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TSA's VIPR Bites Rail, Bus, and Ferry Passengers
OverTheGeicoE writes "TSA's VIPR program may be expanding. According to the Washington Times, 'TSA has always intended to expand beyond the confines of airport terminals. Its agents have been conducting more and more surprise groping sessions for women, children and the elderly in locations that have nothing to do with aviation.' In Tennessee earlier this month, bus passengers in Nashville and Knoxville were searched in addition to the truck searches discussed here previously. Earlier this year in Savannah, Georgia, TSA forced a group of train travelers, including young children, to be patted down. (They were getting off the train, not on.) Ferry passengers have also been targeted. According to TSA Administrator John Pistole's testimony before the Senate last June, 'TSA conducted more than 8,000 VIPR operations in the [previous] 12 months, including more than 3,700 operations in mass-transit and passenger-railroad venues.' He wants a 50% budget increase for VIPR for 2012. Imagine what TSA would do with the extra funding."
"Take the train you unpatriotic, small-dicked paranoid liberal!"
Yeah, we all saw this coming. Papers, please.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
We have become consumed by the fear of a mosquito bite, are we going to continue to give up our freedom for what amounts to a non-issue?
Look, honestly, what are you going to do about it? Complaining doesn't matter. The TSA will be here forever, and, as much as we hate to admit it, there is nothing that can be done about it. There is too much money involved, and contractors have vast amounts of power, much more so than any collection of outraged stories and messages on the internet does.
Seriously, I hope the TSA is abolished tomorrow, or hell even five years from now. But honestly without fundamental, almost revolutionary changes to the way the US government works this simply will not happen. Money talks, national security lobbyists have TONS of money, and that's pretty much the end of it.
Every TSA pat-down, especially those outside an air terminal, are illegal searches. There is no probable cause for agents of the government to initiate a search, even in air terminals, hence is a violation of 4th Amendment Rights. Every time Pistole is questioned about this by Congress, he insists that Air Travelers (and all travelers, by VIPR assumptions) are guilty until proven innocent, and that American children are all bomb carrying agents of Terrorism, because terrorists have used children and women in other parts of the world.
How is this possibly of any use to anyone. Hey, TSA! I have this rock that keeps me safe from terrorist. To date, it's be 100% effective at protecting me and everyone else I interact with from terrorism. It's also had zero false positives! I'll be happy to sell you my rock at the bargain price of 250 Million dollars. For another 50 million, my rock will also protect you from vampires, space aliens and Bears (The football team, not the animal.)
Yes I do. Their suits aren't as snazzy.
He is the only candidate that is against this sh*t...
..try to search me before I get off the train.
If I refuse? are they going to prevent me from getting off the train?
isn't that kidnapping? I mean they can search me before I get on with the threat that if I'm not searched, I can't board, but can they really keep me from getting off at a domestic stop?
If they touch me with out my permission isn't that assault?
I know that my response to it will be classified as assault.
It's bad enough that they have made air travel unbearable, do we need to let them mess up this too?
I'm sure that it will help create jobs by discouraging americans from traveling at all.
-- Sig under construction...
I'm a Canadian sysadmin. I love -- LOVE -- the LISA conference (http://www.usenix.org/lisa11/). It's wonderful, informative, and fun; I've made great friends there, learned an incredible amount and generally enjoyed myself enormously.
Last year was the third time I went. The conference was in San Jose. I took a bus and a train -- which took over 24 hours -- from Vancouver to San Jose, rather than fly and go through a naked body scanner. I figured if I'm going to talk the talk, I should walk the walk.
I'd already decided to skip this year's conference; it's in Boston, which is a long way to go by train or bus. I didn't want to be away from my family for that long. But I had been thinking about going next year, when it's going to be in San Diego.
I'm not going now. Not if this crap keeps up. I'll watch the video on my workstation, I'll listen to the MP3s on the bus, and I'll stay here in Canada. We have problems of our own -- but random searches and "papers, please" for the crime of taking the goddamned train are not one of them.
I'll miss y'all.
Carousel is a lie!
Is it any wonder why many people simply avoid the USA? I know I avoid it whenever I travel. I go so far as to pay extra to stayover within Canada rather than Newark when I travel to the Caribbean. I lay over in Toronto not Newark because I know I'll have way fewer issues. I know there is a TSA in Canada but as my flight will not enter into the USA, it's so much simpler to deal with rather than on a flight that terminates in the USA. Whole different set of rules it seems.
Keep up this Neo-Nazi crazy shit guys! You're only killing your tourism industry.
Let's see, the TSA authorization bill was sponsored by an R in the house a D in the senate signed into law by an R, became Federal employees due to a D advanced to choice of digital strip search or being felt-up session under a D administration.
