how can congress fight back against this effort and the part of the obama administration to kill the armed pilots program? >> we're introduce a bill just to counter it right now. the program's remained static. we've had no new flight deck officers come on board. the federal light deck officer program not only being a stop the threat program, it is also a chief deterrent. the terrorists are going to think twice before they realize when they open that cockpit door they're going to have a very highly trained armed pilot behind them. what we need to do on the level of congress, we're introducing this bill. we will lobby hard on the hill for this program. when i've come to congress, i understand we're in a budget crunch. that's why this bill is fully offsetted for another program within the tsa for overage of personnel. this program is an essential part of the safety net program. we can lobby this on the hill. i think i can get a lot of

colleagues to sign this bill and push this bill on through. >> you mentioned that background checks were no longer being performed on pilots trying to get into the program. question, how long has that been going on and was that a function of defunding that aspect of the program or was it just an -- >> the next panel would be better to ask. as i understand it right now there's been a backlog because of the am of funds available that have been a backlog for getting new pilots into the program because of the background checks. background checks are expensive. we want to make sure that those that are flying the aircraft with a weapon should be doing just that. i strongly support having a full background check. but give us the funds to do it to make sure we can get -- maintain the program and increase it.

again, it is the least expensive program i think that's on the hill. i can't see any other program for $15 a flight segment to protect an aircraft from being used a as weapon of mass destruction. i don't want you to underestimate the deterrence that a federal flight deck officer has. just the sheer program itself knowing that there may be an armed highly trained armed pilot on that flight deck. what a cheap deterrent for a terrorist thinking about using a commercial airliner as a missile. >> don't underestimate that. if they see that the program is going to be cut in half, to them, that's a window of opportunity.

>> chan, as long as we have you here, i'd like to ask you a broader question about tsa. bureaucracy now has the a bigger budget than the fbi and has become one of the largest federal workforce. not just the federal flight deck program, could you give a broader assessment of tsa where you see it going in the future? where you see the things it should be doing? maybe things it shouldn't be doing, what the strengths are, what the weaknesses are? >> with any program there's strengths and weaknesses. the tsa is a highly valuable function. they do it well. one of the bills was very military people coming home on orders with their i.d. card are going to be treated like the heroes that they have and go

through an expedited screening process. the same type those with other frequent flier traveling programs. instead of having our troops coming home from afghanistan just trying to get home to their families, you see them in their stocking feet and t-shirts going through tsa. that's not how to treat our returning warriors. using risk based am sis so we can focus on the unknown or known risks and then allow those that are considered low risk to go through an expedited screening process. using that type of security basis, that is why it is absolutely imperative that we strengthen the safety net associated with it. that's why the ffdo program dollar per dollar is probably the most ektive way of doing this as a deterrent and also to stop the threat. >> thank you very much for your time, sir.

>> thank you, sir. >> pardon me. my name is mark wise, i'm currently with the spectrum group in washington. i used to be the deputy chairman of security for the pilots at american airlines and have worked with these gentlemen before. in the past, the ffdo program had always been treated as a really unwanted stepchild. it never really had the support from the tsa no matter what the administrator seemed to be. at this point in time, has the fam program becoming a little bit more robust, have they been more supportive of the ffdo program? >> in speaking with the fams, they realize the men and women that are federal air marshals they do a fantastic job.

they're on the road constantly. they have a very -- they have a tough life. and i respect highly what the fams do. please don't take away from this that i would want to cut the fam budget or disagree with the -- degrade what they do. i don't. they work in tandem. i do agree with your analysis. that the ffdo program was not embraced, shall we say by the tsa. that's why there is some discussion that i would like to see possibly in working within congress and taking the ftdo program out of the tsa and possibly putting it in the d.o.j. i think it might be the competing interest there might be alleviated. >> thank you.

>> thank you very much. >> thank you very having me. [ applause ] >> i'm very excited to introduce our panel. one thing that all these gentlemen have in common, unlike a lot of folks in washington, these guys have done this for a living. let me start, i'll just introduce them all right now in order and then we'll just ride down the row here and they can do their comments and turning it we'll open it up to the floor for questions and comments. al aiken is a retired marine

corp. lieutenant colonel. veteran pilot and a former pilot -- are you still active? >> i'm retired. >> from american airlines. and he was one of the founders and principal leaders in pushing for the establishment of the ffdo program. mike kern is the executive vice president of the federal flight deck officers association. and that is a trade association which nationally represents ftdos. he is a security director for the coalition of airline pilots association. the is the security chairman for the allied pilots association and he is also an american airline pilot and he's been flying for 14 years. and you're flying today. and tracy price is a commercial airline pilot for the past 25 years. 19 years as a boeing 737 captain for a major u.s. airline and who was a founding pilot and the chairman of a national organization that helped create

the ffdo program. here you have a wealth of experience in not just flying, but also with the program itself. i couldn't think of a better panel of experts and we'll start with that and just go in order. >> you want us up at the podium? >> it's really up to you guys. whichever you feel more comfortable. >> i'll just sit right here if that's okay with you. >> i'll give you a little more room, too. >> thanks very much. i'd like to discuss with you about the inception of the program, the history of it. i'll tell you that the obama administration has had an institutional hostility towards the concept of arming pilots and specifically the ffdo program since the very beginning. i was chairman of the washington pilots for the allied pilots association back in september of 2001. and after the air space reopened approximately four days later i was on one of the first flights out of washington for dallas for

our first board of directors meeting at which we set policy at the apa with a goal to arm as many of the united states commercial airline pilots as possible to defend against another repeat of the 9/11 attack. there were other concurrent efforts going on at the same time. the alpa leadership, the airline pilots association they represent over a different pilots from over a different airlines, some in the alpa leadership said we cannot be wyatt erp and sky king at the same time. the vast majority of the pilots disagreed with that. that resulted in the formation of a group called the airline pilots security alliance, apsa by a captain named bob guider. eventually my good friend captain tracy price became

president of that organization and grew it to well over 50,000 members about half of which were pilots, but the rest were just cooks and bottle washers from all over america who thought their pilots ought to be armed. at the same time senator bob smith from new hampshire with young brian darling working with him introduced legislation to arm america's airline pilots. that all results in the transportation security act of 2001 signed into law november 19th, 2001. that's the act that created the transportation security administration. here's what it said, the pilot of a passenger aircraft operated by an air carrier in air transportation or interstate air transportation is authorized to carry a firearm into the cockpit if the undersecretary, meaning

the tsa approves. if the airline approves, if the firearm is approved by the tsa and if the pilot ef receives proper training for use of that firearm. we went to work. several meetings with the tsa and several letters to secretary of transportation norm ma net ta fell on deaf ears. they didn't want to have a thing to do with us. in fact, the administrator said i will not allow pilots to be armed. that required a ten-month extensive lobbying effort with congressional members and staff and although some in the alpa leadership leaned towards a limited program with 2% pilot cap and a two-year sunset provision, that would certainly have killed the program very early on. an amendment by representative

defazio removed those limits and hr-3645 was passed 310-113 in the house of representatives. in the senate they always wanted a full blown program. although there was opposition there as well from the airline transport association. they sent a letter expressing their concerns against the program and they signed it by 21 airline ceos. then the -- then tsa administrator testified before congress with the same concerns almost identical to that ata letter. in spite of that the senate passed hr-5005 overwhelmingly. 90-9 with one absent. na established the department of homeland security and inside of it the arming pilots against

terrorism act, which mandated the ffdo program. here's its language. the under secretary for transportation for security shall establish a program to deputize volunteer pilots of air carriers from providing passenger air transportation. and it has some procedure alrequirements it set a deadline of three month for the the tsa to create the program and that same three months for them to start training pilots. now notice i said the word passenger. that hadn't been in the previous language. that got slipped in late one night just before passage which basically carved out the cargo operations. now let me ask you a question here, isn't the boeing 767 full of full and boxes just as lethal a weapon as a boeing 76 7 full of paermgs and fuel?

so we had to go circle back around around get the cargo pilots reinserted into that. it also required a three-month deadline for initiating the program. but the tsa actually took five months. in all the meetings that we had with the tsa administration helping them try to design this program they complained. in fact, the new administrator of tsa complained in one of our meetings he said we have such a short notice here. we only have three months. admiral, you've actually had 15 months. you decided not to create this program. they also refused to accept a database that we handed to them with 10,000 volunteer pilots on a cd that could have got them started contacting pilots and putting them into the program right away. they refused to accept it. they also refused to accept a program outline that we developed in concert with the

fbi. some agents in the fbi that had designed a cockpit protection program. they didn't want to have anything to do with that. we also started a professional standards program within the group of pilots that would eventually be armed and they ignored that. they were also hostile to the design of the program itself. and they designed it to discourage participation. they created excessive background checks that were redundant to the background checks that we already had just to become an airline pilot. checks with regard to security, financial and criminal background checks. their initial weapon choice was inaud kuwait. we called it the barney fife pistol because it was a six-shot revolver and we produced a video that showed them that that was inadequate to the job where we had an enactment of terrorist

actors that attacked the cockpit and we were not able to handle them with the six-shot revovrler or tasers they asked us to use. then we ended one a more appropriate weapon. also the carriage procedures that they designed were illogical and unsafe. they required us to transport the weapon kpet when we were in the cockpit. the dangerous is carriage on person, transport is in some sort of a bag or some other carriage method. no other law enforcement agency in the world carries transports their weapons in that fashion. the administration's continued institutional hostility towards the program continues to this day as we can see with the administration budget submission for 2013. they want to kill the program by cutting the funding in half. when the funding should be increased so that we can get more pilots into the program. we knew when we set out to

design this program that we would have to spend the rest of our careers to protect it. i've been retired for seven years and here i am again. i'll turn it over now to captain tracy price to talk to you about the current program. >> thank you, al. i appreciate it. i'm going to be brief. i'll make really three main points. i want everybody to understand that arming pilots is not a new idea. it's been going on for a long time. arming pilots is safe. and armed pilots -- arming pilots is an effective, extremely effective method of securing an airliner and it's irresponsible for the obama administration to propose to strangle this program to death. armed pilots -- pilots have been arm from the dawn of commercial aviation to present day with a brief interlude from 1987 to shortly after september 11th. it was during that brief

interlude that was the experimental dangerous period in which we saw the september 11th attacks. so understand that pilots were armed from the dawn of commercial aviation through 1987 there was no regulation, there was no training requirement and there was no incident. there's no record of incident or problem associated with pilots carrying guns for that long period of time for a series of silly reasons pilots were disarmed in 1987. we saw the results of that on september 11th. that was tin evidentable result of having a gun free zone or an undefended cockpit. we re-armed pilots in 2003, the first pilots were re-armed. the program has been extremely safe. the armed pilot program, or federal flight deck officer program has proven to be extremely safe. it's a large program. the third largest law

enforcement agency in the country. many armed pilots, the actual number is a classified the safety record rivals or is better than any other law enforcement agency in the country. armed pilots, there are all kinds of predictions when pilots were rearmed in -- after 9/11. there were all of these predictions of terrible host of consequences, pilots were going to get mad and shoot each other or were going to have accidental shootings. there were going to be all kinds of issues associated with the problems. none of that's happened. the arming pilots program has proven to be extremely safe, not surprisingly, airline pilots are stable, responsible people that we trust with our lives every time we get on an airplane. we can certainly trust them with a handgun.

the armed pilot program is, in fact, as has been discussed, the first line of deterrence and the last line of defense. if you're a terrorist group, the best day in history for you was september 11th of 2001. most successful attack in history probably of any terrorist group was that day. they'd love to repeat the performance. the fact that there are armed pilots, large numbers in cockpits that are unknown, nobody is exactly sure where they are provides an incredible deterrent, an effective deterrent that has caused terrorist groups to look to other ways to attack us. and that is proof that the armed pilot program is doing its primary function of deterring future attacks. that's our main goal. we want to create the -- raise the bar of difficulty to the

point where terrorists say you know what? we're not going to be able to use these airliners as weapons anymore. and we're going to look to other ways. and they have looked to other ways, and that needs to be addressed. but we've plugged that hole with the armed pilot program of taking -- of cockpit takeovers in the airplane then becoming a missile. last thing i want to point out is there's all -- a lot of discussion and secretary napolitano has kind of irresponsibly suggested that we can rely on the cockpit door, this new reinforced cockpit door that we have as the way to -- we can take away the pilots arms that pilots can be undefended as they were on september 11th of 2001 because we have this new cockpit door. there's no such thing as an impenetrable door. the new cockpit door that we have is better than the old one.

i will tell that you that door was in place when the first pilots were rearmed after september 11th. we got that new door almost immediately. but few were willing to bet the lives of hundreds of people on an airliner or thousands of people on the ground on that door not being breached. that's an irresponsible thing to suggest that we're going to bet the lives of thousands of people on a door holding up. and in fact, the door by necessity is opened in flight. it has to be. food and beverage service, bathroom breaks, and there are operational reasons why pilots have to open that door in flight. so it's a terrible, irresponsible assumption to make that we can just rely on this cockpit door and everything will be fine. that's a terrible dangerous game to play with the lives of americans on board airplanes,

airliners and on the ground. we've tried disarming pilots with disastrous results. that's the new kind of idea that we experimented with irresponsibly from '87 to shortly after 9/11. we saw the results of that when terrorists break in to a cockpit and find the pilots defenseless, there is no hope for the passengers on board that airplane. the armed pilot is the last resort, final line of defense that will save those people on board that airplane and possibly thousands on the ground. the u.s. military stands ready every day to destroy a commercial airliner filled with innocent passengers because the cockpit has been commandeered. it is irresponsible, it's the height of irresponsibility to not give those people on board that airplane the last resort,

final line of defense of an armed pilot in that cockpit. >> mike, i'm sorry. >> that's all right. >> what i'd like to do is touch on a few items in summary. and also point out a couple of things as we've walked along. there's a lot of assumptions with security. to assume that we're catching everything that's coming through through passenger screening, through cargo screening, through perimeter screening is simply a fallacy. daily, i get reports of different weapons, weapons found on aircraft from not only the member airlines of the capa, coalition of airline pilots association but from my brothers and sisters over at the airline pilots association as well. constantly. the system is porous. things are getting through. we need a backup. when we assume that the cockpit door will be the final line of defense and we take away that capability of the pilots to

defend and prevent that the airplane from becoming a weapon of mass destruction, we assume we are watching everything prior to that. there is not a system that will help us with that, that will do everything. we're more vigilant than we've been in the past but not invaluer fallible. to assume and take the weapons away from the pilots is to assume that in this case we've caught everything up to the cockpit door and we're not doing it. we have one incident where an off-duty ffdo in the last year, i'm speaking vaguely on purpose, was able to stop an individual from attempting to breach the cockpit door. our federal flight deck officer was present on that aircraft. i'm not going to mention what airline he was with. but had the presence of mind to intercede in that situation and subdue the individual. for the cost of $15 a flight, $15 a flight, we have an extra layer of security on there.

an extra layer to protect us. nobody caught this in screening, nobody was aware this person was going to attempt to do that. and yet now we're talking about taking the weapons away from pilots and assuming that we caught everything. we already have evidence to the contrary. we have evidence also that in the last few years that terrorists have considered the fact that pilots are armed. there are several reports as terrorists consider ways of assaulting the united states they also consider that pilots are armed. that is a deterrent to them. there are facts out there that prove that that can't be revealed here. based on that for the obama administration to look at this program and cut it in half is simply irresponsible. to assume security is not porous is irresponsible. this program is effective. a couple of things that haven't been mentioned, it was noted pilots would be able to participate in this program at

no cost. we have figured on average a pilot spends over $10,000 of their own money to participate in the program. over a six-year period. if you compare that $10,000 of their own money to take time away from home, to drop a trip, they are no longer paid for a trip, to pay for their travel, their training, that's to pay to go to the requalification, pay for their own ammunition. all of these things are carried by the pilot. when you take that $10,000 and you multiply it time the number of pilots, it's over $400 million, well above $400 million. compare that to the $22 million that the federal government spends for the program, the pilots are paying over 400 million to participate in the program. recently as of this year, they ran out of money to bring any more pilots for the program. there's over 700 pilots waiting to participate to spend 10,000

of their own money to be the last line of defense for this country. and they're being told, no, we don't need you. in fact, we're going to cut the budget back. we are cutting the budget back due to the program. there are several requirements for flight deck officers to participate. they have to requalify with their firearm every six months. they have to go to a recurring training protocol for two days. this would reduce the number of facilities, increase the cost of the federal flight deck officers, limit the number of federal flight deck officers simply by cutting this budget. consider what i said. $10,000 per pilot is what they are spending over six years. if you were to do a bar graph and look at the graph, the amount of money being spent to participate to be this last line of defense is enormous. the federal government is spending to run the program is incredibly small compared to that. why wouldn't you take these people? why would you not want these pilots armed?