Cisco
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4196
Registered: 12-30-2010
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TSA pat-downs soon coming to your travel route
"The Electronic Privacy Information Center doesn’t appear to be enthusiastic about the Transportation Security Administration’s expansion of it
infamous airport pat-downs to highway checkpoints, bus stations, concerts, rodeos and other events.
The TSA said Thursday it has expanded its Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response program “to perform warrantless searches at various locations.”
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, which has fought the government on privacy grounds over the use of invasive body scanners and
intimate physical pat-downs by federal agents, noted that it had prevailed in a lawsuit in 2012 that “revealed the agency’s plan to deploy body
scanners outside of the airport at bus stations, train stations and elsewhere.”
Fox News reported there soon will be behavioral detection officers and search dogs deployed at transit stations and other locations to enhance
security.
The report quoted EPIC expressing a concern that the problem with “searching people outside the airport is that there are no real legal standards or
probable cause.”
The organization noted the federal response was that anyone who doesn’t want to be searched shouldn’t be at those locations.
RT America also noted that the expansion comes even as complaints about TSA agent misconduct have shot up by 27 percent over the last two years.
Danny Panzella of Truth Squad TV said in the report that it appears TSA is heading for “anywhere where you have big crowds of people.”
He charged that the agency’s concept of security is “based on intimidation.”
EPIC noted that several members of Congress have opposed the expansion of authority by the TSA, which uses “risk-based” profiling and “behavior
detection” concepts to search individuals.
The New York Times reported there has been “little fanfare” as the agency “best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting
events, music festivals,
rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals.”
While John Pistole, TSA administrator, says his mandate is to provide security for transportation everywhere, civil liberties groups charge that the
searches sometimes constitute warrantless actions that violate the U.S. Constitution.
“It’s something that is easily abused because the reason that they are conducting the stops is shrouded in secrecy,” said Khaliah Barnes,
administrative law counsel at EPIC.
The TSA was launched after the 9/11 attacks and has some 56,000 agents, while VIPR operations were begun in 2005 after a train bombing in Spain.
VIPR conducted nearly 9,0000 checkpoints last year, the Times reported. But agents have gotten themselves into trouble, such as in 2011 when Amtrak
briefly banned them from railroad property after VIPR agents patted down people after they got off a train in Savannah.
WND reported before the latest controversy over searches outside of airports arose that some of the TSA screeners might be criminals.
It was in May 2012 when Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., released a report titled “‘Not on My Watch’: 50 Failures of TSA’s Transportation Security
Officers.”
“While in the last decade TSA has employed many dedicated public servants who truly have a deep desire to serve our country, they have also hired an
alarming number of individuals who in many cases would never have passed a simple background check,” Blackburn’s report stated.
“This problem has only exacerbated itself since 2005 when TSA administratively reclassified airport security screeners as Transportation Security
Officers. To make matters worse, TSA upgraded TSOs uniforms to reflect those of federal law enforcement officers, complete with metal officer badges.
Despite their new title of officer, TSOs receive zero federal law enforcement training and … many TSOs have displayed little respect for the titles
they hold and the uniforms they wear.”
Her report detailed 50 crimes for which TSA employees had been arrested from 2005-2012, including theft, stealing, accepting bribes, felonious sexual
assault, assault, threats, murder, smuggling, drunken driving and impersonating a federal officer.
WND also reported last year the TSA’s expansion beyond airport checkpoints.
It was Blackburn, again, who raised the alarm, writing in a Forbes editorial titled “The TSA Is Coming to a Highway Near You.”
“In October,” she said, “Tennessee became the first state to conduct a statewide Department of Homeland Security Visible Intermodal Prevention and
Response (VIPR) team operation [that] randomly inspected Tennessee truck drivers and cars.”"
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/tsa-pat-downs-soon-coming-to-your...
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chuckie
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6082
Registered: 2-20-2012
Location: Kansas Prairies
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Deutchland Uber Alles! When do they start wearing black shirts? Didnt the USA used to have a constitution?
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Bob H
Elite Nomad
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Registered: 8-19-2003
Location: San Diego
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Anything like this that is performed "randomly" is profile judgment at is best. We are loosing our freedom more and more every year!
The SAME boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It's about what you are made of NOT the circumstance.
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chuckie
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6082
Registered: 2-20-2012
Location: Kansas Prairies
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I asked a County Sheriff about this, a trained long time LEO. He suggested, refusing to allow the search, and....calling a cop. A sworn officer, whose
authority is being usurped in his own jurisdiction is unlikely to allow your rights to be violated.....His second suggestion? Go to jail and sue the
**** out of everyone involved.......If people dont start taking a stand on these things.?????????
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Cisco
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4196
Registered: 12-30-2010
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| Quote: | Originally posted by chuckie
I asked a County Sheriff about this, a trained long time LEO. He suggested, refusing to allow the search, and....calling a cop. A sworn officer, whose
authority is being usurped in his own jurisdiction is unlikely to allow your rights to be violated.....His second suggestion? Go to jail and sue the
**** out of everyone involved.......If people dont start taking a stand on these things.????????? |
Thank You.
I was pulled over in backcountry San Diego by CBP on the road. Was bored CBP who wanted to go through my van and stuff and I refused.
It got rather hot and heavy until I stopped a passing motorist and asked them if they had a cell phone to please call the Sheriff for me and the CBP
cut me loose immediately. No explanation, no good-by's no nada. "you're free to go" as he went back to his vehicle.
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elizabeth
Senior Nomad
Posts: 742
Registered: 7-30-2004
Location: Loreto, BCS
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Not just the US...I was really surprised to have to put my carry on through an X-ray machine and to be patted down at a bus station in Mexico City
when traveling to Patzcuaro!
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