One thing, at least, you can deduce from today’s Good Morning America appearance by Chris Liu, the Sacramento-area pilot who’s in dutch with the TSA for posting a YouTube video about security lapses at SFO:
Neither the airlines nor the pilots union provides media training.
After the previously anonymous Liu surfaced on News10 Sacramento yesterday (see video here) to tell his side of the tale, he went national this morning on GMA. After defending himself by saying, “I didn’t think anyone was watching YouTube” — sort of a remarkable comment — Liu pawned off one question on his lawyer, also appearing on the show. Liu then repeated the point that posting the video on YouTube was “fairly innocuous,” followed by his lawyer intercepting another question. Finally, Liu once more asked the attorney to make a point he didn’t seem to want to press himself.
The guy may have a point and all the good intentions in the world, but I’m just sayin’…awk-ward!
Liu is clearly not of the mind to make nice with the government. Here’s his web site, called The Patriot Pilot, on which he lambastes the TSA for its incompetence and for threatening to punish him.
Unfortunately, some in the Government, such as TSA, have worked overtime to try and convince us that we are safe, when we, in fact, know that we are not. How can TSA claim that air travel is safe when they can’t even keep thousands of pounds of marijuana and hundreds of pounds of cocaine off our commercial aircraft as shown in the arrest in Puerto Rico in October 2010? They can’t and punishing the Patriot Pilot is not going to make the sky’s any safer, either. Punishing the Patriot Pilot only serves to remind each of us that we are not free to seek redress from our Government as provided for in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Your move, TSA…