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This is a developing story so details are a bit rough at this point. Christopher Elliott, National Geographic Traveler’s reader advocate, travel troubleshooter, and MSNBC columnist blogged and tweeted as he was putting his kids in the bathtub, that he heard a knock at the door. It was Special Agent Robert Falherty serving him a subpoena from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The subpoena gave Agent Falherty the permission to search any faxes and emails related to TSA Security Directive SD-1544-09-06.  Directive  1544-09-06 were all the fun new rules the TSA put into place that were widely panned (even by me).

Fancy I should choose to link to Steven Frischling’s Flying with Fish blog, since he too is reporting via Twitter that the DHS served him a warrant and searched his computer. Frischling made fun of the fact that he could see many people from the TSA and DHS reading his blog. But now it isn’t much of a joke, it is just crazy!

It seems the DHS is trying to find who leaked the TSA Directive and are obviously willing to go to ridiculous lengths to do so.

I realize I don’t have all the facts yet, but even in the best case scenario, this is not going to look good for the DHS. It makes them look aggressive, trying to cover up, and embarrassed by their own directive. I am no legal expert, but I am pretty certain the press have protections from such violations?

Elliott and Frischling are highly respected travel and aviation journalists. When the TSA and government were silent about what was going on, you could count on them to get some answers before anyone else.

Even if DHS is in the legal right, it doesn’t make it right what they are doing. As a Twitter follower of mine said, “If [DHS] were as good on security as they are on chasing bloggers…”

I will be updating this blog as more information becomes available.

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Source: David Parker Brown