Defending People

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TSA Takes Over a Bus Stop">TSA Takes Over a Bus Stop

Last Fri­day 15 TSA agents joined offi­cers of the Hous­ton Police Depart­ment, the Har­ris County Sheriff’s Office, the METRO Police Depart­ment, and the Precinct Seven Constable’s Office in “a syn­chro­nized, counter-terrorism exer­cise that focused on bus stops and shel­ters and tran­sit cen­ters.” (Write On Metro, Multi-Agency Sting Oper­a­tion on Rail & Bus Suc­cess­ful, h/t @frankbynum.)

No actual ter­ror­ists were found in this exer­cise, in which offi­cers “per­formed ran­dom bag checks, con­ducted sweeps with our K-9 drug and bomb-detecting dogs, and assigned both uni­formed and plain­clothes offi­cers at tran­sit cen­ters and rail plat­forms to detect and pre­vent crim­i­nal activ­ity,” but the glut of offi­cers made “qual­ity” arrests, includ­ing eight felony arrests.

The TSA agents were from TSA’s VIPR (the METRO blog ren­ders it “viper”), or Vis­i­ble Inter­modal Pre­ven­tion and Response teams.

VIPR teams are the next step in screw­ing up America’s trans­porta­tion sys­tem. They have been seen vio­lat­ing pas­sen­gers’ rights at train sta­tions, as in Savan­nah (Amy Alkon, Advice God­dess Blog, Is Being a Moron a Require­ment for a Gov­ern­ment Job?); bus stops fol­low log­i­cally, and then high­way check­points and truck stops, until the goal is achieved of mak­ing it impos­si­ble for Amer­i­cans to move freely about their country.

Con­gress­woman Sheila Jack­son Lee (D-Texas Dis­trict 18), a senior mem­ber of the House Home­land Secu­rity Com­mit­tee, called this a new era for the TSA, and a new era for sur­face trans­porta­tion security.

“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,” said Jack­son Lee at the news conference.

I don’t think I’m going to like this new era very much.

(On the bright side, it gives me an issue that I’m will­ing to go to jail over.)

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This entry was posted by on Monday, April 16th, 2012 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

About The Author

Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.

Comments

9 Responses to “TSA Takes Over a Bus Stop”

  1. Justin T. says:
    16 April 2012 at 9:23 pm

    I’m espe­cially both­ered by the fact that they brought in drug dogs on a sup­posed ter­ror­ism exer­cise. I didn’t real­ize you could blow up a build­ing with a bag of weed. Good thing we have the TSA to keep us safe from the dan­gers of ston­ers and their Host­ess cakes.

    Reply
  2. Ric Moore says:
    17 April 2012 at 12:01 am

    “Why of course the peo­ple don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Nat­u­rally the com­mon peo­ple don’t want war nei­ther in Rus­sia, nor in Eng­land, nor for that mat­ter in Ger­many. That is under­stood. But, after all, it is the lead­ers of the coun­try who deter­mine the pol­icy and it is always a sim­ple mat­ter to drag the peo­ple along, whether it is a democ­racy, or a fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship, or a par­lia­ment, or a com­mu­nist dic­ta­tor­ship. Voice or no voice, the peo­ple can always be brought to the bid­ding of the lead­ers. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace­mak­ers for lack of patri­o­tism and expos­ing the coun­try to dan­ger. It works the same in any country.”

    Her­mann Goer­ing Quote
    I don’t think I’m going to like this new era very much, either.

    Reply
  3. Michael Stuart says:
    17 April 2012 at 10:16 pm

    I *already* don’t like this new era.
    I haven’t liked it since Sep­tem­ber 12, 2001…when “every­thing changed”.

    DHS is sim­ply the advance guard of the bankster’s army, here to put the iron in the fist of their takeover.

    The country’s broke. Just as they are doing with Greece, they are prepar­ing to exchange real assets–that is, the amber waves of grain, the fruited plains, the shin­ing seas, and you and me–for the fiat debt-money they’ve foisted on us.

    We’re tax cat­tle. And DHS is here to wield the cattle-prods ensur­ing there are no uppity cows in the herd.

    As you said Mark, this WILL progress to road­side check­points. It’s hap­pened already in Ken­tucky and Dal­las. It will be “Ihre papieren, bitte!”, but with­out the “bitte” because we seem to have a ruder bunch of thugs than the Nazis could produce.

    Indeed, over the last year we’ve elim­i­nated all doubt as to their inten­tions:
    * indef­i­nite deten­tion for Amer­i­cans
    * sus­pen­sion of habeas cor­pus
    * mur­der of Amer­i­cans purely at “exec­u­tive discretion”–or is that an oxy­moron?
    * the mil­i­tary under UN com­mand, com­plete with the exec­u­tive announc­ing to the Sen­ate via the loath­some Panetta that their ser­vices in direct­ing war would no longer be required

    We’re so far past the rule of law I don’t trust the sys­tem to uphold any objec­tion to its own power any more.

    Reply
    • Michael Stuart says:
      17 April 2012 at 10:19 pm

      Ah sorry forgot–

      a) Posse comi­ta­tus is dead, dead, dead
      b) in re high­way checkpoints–DHS just ordered over 600 mil­lion rounds of ammu­ni­tion, and thou­sands of bul­let­proof inspec­tion booths used to man road-blocks.

      It’s on.

      But my coun­try­men slum­ber is bliss­ful igno­rance, dis­cussing sports scores.

      Reply
  4. John David Galt says:
    18 April 2012 at 5:13 pm

    Hasn’t it been shown that TSA agents are not really cops?

    When they show up at the sta­tion where I get on the train, I’ll arrest them for vio­lat­ing my civil rights. Some­body should have done this by now.

    Reply
  5. Dan Terrill says:
    19 April 2012 at 2:01 pm

    Mark,

    Any idea what the penalty is for some­one who refuses to sub­mit to these searches?

    Reply
    • Mark Bennett says:
      19 April 2012 at 2:05 pm

      Refusal to con­sent is not an offense, but resist­ing a search is a Class A mis­de­meanor. Texas Penal Code § 38.03:

      RESISTING ARREST, SEARCH, OR TRANSPORTATION. (a) A per­son com­mits an offense if he inten­tion­ally pre­vents or obstructs a per­son he knows is a peace offi­cer or a per­son act­ing in a peace officer’s pres­ence and at his direc­tion from effect­ing an arrest, search, or trans­porta­tion of the actor or another by using force against the peace offi­cer or another.
      (b) It is no defense to pros­e­cu­tion under this sec­tion that the arrest or search was unlaw­ful.
      (c) Except as pro­vided in Sub­sec­tion (d), an offense under this sec­tion is a Class A mis­de­meanor.
      (d) An offense under this sec­tion is a felony of the third degree if the actor uses a deadly weapon to resist the arrest or search.

      Reply
      • Michael Stuart says:
        19 April 2012 at 9:26 pm

        Ah–but that’s a peace offi­cer, or in the pres­ence of one and at his direc­tion.

        If they’re nei­ther, I think it’s more nebulous.

        Reply
      • Dan Terrill says:
        20 April 2012 at 11:21 am

        Thanks, Mark. So in those ran­dom bag checks are optional, even though they no doubt act like that isn’t the case?

        Reply

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