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Title: The TSA's mission creep is making the US a police state
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis ... -mission-creep-us-police-state
Published: Apr 19, 2012
Author: Jennifer Abel
Post Date: 2012-04-19 13:35:05 by Capitalist Eric
Keywords: None
Views: 2327
Comments: 3
Ever since 2010, when the Transportation Security Administration started requiring that travelers in American airports submit to sexually intrusive gropings based on the apparent anti-terrorism principle that "If we can't feel your nipples, they must be a bomb", the agency's craven apologists have shouted down all constitutional or human rights objections with the mantra "If you don't like it, don't fly!" This callous disregard for travelers' rights merely paraphrases the words of Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano, who shares, with the president, ultimate responsibility for all TSA travesties since 2009. In November 2010, with the groping policy only a few weeks old, Napolitano dismissed complaints by saying "people [who] want to travel by some other means" have that right. (In other words: if you don't like it, don't fly.) But now TSA is invading travel by other means, too. No surprise, really: as soon as she established groping in airports, Napolitano expressed her desire to expand TSA jurisdiction over all forms of mass transit. In the past year, TSA's snakelike VIPR (Visual Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams have been slithering into more and more bus and train stations – and even running checkpoints on highways – never in response to actual threats, but apparently more in an attempt to live up to the inspirational motto displayed at the TSA's air marshal training center since the agency's inception: "Dominate. Intimidate. Control." Anyone who rode the bus in Houston, Texas during the 2-10pm shift last Friday faced random bag checks and sweeps by both drug-sniffing dogs and bomb-sniffing dogs (the latter being only canines necessary if "preventing terrorism" were the actual intent of these raids), all courtesy of a joint effort between TSA VIPR nests and three different local and county-level police departments. The new Napolitano doctrine, then: "Show us your papers, show us everything you've got, justify yourself or you're not allowed to go about your everyday business." Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee praised these violations of her constituents' rights with an explanation asinine even by congressional standards: "We're looking to make sure that the lady I saw walking with a cane … knows that Metro cares as much about her as we do about building the light rail." See, if you don't support the random harassment of ordinary people riding the bus to work, you're a callous bastard who doesn't care about little old ladies. No specific threats or reasons were cited for the raids, as the government no longer even pretends to need any. Vipers bite you just because they can. TSA spokesman Jim Fotenos confirmed this a few days before the Houston raids, when VIPR teams and local police did the same thing to travelers catching trains out of the Amtrak station in Alton, Illinois. Fotenos confirmed that "It was not in response to a specific threat," and bragged that VIPR teams conduct "thousands" of these operations each year. Still, apologists can pretend that's all good, pretend constitutional and human rights somehow don't apply to mass transit, and twist their minds into the Mobius pretzel shapes necessary to find random searches of everyday travelers compatible with any notion that America is a free country. "Don't like the new rules for mass transit? Then drive." Except even that doesn't work anymore. Earlier this month, the VIPRs came out again in Virginia and infested the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, also known as the stretch of Interstate 64 connecting the cities of Hampton and Norfolk. Spokesmen admitted again that the exercise was a "routine sweep", not a response to any specific threat. Official news outlets admitted the checkpoint caused a delay (further exacerbated by a couple of accidents), but didn't say for how long. Local commenters at the Travel Underground forums reported delays of 90 minutes. I grew up in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. When I was a kid, my dad crossed the bridge-tunnel every day while commuting to work. When I was in university, I did the same thing. The old conventional wisdom said "Get to the airport at least two hours early, so TSA has time to violate your constitutional rights before boarding." What's the new conventional wisdom – "Leave for any destination at least 90 minutes early, so TSA can violate your rights en route"? Airports, bus terminals, train stations, highways – what's left? If you don't like it, walk. And remember to be respectfully submissive to any TSA agents or police you encounter in your travels, especially now that the US supreme court has ruled mass strip-searches are acceptable for anyone arrested for even the most minor offence in America. If you're rude to any TSA agent or cops, you risk being arrested on some vague catch-all charge like "disorderly conduct". Even if the charges are later dropped, you'll still undergo the ritual humiliation of having to strip, squat, spread 'em and show your various orifices to be empty. Can I call America a police state now, without being accused of hyperbole?
Poster Comment: Even the Brits in Socialist La-La Land get it.... too bad the Socialist idiots here don't.
A TSA 'viper' (VIPR) team patrolling mass transit
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#1. To: Capitalist Eric (#0)
Then the big question would be.... why didn't conservatives stand up to George Bush?
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
So-called "conservatives" should be ashamed of themselves for allowing Bush to sew the seeds of a new Stasi in America. So-called "liberals" (actually illiberal leftists) should be ashamed of themselves for allowing Obama to expand the TSA's power.
The same reason liberals aren't standing up to Barak Obama now. Their values change in accordance with who is in power and what is best for their party. You see it everyday on these forums. So-called conservatives are happy to throw away their supposed conservative values and vote for a man whose whole career has shown him to be just a smidgen to the right of Obama. They will happily embrace the police state, perpetual war, and big government if it will keep the Democrats out of power, all the while lying to themselves that their guys are going to change things for the better and slandering those who actually have values that don't change with the wind by calling us liberals. Meanwhile, liberals are happy to throw away their supposed liberal values and vote for a man who has not only embraced EVERYTHING they bitched and moaned about under the Bush Administration but who has expanded upon it. Can you imagine the furor of liberals had it been Bush who claimed to have the power to kidnap, detain, torture, and murder an American citizen on nothing more than his word? They would have been apoplectic! Like their conservative brethren, they will happily embrace the police state and perpetual war if it will keep the Republicans out of power. Anyone voting for Obama, Romney, or a Republican/Democrat incumbent embraces what the TSA is doing regardless of what they claim. While the details between the two candidates and parties may be a little different at the micro-level (and that difference gets smaller and smaller as the years go by), the macro-level direction they are taking us is exactly the same. A pox on them all.
Even the Brits in Socialist La-La Land get it.... too bad the Socialist idiots here don't.
#2. To: Capitalist Eric (#0)
Iran’s main drive for acquiring atomic weapons is not for use against Israel but as a deterrent against U.S. intervention -- Major General Zeevi Farkash, head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate
#3. To: mininggold (#1)
(Edited)
Then the big question would be.... why didn't conservatives stand up to George Bush?
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