Originally Posted by Bucking Bar

Last week one of the other guests at the B&B my wife and I stayed at was the head of the airport Police at one of the 5 largest airports in the US. He said TSA gets "atta boys" and recognition for promotion for busting drunk pilots and locating drugs.

He complained that most "drunk" pilots aren't drunk, just the effects of weird sleep hours and 04:30 duty ins. He also complained that the TSA wants them to arrest passengers for very small amounts of drugs, like personal use marijuana, which is a huge problem for them due to the amount of paperwork and control that goes into the Police taking possession of the contraband and handling a drug arrest. It said it was something like 4 hours of work for the simple guy with a joint arrest.

He had refused to arrest a "drunk pilot" at Security thinking the pilot had not done anything until he sat down at the controls and physically took control of the jet. Another Officer arrested the pilot and that pilot is now in jail for ten years.

Pilots should have the Federal rules enforced as applicable to their Certificate, but what bothers me is the Federal rules are enforced, THEN the pilot is prosecuted under State law. IMHO this is being prosecuted twice for the same crime, which is a violation of the Constitution and basic Civil Rights in places as freedom loving as India and Mexico. However in the goold ol' US of A our 5th Amendment is ignored under a principle called "separate sovereigns" which means the State and the Federal government are separate sovereign powers with independent Courts and Jurisdiction.

Now the Federal and State government did not seek to prosecute Timothy McVeigh for blowing up a building and killing at least eight people, but let some guy show up for work without having fully metabolized the previous night's action and the Federal Government will take immediate action without due process (as is allowed with our Certificates on an emergency basis) AND the State and or County and or City Governments will pile on with violation of whatever State and Local Ordinances they have to pursue.

The cases are "sexy" and get some Press coverage while being easy to Prosecute. A junior loser D.A. dreams of opportunities like destroying any one of our careers and families.

The "be careful out there" goes double for pilots, because pilots are targeted and will be prosecuted, once, then again, then again ... .