The pattern is clear, both major parties care little about personal liberty. Like you, I am surprised to see anyone thinks that either major party cares about the constitution anymore. The R's give more lip service to some parts of the constitution, may actually care about other parts of the constitution. The D's, not so much those parts, but they have other parts they like more than the R's.
If I want to repeal the 16th amendment (the income tax), that does not mean I don't respect the constitution, I just means I want to alter it as provided by the constitution. If I decide that a don't like the 16th and refuse to pay income taxes, then it is truth that I don't really care about the constitution either, just the parts I like. It would be nice if people understand the difference.
Me too. This is pretty far removed from the Land of the Brave I pledged allegiance to in gradeschool. I fear for my children and especially my grandkids. I am honestly worried.
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
The Nazi's didn't go this far.
The threat to buses and trains can be effected from miles/hours away. Case? Stick a large, crooked wedge of metal on a train track to derail the engine. Cost? Almost zero. Effectiveness of the TSA wiping their asses on the Bill of Rights? Less than zero.
Someday, they will tar and feather those who preferred a job with TSA, over panhandling.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
This is pretty far removed from the Land of the Brave I pledged allegiance to in gradeschool
You pledged allegiance to a flag, actually. What most people do not know is that the original solute during the pledge was to extend your right hand, like these children (note that this was taken in 1941):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Students_pledging_allegiance_to_the_American_flag_with_the_Bellamy_salute.jpg
Palm trees and 8
How about just getting your government to make the TSA behave like most other western country's airport security? I've yet to see Canadian and European airport security turn up in a railway station and start frisking passengers.
I agree that the German security krewe that screwed with me aren't likely to show up at the Bahnhof by mistake, but this is an international show, Mr. Moore; you can buy your tickets with Euros, too!
On my last trip to Germany (last year), I made the mistake of bringing my reading light. The trip before that one, I had gotten an airplane seat with a broken light, and I wasn't going to suffer through another 10 hours of boredom if I could help it. Unfortunately, this is a somewhat modded LED headlamp: I had one headlamp that had an OK headband and mount, and another one with really neat optics and a broken mount. So I combined them. Unfortunately, aesthetics are not usually my prime concern when I make gadgets for myself—the thing has a largish lump of black epoxy on top where the wires come out. Yeah, it occurred to me that it might confuse people if I stuck this into my pocket, but I couldn't find anything else, and hey, it's obviously a flashlight. How much trouble can that cause?
And in fact, I got through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport just fine. None of the National Security Goons said a thing about it, even though I had my usual snarling match with the dumb f*cks. Ah, but on the way back through the Frankfurt airport, the guy running the carry-on X ray machine literally danced on his tippy-toes, holding my ugly duckling light up high in the air for all to see, calling for a "Sonderuntersuchung". Yep, special handling for the Doctor.
They took me to the Room For Bad Boys (at this point, a certain amount of Reality Skew had already set in, and I was getting junior high school flashbacks). What I thought was really weird is that none of these people understood why I would want a reading light. I tried to explain to them that reading was fun, but was met by looks of blank incomprehension. This was not some sort of language problem, as the Doctor's native language is German. (Well, OK, with a heavy Bavarian accent, but I think even these damn Prussians could understand me just fine!) They kept shining my light on the ceiling (after I showed them how to turn it on); I remember apologizing several times about how dim it was, and offering to change out the nearly dead batteries. Maybe this wasn't a smart thing to say to people who probably can't tell a flashlight from a Klingon phaser. But eventually, they gave me back my reading light, and let me go.
I had taken no more than three steps when I felt a hand on my arm. I was notified (in English) that I had been selected for a "special security check". It was like the scene you've seen in 50 movies where the prisoner is released, thinks the ordeal is over—and is instantly re-arrested by hard-faced guys wearing the 20th century's most snazzy uniforms with those jagged lightning bolt runes. There were at least five of these guys, and two of them were women. Evidently, this somewhat confused paunchy 60+ year old guy with the fuzzy white beard sent the danger meter into the red zone. The woman who was seated behind a desk said, "Empty your pockets please." Further Reality Seepage followed.
I can explain why I lost control. You see, I was wearing my Vest of Many Pockets, and every pocket was filled with things I considered interesting or useful (like reading lights, books, interesting rocks, you know, the usual stuff). I had a mental image of myself emptying out a nearly infinite multitude of pockets, drawing forth who knew what (I certainly had very little memory of what I had collected in the past weeks), a process that, with the accompanying explanations, would clearly consume months. I started laughing. I couldn't help it, I was bent over in paroxysms of laughter, holding on to Frau Schnipperschnapps' desk for support, for what seemed like a
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary