"Peter R." wrote in message
news

Syracuse is owned by the city.

Looks like another mere window dressing move to appease the non-flying
masses. Does anyone really think it will prevent a terrorist act? Of
course,
coming from the same state where the governor is pushing to issue drivers'
licenses to illegal immigrants, anything is possible.

What is AOPA saying about the new security requirement there?

They (Cebula) were in the building but the meeting I went to were only open
to the folks that took the security "training" online and were in line to
get a badge. There was a group of pilots who refused to give their SS# so
AOPA held another meeting for them in another room. They've admitted that
the TSA's items of interest were aircraft over 12,500 lbs. Since there is no
way to segregate those aircraft, they declared an entire perimeter a SIDA
(Secure Identification Display Area).

They were pretty slick. About 4 months ago, they held a meeting to say that
they will badge everyone who has access to an airplane and flat-out deny
vehicle access. The uproar was over the vehicle access so they met with the
pilot groups (one represented by AOPA) and worked out a deal where we pay
$100/year/vehicle to help defray costs of the gate access. No one objected
to the badging in general--no one. This is out of about 200 people who
showed up at that first meeting.

To be honest, as an aircraft owner, I would not want strangers roaming a
ramp with tens of thousands of dollars worth of allen key-secured avionics
in any give aircraft. I think everyone else felt the same way.

In the meeting last night, 5% of the people there (who did not go to the
original meeting months ago) spent 80% of the meeting opposing the badging
in general but by now, there had been millions spent on the system and were
ready to turn it on with the "backing" of the pilot's groups. They were a
day late and a dollar short.

As far as preventing terrorism, they are basing the background checks on the
TSA guidelines of 28 disqualifying factors.

Marco