Airplane Pilot Post Videos on Youtube of Security Flaws at Airport, Gets in Trouble

Airline pilot Chris Liu recently posted a cell phone video tour of San Francisco International Airport on youtube to point out what he feels are serious gaps in airport security. According to News10:

He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia. 

Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff's deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.

Why would they feel to need to take his gun away? Isn't he just being a concerned pilot looking out for the well-being of his passengers? Furthermore, Liu was not using his "pilot-status" to record private areas of the airport, he was simply recording parts of the airport that anyone could view. He was just looking at it from a pilot's perspective, as someone who basically spends his life at the airport. 

"I just found a disparity between what happens upstairs and what happens downstairs," Liu explained.

As Liu pointed out in the video, pilots and flight crew are subjected to real-time TSA security screening while ground crew are not. "Upstairs they're going through the metal detectors and the X-ray machines, and downstairs they're swiping a card," he said.

Listen to an interview with Liu below: