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TSA 'Secured' Metrodome During Recent Football Game

McGruber writes "Travel writer Christopher Elliott touches down with the news that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration was spotted standing around outside a recent American football game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers (picture). According to Mr. Elliott, the 'TSA goes to NFL games and political conventions and all kinds of places that have little or nothing to do with ... travel. It even has a special division called VIPR — an unfortunate acronym for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response team — that conducts these searches.' He continues, 'As far as I can tell, TSA is just asking questions at this point. "Data and results collected through the Highway BASE program will inform TSA's policy and program initiatives and allow TSA to provide focused resources and tools to enhance the overall security posture within the surface transportation community," it says in the filing. But they wouldn't be wasting our money asking such questions unless they planned to aggressively expand VIPR at some point in the near future. And that means TSA agents at NFL games, in subways and at the port won't be the exception anymore — they will be the rule.'"

44 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Nazi America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why not just get it over with and change your flag to the swastika, we all know that's where this is heading.

    1. Re:Nazi America by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why not just get it over with and change your flag to the swastika, we all know that's where this is heading.

      Well, I think the first step is to change their uniform shirts to a sort of a chocolate brown color, that has a "calming" effect...

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    2. Re:Nazi America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why not just get it over with and change your flag to the swastika, we all know that's where this is heading.

      Well, I think the first step is to change their uniform shirts to a sort of a chocolate brown color, that has a "calming" effect...

      I think they may have all ready deployed their troops - look closely, the next time you THINK you see a UPS man.

    3. Re:Nazi America by Phrogman · · Score: 5, Funny

      One night it will all crystallize, and you can all see where its heading...

      --
      "The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
    4. Re:Nazi America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How was this marked troll? This is making it look like the US is gifting itself with a third, politically inspired police corps. Just like the SS.

    5. Re:Nazi America by crazycheetah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Americans are mostly supportive of these security measures since they overwhelmingly voted for either Republican or Democrat

      You're forgetting the part where most Americans are brainwashed into thinking that the only point that their vote is going to do any good (or bad for that matter) is if they vote Republican or Democrat. I keep meeting more and more people that hate both parties but vote for them, because "there's no other choice that's not throwing my vote away!" There's a pretty good chunk of people in the US right now that despise our government and are trying all kind of different means outside of starting a revolution to correct it. Unfortunately, that's MUCH easier said than done.

    6. Re:Nazi America by paiute · · Score: 5, Funny

      The United States of America lost 75% of its Constitutional rights by following this one weird trick!

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    7. Re:Nazi America by waspleg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
      --C.S. Lewis

    8. Re:Nazi America by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 5, Informative
      --
      "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
    9. Re:Nazi America by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Informative

      One night it will all crystallize...

      For those under 30...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    10. Re:Nazi America by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bush created this monster, and Obama plans on growing it for his control.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    11. Re:Nazi America by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 4, Funny

      For those who slept through high school and currently have a career as TSA agents...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht [wikipedia.org]

      FTFY.

    12. Re:Nazi America by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 4, Informative

      Quite possibly. However, that does not detract from the wisdom of it. Just leave off the quotation marks and keep using it. It's a warning worthy of perpetuation.

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    13. Re:Nazi America by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Informative

      I mean, really, having security at major sporting events, is that really the equivalent of murdering millions and millions of people? Really?

      Remember Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, etc. That's what's lurking under the surface.

      --
      No sig today...
    14. Re:Nazi America by houghi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All hail the new King. Same as the old King.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  2. TSA at Every Home by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It won't be long before there is a TSA agent posted at every home, to interview its occupants before they are allowed to leave.

    1. Re:TSA at Every Home by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Oh, you're going to the movie theatre? Didn't you say you were a student? How is a student able to afford gasoline and movie tickets?

      (I have actually been asked by a TSA agent how I was able to afford airline tickets.)

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    2. Re:TSA at Every Home by 0111+1110 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To which the TSA brute would reply, "Do you want to fly today?"

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    3. Re:TSA at Every Home by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Interesting

      ...actually, being a Canadian, I started giving my life story until she told me to shut up. I think the only thing people can really do to defend themselves against the TSA is to waste the agency's time.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    4. Re:TSA at Every Home by paiute · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...actually, being a Canadian, I started giving my life story until she told me to shut up.

      Something along the lines of this:

      "I don’t reckon them times will ever come again. There never was a more bullier old ram than what he was. Grandfather fetched him from Illinois–got him of a man by the name of Yates–Bill Yates–maybe you might have heard of him; his father was a deacon–Baptist–and he was a rustler, too; a man had to get up ruther early to get the start of old Thankful Yates; it was him that put the Greens up to jining teams with my grandfather when he moved west. Seth Green was prob’ly the pick of the flock; he married a Wilkerson–Sarah Wilkerson–good cretur, she was–one of the likeliest heifers that was ever raised in old Stoddard, everybody said that knowed her. She could heft a bar’l of flour as easy as I can flirt a flapjack. And spin? Don’t mention it! Independent? Humph! When Sile Hawkins come a browsing around her, she let him know that for all his tin he couldn’t trot in harness alongside of her. You see, Sile Hawkins was–no, it warn’t Sile Hawkins, after all–it was a galoot by the name of Filkins–I disremember his first name; but he was a stump–come into pra’r meeting drunk, one night, hooraying for Nixon, becuz he thought it was a primary; and old deacon Ferguson up and scooted him through the window and he lit on old Miss Jefferson’s head, poor old filly. She was a good soul–had a glass eye and used to lend it to old Miss Wagner, that hadn’t any, to receive company in; it warn’t big enough, and when Miss Wagner warn’t noticing, it would get twisted around in the socket, and look up, maybe, or out to one side, and every which way, while t’ other one was looking as straight ahead as a spy-glass. Grown people didn’t mind it, but it most always made the children cry, it was so sort of scary. She tried packing it in raw cotton, but it wouldn’t work, somehow–the cotton would get loose and stick out and look so kind of awful that the children couldn’t stand it no way. She was always dropping it out, and turning up her old dead-light on the company empty, and making them oncomfortable, becuz she never could tell when it hopped out, being blind on that side, you see. So...."

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    5. Re:TSA at Every Home by blackraven14250 · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Isn't that the usual reason why people buy airline tickets?"

  3. Your papers, please... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not far off.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  4. Bureaucracy tending towards opression... by ericloewe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's time for the US to get rid of the TSA, which has caught no terrorists, foiled no plots, cost millions, irradiated thousands with backscatter x-ray scanners, has stolen quite a few personal items and is actively trying to expand its sphere of influence.

    Replace it with common sense and profile people. That's how airprort security works, not by wasting millions of dollars.

    1. Re:Bureaucracy tending towards opression... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It was time to get rid of it when it was created. The first thing Obama should have done when sworn in was dismantle the Department of "Homeland Security" and fold everything back to how it was before the World Trade Center attacks. With the exceptions of Customs, let the airports handle their own security, and get rid of the "Constitution Free Zone."

    2. Re:Bureaucracy tending towards opression... by Spad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Good luck finding a politician willing to commit career suicide by dissolving the TSA.

      Even in the extremely unlikely event that it's seen as a popular move with the electorate as a whole, do you really think all the campaign contributors with financial interests in the TSA supply chain would let them get re-elected?

    3. Re:Bureaucracy tending towards opression... by Type44Q · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Good luck finding a politician willing to commit career suicide by dissolving the TSA.

      Would that be the same "career suicide" that Kennedy commited when he became a threat to those who control our nation's intelligence services? :)

  5. At least it will create jobs. by khasim · · Score: 5, Informative

    My biggest problem is that the TSA has not caught a single terrorist yet.

    Everything they do and all the money they spend has accomplished NOTHING except to harass regular people.

    1. Re:At least it will create jobs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      It has also greatly increased the government's awareness of the locations and activities of regular people. In-and-of itself that isn't valuable, but the moment any of these regular people become problematic (by engaging in perfectly-legal protests, for example), the knowledge will be invaluable in shutting them down.

      Catching terrorists is only the ostensible purpose of the TSA. The real purpose is to keep YOU and your ilk in line.

      And since Americans seem to love trading freedom for security, you may as well get used to it.

    2. Re:At least it will create jobs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We're seeing an erosion of our freedom and privacy and your problem is that they just haven't caught a terrorist yet? Does that imply that there actions will be justified if they do? Would it therefore make more sense to give them even MORE power and take away even more personal liberty if that helps and leads to catching terrorists?

    3. Re:At least it will create jobs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Ahh, not a bear in sight. The bear patrol must be working like a charm."

    4. Re:At least it will create jobs. by 0111+1110 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, it would merely indicate that a non-lazy terrorist finally got his shit together and blew something up. Damn lazy terrorists. They are so soft and lazy they may as well not even exist. Oh wait...

      If we had lots and lots of attacks on non-aviation or non-transportation targets or in the airport security lines themselves then you would have some evidence of a deterrence effect. So far you've got nothing more effective than a magic anti-tiger rock. Except that an anti-tiger rock won't cost you 7.85 billion USD per year. Of course if you wan't to pay that much I could sell you one. After all, you get what you pay for so my 8 billion dollar anti-tiger rock will be way more effective than one you found on the side of the road or whatever. Personally, I would feel just as safe if the US purchased an 8 billion dollar anti-terrorist rock and then dissolved the TSA. It would save taxpayers and travelers a whole lot of money in the long run as well since the rock is just a one time purchase.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    5. Re:At least it will create jobs. by Firethorn · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If they stopped a bomb/terrorist attack every day, I might be willing to put up with the erosion. As the actual rate is, at this point, somewhere below a thousandth of that, we could suffer a 9/11 attack something like once every 3 years and STILL be better off without the TSA.

      Some practical changes like the reinforced doors make sense. Combined with the attitude changes of the passangers and that threat has already been pretty well remediated.

      Making us take off our shoes and go though the x-ray scanners as opposed to a simple metal detector is overkill.

      The TSA is practicing risk avoidance, not risk management. The military learned that lesson over 30 years ago. It simply costs too much to avoid ALL risk; you end up not being able to do anything. Thus, you manage the risk - don't take stupid chances, but don't fret over extremely unlikely events, out of proportion of the damage it could cause. The underwear and shoe bombs were too small to have any realistic chances of taking the plane down. Ergo, they could have done as much or more damage in the waiting line at the TSA. More, if they turned it into a proper suicide vest with fragmentation additives. Or at a mall or some such.

      Risk management is simple in theory. You look at the risk - the chance that it will happen as a percentage, and the average damage it would cost. If mitigating the risk would cost more than the damage multiplied by the chance it'll happen, then you don't perform that mitigation.

      That's the simple type, of course. Some mitigations fix multiple risks, for example. Armored windows that will stop a gunshot also tend to be rather overkill for hurricane/tornado, after all. Vehicle barriers not only stop vehicle bombs, they stop drunk drivers. Etc...

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    6. Re:At least it will create jobs. by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have a large rock in my backyard. it keeps tigers away.

      and its about as effective as the TSA is in their 'goals'. but my rock is a lot cheaper.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  6. Hey Republican Congress! by Rougement · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're looking for spending cuts to balance tax increases? I think I just found one!

  7. Hey TSA: Fuck off by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You provide little actual security within your primary area of focus. Confinscating water bottles, nail clippers, groping little boys and girls, strip-searching people and putting unsolicited fingers on and in their privates, and using technology that your own people are now developing cancer from being near. You talk about terrorist threats, but how many terrorists have gotten away with irradiating our citizens? How many terrorists have stolen millions in camcorders, cell phones, and other electronics? How many terrorists have smuggled drugs onto commercial airlines? And the real kicker: Compared to those numbers, how many TSA agents have been caught doing the same?

