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TSA Doing Random Truck Searches On Tennessee Highway
OverTheGeicoE writes "TSA is expanding its presence to the American road system. As part of its Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) program, TSA agents are now working at 5 weigh stations and two bus stations in Tennessee. They are randomly checking trucks with 'drug and bomb sniffing dogs', and encouraging truck drivers to join their First Observer Highway Security Program and report anything suspicious that they see to authorities. VIPR is allegedly not a response to any particular threat."
Freedom to travel not something we have anymore?
Should I be carrying my papers?
At what point do we tell these assholes to fuck off? This is one government department that needs to be shutdown.
that analogy is irrelevant. one was a response to something we KNOW was going to happen BEFORE it happened (or rather didn't, due to the dilligent work of those that sought to prevent it), the other was a knee-jerk response to something that should have been spotted before it happened, but wasn't.
you can't say attacks have been prevented by the TSA's ball groping, and naked-scanning-irradiating-machines without some form of proof. considering the massive scale of abuses the TSA is committing, it'd better be solid proof of thousands of attacks directly foiled by ball-groping, otherwise it simply is not worth the sacrifice in freedom.
One step closer to police state IMO.
I hope our freedom was worth it.
Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart.
Justice Robert Jackson, chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials
An Israeli security expert, maybe Rafi Sela, said it's a mistake to put threat assessment and security implementation in the same organization. Do that, and it starts inventing reasons why it should grow.
Drving, despite what the DMV and the police would have you believe, is a right well-established by both law and court decision. Yes, the police are lying to you as they overreach their authority, shocking I know.
Cites follow, the reasoning is roughly this. A citizen cannot participate in modern society without the use of an automobile. Public transportation only covers a minor portion of the geography of the US. Bicycles and walking cannot cover the routine distances involved in modern life. On the other hand, driving is a dangerous activity with significant hazards to the public at large, thus the right to "Life," balances against the right to "Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Personally, I hope the TSA does expand to random traffic stops. I hope they start impementing strip searches for walking down the sidewalk. I want them to set up shop at the OWS rally near you. The faster they can provoke a full-out general revolt against their nonsense, the happier I'll be.
Here are the court decisions I promised you:
"The use of the highways for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common and fundamental Right of which the public and the individual cannot be rightfully deprived." [emphasis added] Chicago Motor Coach vs. Chicago, 169 NE 22; Ligare vs. Chicago, 28 NE 934; Boon vs. Clark, 214 SSW 607; 25 Am.Jur. (1st) Highways Sect.163.
""Even the legislature has no power to deny to a citizen the right to travel upon the highway and transport his property in the ordinary course of his business or pleasure, though this right may be regulated in accordance with the public interest and convenience." Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago, 169 NE 22. "
"Complete freedom of the highways is so old and well established a blessing that we have forgotten the days of the Robber Barons and toll roads, and yet, under an act like this, arbitrarily administered, the highways may be completely monopolized, if, through lack of interest, the people submit, then they may look to see the most sacred of their liberties taken from them one by one, by more or less rapid encroachment." Robertson vs. Department of Public Works, 180 Wash 133, 147.
"The right of the citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city may prohibit at will, but a common right which he has under the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Thompson v. Smith, 154 SE 179.
"Personal liberty largely consists of the Right of locomotion -- to go where and when one pleases -- only so far restrained as the Rights of others may make it necessary for the welfare of all other citizens. The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, by horsedrawn carriage, wagon, or automobile, is not a mere privilege which may be permitted or prohibited at will, but the common Right which he has under his Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Under this Constitutional guarantee one may, therefore, under normal conditions, travel at his inclination along the public highways or in public places, and while conducting himself in an orderly and decent manner, neither interfering with nor disturbing another's Rights, he will be protected, not only in his person, but in his safe conduct." [emphasis added] II Am.Jur. (1st) Constitutional Law, Sect.329, p.1135.
"The right to travel is a part of the liberty of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the 5th Amendment." Kent v. Dulles, 357 US 116, 125.
"Undoubtedly the right of locomotion, the right to move from one place to another according to inclination, is an attribute of personal liberty, and the right, ordinarily, of free transit from or through the territory of any State is a right secured by the 14th amendment and by other provisions of the Constitution." Schactman v. Dulles, 96 App DC 287, 293.
"Personal liberty -- consists of the power of lo
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."