Yes, Virginia, the TSA is now making screeners air marshals. Chris Strohm, reporting for Government Executive, reveals the official number. "According to TSA, 36 screeners, have become air marshals."

Strohm also cites a quote from Kip Hawley to members of Congress that is appalling. Even Hawley can't wrap his brain around a Screener becoming an air marshal. Note how he calls the new air marshal a TSO.

"Trust me, you do not want to mess with those guys," Hawley said. "Anybody who messes with a flight having a TSO on it who is now an air marshal will be dead." 

And as far as the appropriateness of Hawley's your "dead" if you mess with a TSO — oops air marshal — bravado, please read "Terror on the Tarmac." I report the story of what happened to an entirely-innocent airline passenger named Jerry Wynn after he was mis-identified as being a terror suspect and subsequently man handled by FBI agents at Raleigh-Durham Airport last September.  

Hawley's look-out-or-your-dead comments remind us that the TSA is an agency in a free-fall. 

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