    You bring a level of institutional incompetence to the show that makes the current fiscal cliff negotiations look like someone forgetting to give the change back after buying a candy bar... you're overpriced, underwhelming, and frankly... the "cure" you provide is worse than the disease. And the only reason the TSA hasn't been drop-kicked out the door is because the media keeps people in perpetual ignorance of just how incompetent you guys truly are.

    So when you come into my town and say "this will be the norm", I can't help but wonder how long until nobody flies, goes to public events, or even leaves their fucking house-- not because of terrorists, but because of the inconvenience of having to deal with your bullshit. Your organization is incompetent and useless. Go away.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:Hey TSA: Fuck off by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Funny

      You provide little actual security within your primary area of focus. Confiscating water bottles...

      That's pretty much it right there. The NFL probably saw what a great job they did at preventing outside beverages inside airport security, and how much better the overpriced food vendors inside security are doing as a result, and they're probably hoping that the TSA can repeat that success at their establishment.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  8. Re:Scary by 0111+1110 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's fine because voting is the same as not voting at all too.

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  9. It was written over 100 years ago... by 101percent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue. ... To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  10. As foretold by the prophet Osama Bin Laden by 0111+1110 · · Score: 4, Informative

    We will work to continue this battle, God permitting, until victory or until we meet God. I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in -- and the West in general -- into an unbearable hell and a choking life.

    Osama Bin Laden. 2002.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/01/31/gen.binladen.interview/index.html

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  11. VIPR by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

    an unfortunate acronym for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response team

    It's not an 'unfortunate acronym,' they chose it exactly BECAUSE it spells VIPR. Someone in the system likes that name.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  12. If you don't like the TSA, then don't fly! by clonehappy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is what I've been being told for years now. When I point out that it's been the plan ALL ALONG to expand them out into a Stasi-style force on the highways, in the subways, at the shopping malls, at sporting events, I was branded a tinfoil-hat nutter.

    Now what, bootlickers?

  13. Had we not flown... by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Had people simply refused to fly as long as the TSA continued to exist, the expansion would have ended. People kept flying, even when they could have taken a train or bus, and so the TSA never felt the heat, and eventually grew larger. People will not boycott sports events either, nor will they refuse to drive when the TSA starts creating highway checkpoints, nor will they refuse to go to malls when the checkpoints come there.

    Boil the frog slowly is how the major parties operate; the major parties consist of politicians either too corrupt to stop or too inept to even realize what they are doing.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  14. Re:domestic security? by canesfan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok, I get that, and I also get that none of this is about security, but merely about control and power. What I don't get is why the security theater / homeland security smoke screen is so effective, but that's probably just me and owed to the fact that I've been taught history. History tells us where all of this will lead. As we now by now: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

    As for why the "security theater / homeland security smoke screen is so effective"? Stop and think and honestly try and take stock of how many people you currently know personally who could be objectively called independent thinkers who are not afraid to live what they proclaim they believe. I am in my 40's and I can say this is not the America I grew up in. Very few people have the courage to live by the set of principles which made America a great Country to begin with.

  15. Re:domestic security? by jahudabudy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Very few people have the courage to live by the set of principles which made America a great Country to begin with.
    Uh, like self-centered obsession with getting ahead personally regardless of the expense to others? Not that there haven't been some few stellar individuals that stood out, but the overall history of America is voracious greed thinly disguised as "individualism" or "manifest destiny". There are no longer free resources that are easily taken from the natives, or an endless supply of desperate newcomers to step on; we can't even overtly loot Central and South America now, thanks to global international relations. So now, we have turned inward and are eating ourselves. Very few stood on principle when it was every one else being digested, especially since the American middle class got the scraps. Don't pretend that now that it is the middle class that is the entree that somehow the principle of the matter has changed.

    --
    ...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA