TSA Withdraws Subpoenas Against Bloggers

In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used. Travel writer and photographer Steven Frischling, who was served with a subpoena by two TSA agents on Tuesday, told Threat Level that he received a phone call Thursday evening from John Drennan, deputy chief counsel for enforcement at TSA, telling him the administration was withdrawing its subpoena. Frischling was told the TSA would no longer be pursuing the investigation into how he received a security directive that he published on his personal blog, Flying with Fish, on Dec. 27. The administration told the Associated Press that its investigation was “nearing a successful conclusion and the subpoenas are no longer in effect.” Frischling, who writes another blog for KLM Dutch Royal Airlines, says Drennan apologized to him when he learned that the two TSA agents who visited him had threatened to get him fired from his KLM contract if he didn’t provide them with information about an anonymous source who sent him the security directive. “He was a bit taken aback when I was telling him about the heavy tactics that they were going to use to sever my contract with KLM,” Frischling says. Drennan also promised to make sure the administration resolved issues that Frischling has been having with his laptop ever since the agents seized it to image the hard drive. Frischling says the laptop was returned to him with “tons and tons of bad sectors” and a corrupt operating system. The audio on his computer has also stopped working, and a red light glows from the audio jack. “I can essentially use the computer, but I don’t know for how long,” he says. “Whoever did this thing, did it fast and dirty and not to my benefit.”...read more