I was disappointed at the one-sided approach your video-article took regarding airport security.

This type of skewed reporting on a subject I am familiar with makes me question the completeness of the information I receive from your department on matters I am less familiar. I am not talking about a matter of opinion, I am talking about a more thorough representation of the facts. Your limited presentation brings to question my trust in the CBS news department.

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Gentlemen (and Ladies);

It is truly disappointing to see as reliable and trustworthy an organization as CBS news take a great leap backward into the same neighborhood as the National Enquirer. Your program on the threat to our security posed by the general aviation community was ill-informed, misinformed, poorly researched, and poorly presented. This is particularly disheartening in view of the many, many reliable sources of factual, unbiased information available to you. To mention just one, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is an excellent source of information on just about any type of general aviation question that you might have, compiled by people knowledgeable in the field, and presented as documented, identifiable, and verifiable fact. There are scores of other equally reliable sources that were available to you that were obviously not used.

Pandering to public hysteria in this manner produces no good to the country, our security, your reputation, or public trust in your unbiased reliability. This is precisely the sort of thoughtless, knee-jerk reaction that helps the perpetrators of 9-11 attain at least one of their goals - to instill fear into the hearts of the American public and weaken their trust in the ability of our government to protect them.

You were ill advised by whoever suggested this program to you, and ill served by its presentation. A carefully researched and factual examination of the charges made in it, presented to the American public in an open, fair appraisal of the original broadcast, would go a long way to erase some of the damage done to your image.

I recommend it.

Bob Hayden

Orlando, Florida

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Papers - Papers, you must have your papers! The furer has declared.

I saw enough of the CBS "Eye on America" about general aviation(GA) & private airparks last night to tell me CBS can not be trusted. Once
trust is lost, it is hard to recover. What will CBS do next? Will CBS put a bomb on an aircraft, like NBC did with the truck fuel tanks, & fake
up a terrorist attack?

The CBS report ignores many important facts, twists the situation into dramatic hype for no good reason, save possibly ratings or political
slant, & can only promote Hitler style life for America. Or is CBS trying to give crazies an idea of what to do copy-cat style?
Or is CBS really trying to destroy America, the spirit & concept of freedom & liberty for People?

The best security any country could ever have is the Citizen, not only armed, but flying, & watching the community. The refusal of the Japanese
to invade America after the Pearl Harbor attack is evidence. Private airports are local community backyards. Backyards get watched very well
by their owners. They get more scrutiny from many People than most any commercial airport. A perfectly safe world will never exist.

When will CBS allow the GA community to have their say on TV?

Based on the CBS suggestion by that false report, People should not be allowed to have & operate aircraft, maybe sit at home, not see what is
going on outside, & let the criminal bombers have their way. Why don't we all just get locked up in our homes by the local cops & not ever get out?
Would it satisfy CBS if America became a concentration camp?

I suggest CBS is irresponsible, actually criminal, & should have their license taken away to report & transmit any information, cameras &
microfones confiscated to prevent further lies & propaganda.

The first amendment does not protect liers or anybody crying wolf! You cannot shout fire in a crouded theatre unless there is one for a reason.
Yet CBS just did that!
---
The Best to You & Yours,
RossARR

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I have several thoughts on this:

1: Given his topic sentence, had Mr. Orr simply done a Google search on "residential airparks", he would have found a link on the first page
to the "Living With Your Plane Association" which could have disabused him of the most egregious factual errors in his report.

Apparently not one to let ignorance of the subject deter him, Mr. Orr then quotes a PR flack as an "expert", and fails to contact either the
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assoc. or the Experimental Aircraft Assoc. These are the two groups that the FAA consults when it needs to know
what is going on in sport and general aviation. It takes quite a bit of hubris to assume he wouldn't benefit from their counsel as well.

There are two possibilities: either Mr. Orr was aware of these sources of factual information on the topic he was addressing, or he was not.
If he was unaware of them, his journalistic credentials should be pulled for not doing the bare minimum research expected of a high
school newspaper sports reporter.

If he was aware of them, and chose not to consult them, his credentials should be pulled for exhibiting blatant bias in his reporting. He came
to the story with a viewpoint and actively ignored any facts that did not support his preconceived conclusion.

Either way, this is prima facie evidence of journalistic malpractice and an egregious misuse of the public airwaves when the product is
aired on a national television network. CBS should be ashamed.

2: I think we should contact Lesley Hock to see if that's _really_ what he said, or is this just another case of "ambush journalism",
where the "reporter" edits the quote to suit his slant? I could easily believe that Hock might have said "There's really no [need for]
security in regards to living with your airplane".

3: Ditto John Trizzel. Note that he never actually says "terrorists" or "terrorist threat". He's obviously answering a pointed question
posed by the "CBS correspondent"; his sardonic reference to razor wire implies he doesn't think much of the question. I suspect both men have
learned a valuable lesson about speaking to reporters.

4: In the process of trying to track down other work by the author of this execrable excuse for entertainment (it sure ain't factual, so it
can't be "news"), I found a strikingly similar piece that apparently CBS did not choose to run:

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(CBS) They are a soaring real estate trend: boating communities called marinas.

"Every house has a paved boatramp to the waterway," says Lesley Hack, an Egret's Nest Marina realtor.

Amenities include your very own community waterway, your own personal boathouse and the freedom to come and go as you please.

"There's really no security in regards to living with your boat," says Hack.

