February 5, 2007
It’s A Good Thing That Bill Keller….
….and the rest of the treasonous, socialist, anti-American toilet cakes folks at the New York Times didn’t know about this particular FBI undercover operation while it was still underway, or they would have made sure the subject of the investigation read about it or watched it on the news before enough evidence could be gathered to warrant an arrest.
An employee at O’Hare International Airport was charged Monday with pocketing cash payoffs to help an undercover federal agent bypass security and smuggle nearly $400,000 in U.S. currency on flights overseas.
Riad Skaff, who had unlimited access at O’Hare’s international terminal, was arrested Sunday evening as he worked there for a subcontractor of Air France, Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles Ex said.
Hmmmm… Riad. Do you suppose that he is of Muslim descent? Hmmm… Air France (spit!).
Skaff, an employee of Sunline Services Inc., worked for Air France as a ground services coordinator whose airport security badge gave him access to O’Hare’s jetways and tarmac without undergoing security screening, authorities said.
In return for cash payoffs totaling $21,500, Skaff agreed to circumvent security at O’Hare on three occasions between October 2005 and November 2006, the charges alleged.
The undercover agent usually passed the cash to Skaff at the welcome desk near Air France’s ticket counter in a public area in the international terminal, authorities said.
The agent would then pass through the security checkpoint without the cash. Skaff returned the cash to him as he was about to board a flight to Paris, the charges alleged.
In that way, the agent was able to smuggle a combined $396,000 in cash overseas. On one trip, he also smuggled a device capable of jamming cellular-phone reception, authorities said.
One has to wonder how much money and technology has already been smuggled out of the United States and into the hands of terrorists via the services of Riad Skaff. After all, there had to be a reason the Bureau singled him out to begin with.
It’s good to know that despite the inanities the left spews about the government and Homeland Security as run by Bush, our national security and law enforcement agencies are doing their jobs rather well.
It’s great that Keller and friends weren’t cognizant of this one, so they were unable to sabotage it.
Go, Bureau!
http://hardastarboard.mu.nu/wp-trackback.php?p=619
February 5th, 2007 at 4:24 am
Incarceration at home? Why isnt he in a regular jail for a Homeland Security Violation?
The bureau did a fantastic job, but incarceration at home?
February 5th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Marie –
I figure it this way; In order to have found this guy to begin with, they had to have had one of his other clientele under surveillance, perhaps a terrorist cell, that led them to him. They could be leaving him out in the public domain to see who contacts him — or tries to silence him, or maybe he made a deal to roll over on some much more dangerous people and they need him to be free to do it.
Whatever the reason, it doesn’t look to me like all that’s there is all there is to the story.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Seth, you are right about the NYT. These guys are like the kid on the playground who can’t wait to reveal a secret just to see what it stirs up and then sits back and laughs. Disgusting.
I recently left the Department of Homeland Security and TSA for life in the private sector. The damage that could be done by someone such as this who is not caught is unimaginable. Kudos to the FBI for keeping this one under wraps. It seems as if the CIA, paradoxically, are the ones who are the traitorous leakers!
Thanks for adding me, and please visit and comment often. We can have many discussions about those “equine hindquarters” who represent us as republicans. What happened to the Reaganites?
February 5th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Great job by the FBI but like Marie, why in house arrest! Even when success happens PC steps in and hinders it. We will never know how much Islamo facsists have taken to help their radical murderous cause from this country both in an undercover network and by leftist morons who live in this country and use our freedoms as a means to help the Islamo cause.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Seth, I cannot imagine how this one slipped past Kelly and crew; but thank Heaven it did. I hope there are a lot more fish in the offing and that the FBI have their hooks baited and ready.
Good one, thanks!
February 5th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Every small victory helps.
It must annoy the NYT every time an enemy of this country is caught because they have one less allie.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Robert –
Welcome.
There was a time, before liberals bought the Democratic Party, when the NYT would have been called to task for publishing national security secrets. Today, with the Republicans in Congress letting themselves be cowed whenever the Dems give them a dirty look, the NYT and the rest of the MSM can do whatever they please with total immunity.
There are undoubtedly others like Riad Skaff out there, and they present a good case for serious airport employee surveillance operations. As I’ve said elsewhere, final decisions where security is concerned should be the purview of security professionals, not politicians or bureaucrats.
I think the problem with the CIA is that there are too many holdovers in the agency from the Clinton years, folks who share leftist political agendas with the rest of the Democrats.
Your blog is one I will visit regularly.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Ken –
I agree that this house arrest seems somewhat off the wall, as it doesn’t make any sense for a homeland security violation of this magnitude. That’s why I think there could be more to this — like maybe the DOJ has some ulterior motive for wanting the mutt outside prison. A federal prosecutor could have asked the judge, in the interests of a further investigation, for the house arrest.
Old Soldier –
It is nice to know that the govt isn’t leaving security entirely up to the folks who work regularly at the airports.
One of my own experiences, which I mentioned in a post back in late 2005, concerned a Swiss Army knife a friend gave me(I don’t recall why) in San Francisco back in mid ‘05. I dropped it in my computer bag and it fell to the bottom, and I forgot it existed.
My computer bag is always my single piece of carry-on luggage when I fly. Over the next several months, the bag went through passenger screening at SFO, Oakland, O’Hare, Midway, JFK, Dulles, Reagan, Orlando and LaGuardia before someone at Logan found the knife in it.
Shoprat –
Also because they haven’t had the chance to expose the investigation in time to blow it.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:51 am
I don’t really have more commentary on the story; the previous commenters have covered the issues well.
But your reference to France reminded me: you did read about how Jacques Chirac recently revealed in an interview with the NYT that he had a multiple personality disorder. That is, one of his alternate personalities is Dr. Strangelove. (You do of course remember the subtitle: How I learned to stop worrying and to love the bomb)
Of course, the next day, the damage control unit went to work. Debka, however, had a darker view of the event.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Civil Truth –
Like I said, LOL: France (spit!)
I’ve long held that France, because of their desperation to return to their long lost status as a significant geopolitical force and their resultant jealousy of the much younger United States for having become same, has become one of the largest stumbling blocks to any kind of global harmony or international cooperation.
Chirac is the perfect leader for France in that regard, he echoes this sentiment of a has-been wanting to return to the status of even a shadow of his former self. Toward that end, in keeping with French (spit!) ideals, the rest of the world can go to hell as long as France gets what France wants.
His ambition to make France a dominant entity in the Muslim world is a prime reason why he has led France, and indeed the U.N., in an anti-Israel direction in every Israel-Palestinian issue, and why the French “peace-keeping” troops in Lebanon do everything but outwardly endorse Hezbollah by turning their backs while the terrorist organization rearms and regroups after the recent war with Israel.
His “retraction” of statements he made to the media on the grounds that he didn’t know he was on the record and the blatant omissions in the following day’s account further demonstrate the socialist tendency so prevalent in our own Democrats of today to expect that whatever they say will automatically be accepted as gospel because they are elite beings of some sort.
The fact that the MSM doesn’t attack Chirac for making a statement for which they’d crucify Bush is just another indicator that they are fueled purely by partisan politics, and such things as impartiality and fairness are not an issue to those soul-less traitors.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
I think you need to reread the Tribune article. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070214skaff,1,5157701.story?coll=chi-newsroom-hed
The bureau was not involved. The credit should go to Homeland Security, and Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE).
February 16th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Accurate Reader –
Welcome!
Having checked a few other news sources, I find that you are completely accurate (as your handle implies, LOL), and I stand corrected. One other account is here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/02/03/primarysource/entry2429121.shtml
Thank you.