Quinn's response to critics? Kill the messengers! As online journalist Annie Jacobsen reported in September, the air marshals service threatened to take action against the passenger who pointed out the marshals made vulnerable by Quinn's own dress-code policy. The passenger, Quinn protested, had disclosed "sensitive security information." Meanwhile, according to APSS, Quinn himself participated in a NBC Nightly News segment that revealed classified and sensitive information on marshals' boarding procedures, credentials, equipment and look-out criteria.
Quinn spent two decades at the Secret Service before taking over the air marshals service, which may explain his dangerous fashion taste for the Men in Black uniforms. According to several sources inside the agency, Quinn has used his position to hire several former Secret Service cronies -- who have plenty of experience guarding high-profile politicians and celebrities, but no clue about what it takes to blend in and be effective watchdogs in the air.
There is reportedly a provision in the intelligence reform bill passed last week that will put Quinn's kill-me-first dress policy on ice. But it's not enough. If President Bush wants to rescue airline safety from the abysmal national joke that it has become, the first thing he should do is fire Thomas Quinn before the end of the year. How many more people will die before we learn that bureaucracy and security don't mix?