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Re: TSA Harrassing You in Train Stations Now
Posted by **Winston OBoogie** on Aug 11, 2013 at 11:50:49 AM:
In Reply to: TSA Harrassing You in Train Stations Now posted by **Rumor** on Aug 6, 2013 at 9:04:18 PM:
*Just how many squads of armed Robocops running around rousting citizens for no good reason does this land of the free need?:
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**As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds.
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**The squad was not with the Washington police department or Amtrak’s police force, but was one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR teams for short — assigned to perform random security sweeps to prevent terrorist attacks at transportation hubs across the United States.
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**“The T.S.A., huh,” said Donald Neubauer of Greenville, Ohio, as he walked past the squad. “I thought they were just at the airports.”
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**With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy.
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**T.S.A. and local law enforcement officials say the teams are a critical component of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts, but some members of Congress, auditors at the Department of Homeland Security and civil liberties groups are sounding alarms. The teams are also raising hackles among passengers who call them unnecessary and intrusive.
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**“Our mandate is to provide security and counterterrorism operations for all high-risk transportation targets, not just airports and aviation,” said John S. Pistole, the administrator of the agency. “The VIPR teams are a big part of that.”
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**Some in Congress, however, say the T.S.A. has not demonstrated that the teams are effective. Auditors at the Department of Homeland Security are asking questions about whether the teams are properly trained and deployed based on actual security threats.
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*They even admit that this is mostly Security Theater. And that sounds so sweetly benign, doesn't it? But the effect of this isn't, in the end, to make little old ladies feel safer by confiscating the 8oz bottle of Geritol in their handbags. It's to TRAIN CITIZENS TO SUBMIT TO AUTHORITIES WITHOUT PROBABLE CAUSE. That's exactly what's happened in airports, after all. Americans are so docile about it that people in other countries are astonished to see us taking off our shoes and otherwise disrobing at airport security without even being told. (They don't have to.)
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**by Digby
What it comes down to it, it's the TSA hiring of some individuals that clearly aren't properly trained or screened and have their own personal agenda as to whom they will target to search. Searching an 85 year old grandma or some 6 year old little boy, that's clearly overboard to some. Do you know how many soldiers we lost in Vietnam that were killed by a kid carrying s shoebox with a grenade in it? But you know what?
despite all the little horror stories you hear, I personally would go through the security hassle and at least have some reassurance that some nutjob (regardless of age, creed or color) isn't getting onboard my plane/train/bus or whatever, with a weapon or bomb.
If one feels that the TSA inspector is out of line there is a means by which you can lodge a formal complaint against that individual.
To suggest dropping our guard just because there hasn't been a recent hijacking is ludicrous and just what those future wannabe plane/train/bus hijackers are waiting for. Terrorists are patient..it took them several years to plan out the attack on the WTC. What makes you think they won't wait a few years to see us drop our guard? Let's not give them the chance shall we?
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Last updated on Aug 11, 2013