TSA ‘Spot Searches’ Expand To Union Station

Increasing focus on searches of travelers disembarking from trains

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Random TSA ‘spot searches’ are expanding to Los Angeles’ busiest train station as the federal agency gets set to receive a massive boost in funding as part of a program to set up thousands more unnanounced checkpoints across the country.

“An all-too-familiar sight at LAX and the rest of the nation’s airports will soon be coming to the city’s busiest train station,” reports CBS News.

“Rail passengers have started seeing Transportation Security Administration on patrol at Union Station on a more frequent basis.”

The TSA is set to deploy 12 more VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams in addition to the 25 already active, who will be responsible for manning checkpoints on highways, in bus and train terminals, at sports events and even high school prom nights.

Over the course of this year, roughly 9,300 checkpoints were set up, with that figure set to increase in 2012.

The demand for $24 million in extra funding is in addition to the $110 million spent in fiscal year 2011. The figures are completely independent from the federal agency’s role inside the nation’s airports, which costs taxpayers $5 billion a year.

The extra money is being demanded despite the fact that there is “no proof that the roving viper teams have foiled any terrorist plots or thwarted any major threat to public safety,” according to a recent L.A. Times report, which also highlights how the TSA’s sniffer dogs are used to single out people for questioning if the dog smells the scent of the owner’s pets on their clothing.

“Those searches may happen when passengers step off a train into the station, instead of the more expected pre-boarding search,” reports Lindsay William-Ross.

The use of searches on passengers who are disembarking from trains has become more prevalent. In one instance, passengers who had already completed their journey when arriving in Savannah were subjected to airport-style pat downs.

 

More States Accept TSA VIPR Teams at Transportation Hubs

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
November 8, 2011

The effort by the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA to expand their operations from airports to state roads and beyond is being accepted by state and local governments around the country, according to AllGov.com, a website covering government activity.

AllGov.com reports today that other “states are expected to follow and accept VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) at their transportation hubs” following recent operations in Tennessee.

The unconstitutional operations were not in response “to any particular threat,” but rather designed to act as “a visible deterrence and detection security presence across Tennessee.”

In other words, the operation was an effort to acclimate Tennesseans to militarized TSA units at checkpoints around the state.

In October, the TSA’s VIPR units worked with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and conducted random inspections on interstate roadways in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport, told News Channel 5 that intelligence indicates law enforcement should focus on the highways as well as the airports. “Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate,” added Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

Since September 11, 2001, the United States has not faced the prospect of a serious domestic terrorist plot. The FBI habitually recruits and publicizes alleged terror plots arranged by its army of informers and operatives for propaganda purposes, but none of these have represented a serious threat. A terror plot hyped on the tenth anniversary of September 11th turned out to be a government concocted ruse. Intelligence agencies reported there was no terrorist threat.

As Patrick Gallahue has documented, the government now routinely conflates terrorism with narco-related crime in an effort to expand its reach and violate the U.S. Constitution.

AllGov.com reports the VIPR budget for FY 2012 is $109 million. It supports 37 VIPR teams. According to the DHS, these “teams are comprised of personnel with expertise in inspection, behavior detection, security screening, and law enforcement for random, unpredictable deployments throughout the transportation sector to prevent potential terrorist and criminal acts.”

It is specifically authorized by 6 U.S.C. § 1112 which states that the program is to “augment the security of any mode of transportation at any location within the United States,” a clear violation of Posse Comitatus. The federal effort to nullify Posse Comitatus and violate the Tenth Amendment under the rubric of anti-terrorism is huge.

The VIPR teams are designed to detain and search citizens at railroad stations, bus stations, ferries, car tunnels, ports, subways, truck weigh stations, rest areas, and special events. Like the Gestapo, many VIPR agents work in civilian clothing.

Airport security style checkpoints and inspection procedures are already in place at bus terminals, train stations, and are rapidly being expanded to the streets of America.

The TSA announced its plan to turn the nation’s highways into Gestapo zones back in February. “These inspection stations are now being expanded to normal roads and highways, unleashing an army of TSA agents who will be given a free hand to litter America with internal checkpoints in a chilling throwback to Soviet-style levels of control over the population,” Paul Jospeh Watson wrote at the time.

“If people think they can avoid the TSA by staying away from airports, they’re going to be in for a rude awakening,” Watson noted. “TSA is clearly engaged in a total takeover of society and plans to have its agents searching, patting down, scanning and harassing Americans at all levels of society, not just at transport hubs but at public events, in the street and on highways and roads across the country.”

 

Planes, trains, and automobiles: TSA to grope travelers on all forms of transportation

Wednesday, June 22, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) The enemy of freedom, the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), as well as its mother ship, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is on a mission to grope every single traveler in the US. Whether you travel by airplane, train, ship, bus, freight truck, or potentially in the future even your own private vehicle, the TSA wants to be there to treat you like a criminal and feel up your private parts.

According to a recent report in Mother Jones, the TSA has requested 12 more units for its growing fleet of Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams, which are nothing more than unconstitutional security checkpoints eerily similar to those implemented throughout Germany during Hitler’s reign.

“Papers, please,” is the historical mantra associated with the Nazi jackboots that treated innocent civilians like guilty criminals during World War II, and it represents the same tactic now being used by the TSA to target, intimidate, and ultimately violate the personal freedom of innocent Americans.

In the eyes of the TSA, you are guilty until proven innocent, and the agency feels as though it can scrap the US Constitution and invade your personal privacy in the name of fighting “terrorism.” Based on its actions, however, the TSA is the true terrorist, and the true enemy of freedom and liberty that is rapidly establishing the United Police States of America.

Back in December, NaturalNews reported that the TSA had already implemented VIPR checkpoints at a Tampa, Fla., Greyhound bus station, which was just one of many installments put in place since the program was formed in 2007 (http://www.naturalnews.com/030596_T…). And with its mobile fleet of surveillance and security forces, VIPR teams could one day show up at a baseball stadium, grocery store, or even neighborhood near you.

In Des Moines, Ia., VIPR teams recently decided to target random Latinos for security screenings. In Savannah, Ga., VIPR teams surprised train passengers with an invasive security check involving the lifting of shirts and fondling of women’s breasts. And in San Diego, VIPR teams recently screened, handcuffed, arrested, and deported a group of children who were on their way to school.

“We believe this is a flagrant violation of human rights, when we have a situation in which children are being separated from their families without the proper due process rights being afforded them,” said a spokesman for a family of one of the children abducted. Proper due process rights, of course, apply to all Americans, and these rights are now routinely being trampled by the TSA in its ruthless shredding and dismantling of the US Constitution.

Sources for this story include:

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06…

TSA Invades Roads & Highways With VIPR Checkpoints

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 1, 2011

The TSA has announced its intention to expand the VIPR program to include roadside inspections of commercial vehicles, setting up a network of internal checkpoints and rolling out security procedures already active in airports, bus terminals and subway stations to roads and highways across the United States.

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Up until now, commercial trucks and other vehicles only were subject to warrantless searches and radiation scans at specially designated “state-owned inspection stations” traditionally set up at rest stops next to highways. These internal checkpoints, run by Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the TSA, involve trucks being scanned with backscatter x-ray devices in the name of “safety” and “counter terrorism”.

These inspection stations are now being expanded to normal roads and highways, unleashing an army of TSA agents who will be given a free hand to litter America with internal checkpoints in a chilling throwback to Soviet-style levels of control over the population.

“Inspectors from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are likely to be more involved in roadside inspections of commercial vehicles, according to TSA officials,” reports the industry website BulkTransporter.com.

”VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams can be extremely effective, serving as a visible presence that is random and unpredictable,” says William Arrington with TSA. “VIPR teams are an essential part of protecting highway transportation vehicles and other critical infrastructures.”

The video below shows the truck inspections which will now be expanded to cover the country’s road and highway network.

The report also notes that, “VIPR team members may or may not be in uniform,” stoking fears about the use of secret police manning checkpoints which would be more befitting of the Soviet Union or the former East Germany.

As we have documented, airport security style checkpoints and inspection procedures are already in place at bus terminals, train stations, and are rapidly being expanded to the streets of America.

Since the launch of the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” program, the DHS has also released promotional material which depicts would-be TSA agents conducting searches at public events, including a Buccaneers football game.

Homeland Security is also developing technology to be used at “security events” which purports to monitor “malintent” on behalf of an individual who passes through a checkpoint. The video below explains how “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST) checkpoints will conduct “physiological” and “behavioral” tests in order to weed out suspected terrorists and criminals.

The clip shows individuals who attend “security events” being led into trailers before they are interrogated as to whether they are terrorists while lie detector-style computer programs analyze their physiological responses. The subjects are asked about their whereabouts, and if they are attempting to smuggle bombs or recording devices into the “expo,” proving that the technology is intended to be used at public events and not just airports. Individuals who do not satisfy the first lie detector-style test are then asked “additional questions”.

If people think they can avoid the TSA by staying away from airports, they’re going to be in for a rude awakening. TSA is clearly engaged in a total takeover of society and plans to have its agents searching, patting down, scanning and harassing Americans at all levels of society, not just at transport hubs but at public events, in the street and on highways and roads across the country.

The implementation of ‘Checkpoint USA’, where citizens are routinely stopped, searched and radiated by federal VIPER teams is further evidence of how America is crumbling into a Soviet-style police state where the presumption of innocent until proven guilty is abolished and the 4th amendment eviscerated. The DHS program also represents a complete violation of the 10th Amendment in that it brazenly contravenes states’ rights.