AOPA President Phil Boyer told a gathering of some 400 pilots Tuesday night that the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA)/FAA security rule allowing the FAA to revoke pilot certificates goes too far. He vowed that AOPA will challenge portions of the rule that tread on pilot rights. "We certainly support lawful efforts to prevent terrorists from using aircraft to attack the United States," Boyer said during an AOPA Pilot Town Meeting in Baltimore, "but this rule smacks of McCarthyism. The TSA has become judge, jury, and executioner. What's happened to due process?" Last Friday, TSA and the FAA implemented new rules that direct the FAA to revoke the pilot certificate of anyone that TSA determines is a threat to transportation or national security. But the process provides no independent review. A pilot can only appeal the threat determination back to TSA--and TSA, because of national security concerns, doesn't have to reveal the information implicating the pilot. Boyer said that AOPA legal and technical staff are already researching the new rules, noting that AOPA's legal counsel's preliminary opinion is that TSA exceeded the authority Congress had granted it. Boyer said that AOPA immediately brought its concerns to TSA management. And Boyer will begin personally presenting those same concerns to members of Congress next week.
