Homeland Security is keeping the Air Marshalls from protecting us.

"Right now we cannot protect the public," says Frank Terreri, an active duty air marshal who represents a group of 1,500 air marshals. "And not because we're not proficient, not that we're not capable, it's because federal air marshal management, along with the Department of Homeland Security, won't let us do our jobs."

Terreri says air marshals are not able to work undercover because check-in and boarding procedures at airports make it impossible for air marshals to maintain their anonymity:

"We're supposed to be undercover. But basically when everybody knows who you are, you're just the guys on the plane with the gun. Either they're gonna avoid you or overcome you, you're at a severe disadvantage."

Terreri has spent three years trying to get the air marshals management to address these issues with no response. Instead he says they've retaliated against him, with four separate investigations, including one for misuse of his business card.

"The items that he was being accused of were so surreal that they were obviously intending to terrorize the other air marshals into silence," says Tom Devine, an attorney with the Government Accountability Project. The project has petitioned the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to open an investigation into Terreri's allegations.

Remember this the next time you hear the President talking about working hard to keep us safe from terrorists. It is all just talk and empty promises.