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Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

It's incredibly suspicious to allude to an e-mail from the TSA, but not actually include a copy of said e-mail.

I'll be requesting a copy by FOIA... will post on my blog whenever it comes :)

Could you ask the journalist in question to forward you the entire e-mail as well?

He doesn't want to ruin his relationship with the source by doing so, but again, it should be a public record releasable under FOIA

How long does an FOIA request of that sort usually take? If there are multiple steps, could you give us a timeline?

Probably depends on the request. I got a pretty quick turnaround (or at least it exceeded my expectations) on my request to the FBI for whatever they knew about my grandfather: About 3 weeks.

Sidenote: if you're interested in doing the same just go to http://www.getgrandpasfbifile.com/

It's supposed to take a month. But, the TSA ignored my last FOIA request, so I had to sue them for it.

Wow. That in itself is a great story which should be heard.

Thank you, story is on the blog, including this post: http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/confirmed-t...

Is this the same source that's threatening him?

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the email server suddenly lost a bunch of emails the day before the FOIA request went through.

What kind of relationship does he have with a TSA agent who is mildly threatening him or intimidating him at least?

The TSA as a journalistic source?

Thank you for your brave work on this issue, you are a true patriot.

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." -- Samuel Adams, Founding Father

Was the expression "brush fire" current in the late 1700s? In fact, the whole sentence looks a little questionable.

Not really... http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=brush+fire&...

As well as http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams#Misattributed

sure but this only applies to a citizen's inalienable right to make beer (and seasonal ales).

It's not "incredibly suspicious", since the author is claiming that one of his media contacts was the recipient of the email. Also, I don't see how seeing a screenshot of the purported message from the TSA would be considered more valid evidence than the current screenshot.

Second source confirms in comments! SmarterTravel March 8, 2012 at 3:34 pm | #11 Reply | Quote | Edit We were also “strongly cautioned” not to cover the story. We did anyway at SmarterTravel: http://tinyurl.com/7te5wj8

For the cautious, the above tinyurl expands to http://www.smartertravel.com/blogs/today-in-travel/did-blogg...

So you're saying that screen shot [1] of the redacted email was manufactured, or that the source of the redacted email was maybe trolling Jon?

I'm one of those folks that when I see a redacted email like that with most of the identity cookie in it I wonder if one could track down the original. I mean mail.fourtentech.com actually has a web server sitting on it and all.

Anyway, it could be a viralish stunt, but sadly its pretty credible that the TSA might say this.

[1] http://tsaoutofourpants.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/caution_...

I'm confused. I see something that looks like an email referring to the aforementioned email from Sari Koshetz.

I do not however see an email that looks like anything from Sari Koshetz with or without redaction.

EDIT: I agree with the user "martey" below, though, that this wouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. It's way too easy to fake this kind of thing. The FOIA request for the email is the way to go. It'll probably find itself conveniently deleted or something, though.

So you're saying that screen shot [1] of the redacted email was manufactured, or that the source of the redacted email was maybe trolling Jon?

Or an infinite number of other things. Don't get bogged down in what the alternative scenario is. What is important is that if something is true, we should be able to find corroborating evidence to support it. If we can't, then we have reason to doubt the initial claim - and we can do so without arguing for a particular alternate scenario.

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