Air marshals say service roiled with cronyism, chaos

Despite calls from President Obama to beef up the program designed to provide security aboard U.S. flights, the Federal Air Marshal Service is in disarray, a CNN investigation has found. In more than a dozen interviews across the country, air marshals said the agency is rife with cronyism; age, gender and racial discrimination; and attempts by managers to make the agency appear more efficient than it is by padding numbers. Air marshals describe an agency in chaos, where bored and frustrated marshals focus more on internal squabbles than watching for bad guys. The marshals refused to let their identities be known, for fear of retaliation in an agency that is driven, they say, by intimidation and favoritism. International flights are considered to have the highest risk. However, air marshals from a half dozen FAMS field offices said the agency continues to assign marshals to short, regional routes on small jets. The marshals told CNN that lots of short-haul flights make the agency look more productive on paper. Rep. John Duncan, R-Tennessee, is one of FAMS' harshest critics. "It's just a total waste of money," he told CNN in a 4recent interview. "I had the statistic from last year," the Republican said. "They made four arrests for an appropriation of $800 million. It came out to more than $200 million per arrest. It's just ridiculous."...read more