It was the second time Zimmermann had a law enforcement encounter at an air=
port.

"These are, in my opinion, unconstitutional stops and searches of pilots," =
Zimmermann says. "It's no different than them stopping you in your car and =
asking to search your car for no reason, no probable cause, nothing, going =
anywhere. Most citizens, I don't believe, would tolerate that for very long=
. Why should the flying community?"

Young says his agency is designated as the nation's guardian of the skies, =
but it is trying to do a better job balancing the civil liberties of pilots=
 with the demands of law enforcement.

The pilots association responds that it appreciates the agency's efforts to=
 bring these "overzealous encounters to an end," but pilots are keeping a w=
ary eye out for armed cops asking to search their airplanes.