TSA delays allowing small knives on planes

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has indefinitely delayed its proposal to allow travelers to carry small knives on airplanes after severe blowback from lawmakers, air marshals and law enforcement officials.

In a statement released Monday, the TSA said the decision to begin allowing knives with blades shorter than 2.36 inches would not move forward on April 25 as planned “in order to accommodate further input from the Aviation Security Advisory Committee.”

“This timing will enable TSA to incorporate the feedback about the changes to the Prohibited Items List and continue workforce training,” the TSA said in the statement.

The move comes one week after two bombs were set off at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing three and wounding dozens and refocusing the nation’s attention on terrorism and national security.

Knives of any length have not been allowed on flights since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when hijackers used box-cutting blades to take over four U.S. flights. 

The TSA announced earlier this year it would begin allowing short blades back on flights as part of a “risk-based” security initiative that would allow screeners to spend more time looking for higher impact devices, like bombs.

While the risk-based security initiatives have support, the decision to allow small knives back on planes was soundly criticized from many corners, including Congress, where 133 House members signed a letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole, asking him to keep small knives on the agency’s prohibited list. 

Lawmakers had introduced legislation to force the TSA to reverse course on the new policy, with Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) proposing the No Knives Act, and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) presenting a similar measure in the Senate.

Monday's announcement was cheered by lawmakers.

“By delaying this policy, the TSA is taking a solid, common sense step in the direction of safer skies. This delay acknowledges that permitting knives on planes is a bad idea; now the TSA should go the rest of the way and end this flawed policy all together,” said Schumer in a statement.

The New York senator urged the TSA to drop the plan to allow knives onto airplanes completely. 

“Anything less than a full reversal will be unsatisfactory for passengers and the hard working flight attendants, pilots, and air marshals who keep our planes safe every day,” he said.

A flight attendants’ union, which had strongly opposed the decision, hailed the TSA’s move, but also pushed for the agency to drop the plan completely.

“Knives were the terrorists' weapons of choice in bringing down four jetliners and murdering thousands of Americans. All knives should be banned from planes permanently,” The Association of Professional Flight Attendants said in a statement.

This story was last updated at 8:10 a.m. 

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POLL: Majority Supports Allowing Gays Into Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts of America decided today to delay reconsideration of its anti-gay policy so it can gather more feedback, but a new poll from Quinnipiac provides an immediate answer to the question. According to the poll, 55 percent of American voters support the BSA dropping its policy, while 33 percent feel it should keep it. Support for a more inclusive policy is particularly strong among women (61-27) and Catholics (63-25), whereas white evangelical Protestants oppose gay scouts (56-33). A Gallup poll in December had a less positive response for gay Scouts.

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Panetta: Allowing sequester to happen would be ‘shameful’

Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday that it would a “shameful, irresponsible” act for Congress to allow the automated budget cuts known as “sequestration” to take effect.

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Panetta pressed lawmakers to find a way to avoid the cuts, slated to take effect on March 1, warning that it would impact the military’s preparedness.

“If Congress stands back and allows the sequester to happen, it would be a shameful, irresponsible act,” he said.

Congress set up the package of sweeping across-the-board budget cuts totaling $1.2 billion that would take effect if they could not reach a deficit-reduction agreement in the Budget Control Act of 2011.

More than $500 billion of the proposed cuts, which have been pushed back from its original December implementation date to this spring as part of the “fiscal cliff” deal, would fall on the Defense department.

Panetta said the department had begun to prepare for the possibility of steep budget cuts “because there are members up on Capitol Hill that are saying ‘we’re going to stand back and let sequester happen.’”

But he added “if sequester happens, it is going to badly damage the readiness of the United States of America.”

“If sequester goes into effect, and we have to do the kind of cuts that go right at readiness, right at maintenance, right at training, we are going to weaken the United States and make it more difficult to respond to crises,” Panetta warned.

