http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_worl ... hools.html

What does it take to secure the border. We already know that a jet can double as a missle.

Unchecked aliens cram flight schools
by Bill Hutchinson
daily news staff writer

Thursday, February 28th 2008, 4:00 AM

Despite tough post-9/11 laws, thousands of foreign students are training at U.S. flight schools without proper visas or security background checks, government documents show.

"TSA's enforcement is basically nonexistent," Bill McNease, a former Federal Aviation Administration inspector, said in an interview aired last night on ABC's "World News With Charles Gibson." Revelations that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers were trained as pilots in the United States prompted a crackdown on flight schools.

Legislation was passed requiring the schools to do security background checks and notify the federal Transportation Security Administration. But internal TSA documents found by ABC News indicate the rules are largely ignored.

"Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9/11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," Richard Horn, a TSA regional official, wrote in a 2005 letter to his boss. McNease said he found at least 8,000 foreign students in the FAA database who got pilot's licenses without being approved by the TSA.