marshals claim. lots of short-haul flights make the marshal service look more productive on paper even though many of the flights are considered low-security risks. as cnn has reported for three years, the odds of you having an air marshal on your flight is so low that air marshals tell us that managers use creative accounting to pad the numbers given to congress. the way they do it is mickey mouse. i mean, they even go to the extent that when you are flying personally, they count that as a mission, if you are flying on vacation with your family, it is how they help top keep the numbers up. reporter: though the actual number is classified, it is widely reported that the number of air marshals covering 28,000 flights a day is fewer than 4,000. do the math like we did, and consider that any trip requires at least two marshals and large international flights require
amsterdam to the u.s. with a bomb hidden in his underwear. there were no air marshals on board. after this attack was foiled by passengers the president called for more air marshals on flights. reporter: homeland security janet napolitano testified before congress. we will strengthen the capacity of aviation law enforcement, including the federal air marshal service. reporter: has it happened? not according to the federal air marshals or f.a.m.s as they call themselveses who are supposed to be making those flights. they spoke to cnn on the condition we protect their identities. since christmas day attempt, we reporter: but there is a reason for it, these air
even more and at best without sick days, without vacations, the air marshals can cover only 5% of flights. the air marshal service tells cnn, additionally high trained officers are deployed on an increasing number of flights worldwide they say to keep air travel safe. mostly money down the drain as far as i can see. professor john mueller has completed a detailed cost-benefit assessment of aviation security in the u.s. he found of the 20 layers of security used by the tsa to protect air travel, the air marshals have been worthless since 9/11. we have seen with the underwear bomber, the passengers are not going to sit around waiting for somebody else to do something, because their lives are at stake and they will jump in. reporter: what should be done withir marshals, republican john duncan says to get rid of them.
terrorists around the world, but american citizens even those tied to al qaeda are a special case. those sorts of thresholds and criteria are all laid out in classified either executive orders or internal documents to the intelligence communities. reporter: blair made clear that the line is crossed when radical americans take actions against the u.s. and whether that american is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that american is a threat to other americans, those are the factors involved. mr. chairman, we don t target people for free speech. we target them for taking action that threatens americans. reporter: and cnn legal analyst jeffrey toobin says that is the unpleasant reality. if the intelligence agencies believe that someone is on the ground in pakistan, in afghanistan, in yemen,
threatening americanp lives, they are going to have the right to kill them right then and there. reporter: the father of the al qaeda suspect anwar alike wrote to president obama asking him to reconsider an alleged order to capture or kill his son. the pentagon has never acknowledged such a order. that is code words for assassination or killing of that individual. the latest attempted terror attack on a u.s. plane is raising new questions about security and the role of federal air marshal. cnn s drew griffin talked to some of them about what has changed since that thwarted bombing and shockingly, they say not much. reporter: on christmas day of last year, umar abdulmutallab tried to blow up a flight from