Whistleblower Pilot Reveals His Identity

Pilot had anonymously posted videos showing airport security flaws.

ByABC News
December 27, 2010, 6:36 PM

Dec. 27, 2010 -- The airline pilot who spoke out anonymously after he was reprimanded by the Transportation Security Administration for posting videos to YouTube showing security flaws at a major airport revealed his identity today.

"My name is Chris Liu, and I'm an airline pilot," Liu said during an exclusive interview with ABC affiliate KXTV in Sacramento, Calif., at his home in Colfax.

Liu, 50, told KXTV he decided to come out of the shadows because he wanted to be an active player in efforts to improve airport security.

"You have passengers and air crew upstairs being screened, while ground crew downstairs come and go with the swipe of a card," he said.

This past weekend, he had said he hoped he could soon safely identify himself.

"I look forward to fully joining the debate on the national security problems that I helped to expose through my YouTube videos," the pilot wrote on his website, The Patriot Pilot.

On Sunday, Liu's attorney, Don Werno, told KXTV that the man still feared retaliation from the TSA, and that he wanted to keep his job as a pilot.

In an interview with "World News" last week when he was still keeping his name a secret, Liu said it was the "fallacy of the system" that inspired him to post the videos on YouTube.

Late last month, he took a series of videos with his cell phone to show major flaws he said still exist in airport security systems. The videos show how easily ground crews at San Francisco International Airport were able to enter secure areas.

"As you can see, airport security is kind of a farce. It's only smoke and mirrors so you people believe there is actually something going on here," he said on one video.