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GOP Secretary Of State: Allowing Citizens To Register On Election Day Undermines Their ‘Individual Freedoms’

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R)

Giving citizens the flexibility to register to vote (or update their existing registration if they’ve recently moved) on Election Day actually chips away at Americans’ “individual freedoms,” according to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R).

During a panel discussion on voting at the conservative Heritage Foundation on Thursday, Kemp lambasted the idea of same-day voter registration. Ten ideologically diverse states, from Idaho to Wisconsin to California, have enacted the program, also known as Election Day registration. By removing barriers to voting and making it easier for citizens to register, studies have found that EDR boosts turnout on average by 7 to 14 percentage points.

Kemp dismissed EDR as a “buzzword” that is as an affront to Americans’ right not to participate in elections. “[It] really gets down to the individual freedoms of people in our state and Americans in general and their ability to decide for themselves, ‘yes I want to register to vote and participate in the process, or no that I don’t,” Kemp said.

KEMP: I think we do have to have commonsense protections to make sure that our rolls are secure to stop potential voter fraud. This whole issue with dealing with the federal government and universal registration and same-day registration and all these different buzzwords really gets down to the individual freedoms of people in our state and Americans in general and their ability to decide for themselves, “yes I want to register to vote and participate in the process, or no that I don’t.”

Watch it:

There are countless problems with our voting system, but infringing on Americans’ right to not vote is not one.

Regardless, Kemp’s assertion that EDR somehow compels citizens to vote is ludicrous. The law simply allows those citizens who want to to register on Election Day.

In fact, Georgia, as much as any state, could benefit from EDR. In 2012, the Peach State ranked 33rd out of 50 states with a voter turnout of 58 percent. Meanwhile, five of the top six voter turnout states have EDR.

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Supreme Court Reconsiders Allowing Judges To Increase Sentences Without Jury Approval

Among the major contributors to the U.S. incarceration epidemic are harsh schemes for sentencing, and some of the most disproportionate sentences come about as a result of statutorily mandated minimum sentences.

Just last week, a former medical marijuana distributor who declined to plead guilty was sentenced to a ten-year minimum prison sentence by a federal judge who said, “the court’s hands are tied.”

But for some defendants, being sentenced to the mandatory minimum prison term for the crime of which they are convicted is just the tip of the iceberg. Judges may also use their discretion to add additional time up to a maximum allowable sentence. A case before the U.S. Supreme Court today considers the scope of that discretion when judges decide unilaterally that the defendant committed acts other than that for which they were convicted.

Allen Alleyne was convicted for robbing a convenience store owner as he drove to make a bank deposit. The jury found Alleyne guilty of both having committed the robbery, and having used or carried a firearm. They acquitted him, however, of brandishing a firearm during the crime.

Nonetheless, in sentencing Alleyne, the judge independently found that Alleyne should have known his accomplice would brandish a firearm during the robbery – a finding that added two additional years to Alleyne’s  sentence above the mandatory minimum of five years. Unlike a jury, which is tasked with finding guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the judge made this finding under the much lower standard of “preponderance of the evidence.”

It is easy to view Alleyne and his accomplice as serious criminals who may very well deserve to serve either a five or a seven-year sentence. But allowing a judge the discretion impinges on a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to a trial by jury. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that a judge cannot use this discretion to increase a defendant’s sentence above the maximum allowable sentence. And a similar rationale prompted a controversial but landscape-changing decision to limit the enforceability of federal sentencing guidelines.

Although the severity of statutory sentencing schemes has led to grossly unjust results, particularly in drug crimes, their purpose was and is to limit the variability and bias that can be introduced by any given judge in imposing a criminal sentence. Letting judges make factual determinations that are the purview of the jury undermines this goal – and allows for the sorts of even longer prison terms that have contributed to our ever-bloated prison population.

Somewhat surprisingly, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear this case on the argument that an earlier high court decision on just this issue was wrongly decided. With four new justices since the 2002 decision and Justice Stephen Breyer on the fence, the Supreme Court now has a second chance to get it right.

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