And, as CBS News Correspondent Bob Oar reports, that's the fear. These private marina channels, like the one in Egret's Nest in northern
Virginia, are an open invitation for terrorists.

"I think it's a real concern," says marina manager John Drizzle. "I think it's a possibility."

No one knows how many residential marinas there are in the United States because there is no federal agency that regulates their activity. Most
are like Egret's Nest, with just a single channel. There are no fences, no gates, no security systems and no federal requirements to have them.

Since Sept.11, 2001, the government has not ordered Drizzle to make any security changes at his marina.

Would-be passengers and luggage are not screened, says Drizzle.

"We haven't really implemented the razor wire, the big tall fences, the security gates," says Drizzle.

Drizzle says he tries to keep a close watch on the boats and strangers, but former National Transportation and Safety Board managing director
Peter Geldz says, that's not security.

"Homeland Security has to make recreational boating and commercial boating a priority," says Geldz. "They've got to develop a program, and
they're going to have to spend some money on it."

He says terrorists are well aware of these small insecure marinas.

"That's where they learned to sail," says Geldz. "We know the terrorists trained at small marine systems."

"We know that two of the Sept. 11 terrorists spent some time at a Florida marina."

Some argue that there's no need to worry because these are small watercraft. But packed with explosives, small boats could be
devastating bombs.

"A small boat launching from a remote marina is going to be virtually untrackable and will suddenly appear into a restricted area - into a
high population area, and there's going to be nothing we can do about it," says Geldz.

A year before Sept. 11, a group of terrorists in a small boat blew a gaping hole in the USS Cole as it was refueling at the port in Yemen.
Authorities tracked the boat on radar but were powerless to stop it.

But three years later, there've been no mandated security changes.

"We need to make it a real concern and deal with it and try as best we can so that it will never happen," says Drizzle.

Until then, vulnerability will be the price for recreational boating's freedom.

MMIV, Creative Bull Shit, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Note: I spent about two hours researching the facts related above. That is at least an hour more than Mr. Orr did, considering that he
didn't contact any of the three obvious sources of factual information on this topic.

In the course of my research I came across the following quotation from the US Coast Guard:

"This summer [2001] over 72 million Americans will participate in recreational boating activities, taking to the water in 16 million
registered and unregistered boats and watercraft. Historically, between 700 to 800 recreational boaters, including about 40 children,
die in boating accidents each year - mostly as a result of drowning."

Compared to that, general aviation ranks up there with knitting and finger-painting as life-threatening activities.

Compared to boating's demonstrated threat to national security, and its abysmal safety record, why is there no CBS outcry to license, regulate,
and make "terrorist-proof" all boating activity?

As the great philosopher B. Bunny once said, "What a bunch of maroons."

-Chip Davis- PP/ASEL/IA
1960 Cessna 172A N7502T "Faster than a speeding pullet"
Sanford/Lee County Regional Airport (KTTA) Hangar C13

From AVWEB:

CBS News Finds Homeland Security's Weak Link

That would be you, the general aviation pilot. Last night's "Eye on America" report on the CBS Evening News made it clear that a terrifying threat exists -- "Packed with explosives, small planes could be devastating bombs" -- and that GA pilots just don't give a damn -- "vulnerability [is] the price for general aviation's freedom." The report focused on airport communities, where it said, "There are no fences, no gates, no security systems and no federal requirements to have them." Though not cited as inspiration in the text of the segment, Joe Byrd, president of the board of directors at Lakeway Airpark outside of Austin, Texas, yesterday told AVweb that CBS news anchor Dan Rather (not featured in the report) keeps property roughly one-half mile away from the airport community ... "as the crow flies." The report also neglected to mention that a Skyhawk full of explosives is about equivalent to a Volkswagen in the same condition, but did point out there are some 200,000 "so-called general aviation aircraft" in the country ... a number perhaps smaller than that of Volkswagens. It seems the thought of the airborne equivalent plunging into a building is scarier than the sight of the non-winged version parked out front, or in the loading dock, or driving by. AOPA President Phil Boyer was outraged even before the segment ran, issuing a news release yesterday afternoon calling the coverage "irresponsible." Proof of that, Boyer said, is that it appears CBS made up its mind without benefit of all the facts: "They never interviewed us [at AOPA], the people who know the most about GA." Boyer suggested that pilots register their concern over CBS's reporting by e-mailing CBS.

Here is what the AOPA had to say about it:

Update: Jan. 14 - "Misleading, one-sided, unfair, and far beneath what we used to expect from CBS." That was the reaction of AOPA President Phil Boyer this evening after viewing the CBS Evening News "Eye on America" story on general aviation airport security. "Not only didn't they tell the full story, they even got basic facts wrong. Had CBS talked to us beforehand, they might have got some of it right."

The story tried to portray GA airports as totally lacking in security - the kind of place where terrorists could sneak in unobserved. Yet the story profiled a residential airpark - the kind of close-knit community where any stranger would be observed and reported immediately.

"CBS didn't show the typical GA airport, nor mention the security enhancements, like AOPA's Airport Watch, which have been put in place since September 11," said Boyer. "They even got the number of airports wrong. There are about 5,400 public-use airports in the U.S., not 19,000." (There are some 19,000 landing facilities in the U.S., but that includes all heliports and seaplane bases.)

Pilots who wish to comment on CBS's reporting can e-mail evening@cbsnews.com.