TSA, expanding its tyranny well beyond airports..

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/18/tsa-mission-creep-us-police-state

The TSA's mission creep is making the US a police state











http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/11/30/1354294194574/Jennifer-Abel.jpg (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jennifer-abel)


Jennifer Abel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jennifer-abel)
guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/), <time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2012-04-18T10:42EDT" pubdate="" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Wednesday 18 April 2012 10.42 EDT</time>
Jump to comments (283) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/18/tsa-mission-creep-us-police-state#start-of-comments)


http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/4/18/1334759317986/tsacheckpoint_460x276.jpgA TSA 'viper' (VIPR) team patrolling mass transit

Ever since 2010, when the Transportation Security Administration startedrequiring that travelers in American airports submit to sexually intrusive gropings (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/17/tsa-patdowns-scanner) 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 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/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 (http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-11-16-airportpatdowns16_ST_N.htm) 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 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/29/air-transport-terrorism). 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 (http://reason.com/archives/2004/02/01/dominate-intimidate-control/singlepage) 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 (http://reason.com/archives/2004/02/01/dominate-intimidate-control/singlepage) 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."

Its only getting worse not better. Big government under obama will become totally oppressive before his second term ends.-Tyr

[Gaffer]

This is why they want everyone disarmed. Anyone that resists or fights back will be deemed a terrorist by the media. In four years we will have a full blown dictatorship in this country.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

This is why they want everyone disarmed. Anyone that resists or fights back will be deemed a terrorist by the media. In four years we will have a full blown dictatorship in this country.

I believe that is obama and his handler's plan. He is a foreign agent.. His loyalty does not lie with this nation. That is apparent to those of us with insight and that do not wear blinders.-Tyr

[aboutime]

This is why they want everyone disarmed. Anyone that resists or fights back will be deemed a terrorist by the media. In four years we will have a full blown dictatorship in this country.


Gaffer. Just a reminder in case you haven't heard. About two years ago. The Obama administration announced that Any American who is critical, in any way of Obama....IS considered both RACIST, and a HomeGrown Terrorist suspect. Even We Veterans who no longer wear the uniform are considered as the Enemy of the Obama Administration.

I didn't just make that up. Honestly. If we disagree with Obama. Are critical of Obama, or even appear to disagree with Obama. He and his administration see us as RACISTS, and Terrorists at home.

[Gaffer]

Gaffer. Just a reminder in case you haven't heard. About two years ago. The Obama administration announced that Any American who is critical, in any way of Obama....IS considered both RACIST, and a HomeGrown Terrorist suspect. Even We Veterans who no longer wear the uniform are considered as the Enemy of the Obama Administration.

I didn't just make that up. Honestly. If we disagree with Obama. Are critical of Obama, or even appear to disagree with Obama. He and his administration see us as RACISTS, and Terrorists at home.

Yes I remember that and if you read what's under my name you can see my response to it.

[aboutime]

Yes I remember that and if you read what's under my name you can see my response to it.


Ah so! Gotcha! Welcome to the club.

[revelarts]

Bush and the right got this TSA crap going.
It was nothing but trouble from the start. obama is just following thru. Romney had NO plans on cutting back on the gorwth of the TSA, NONE. (he even had TSA working at some of his campaign events no less)
to make it partisan will just make it last longer when you vote for an R that will do exactly the same because he's a "viable" "realistic" "frontrunner" "electable" PRO TSA republican candidate.

http://www.debatepolicy.com/showthread.php?30823-TSA-wands-pats-children-AFTER-trip-at-train-station



Tuesday, September 13, 2011

....TSA Law creator says it's time to dismantle the bloated mess...
A decade after the TSA was created following the September 11 attacks, the author of the legislation that established the massive agency grades its performance at “D-.”
“The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” said Rep. John Mica (R. -Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee.
“It mushroomed into an army,” Mica said. “It’s gone from a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion.”
As for keeping the American public safe, Mica says, “They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.”
Asked whether the agency should be privatized, Mica answered with a qualified yes.
“They need to get out of the screening business and back into security. Most of the screening they do should be abandoned,” Mica said. “I just don’t have a lot of faith at this point,” Mica said....

“Everything they have done has been reactive. They take shoes off because of [shoe-bomber] Richard Reid, passengers are patted down because of the diaper bomber, and you can’t pack liquids because the British uncovered a plot using liquids,” Mica said.

“It’s an agency that is always one step out of step,” Mica said.

It cost $1 billion just to train workers, which now number more than 62,000, and “they actually trained more workers than they have on the job,” Mica said.

“The whole thing is a complete fiasco,” Mica said.

In a wide-ranging interview with HUMAN EVENTS just days before the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Mica said screeners should be privatized and the agency dismantled.

Instead, the agency should number no more than 5,000, and carry out his original intent, which was to monitor terrorist threats and collect intelligence....

....The agency inadvertently caused security gaps by failing for years to keep track of lost uniforms and passes that lead to restricted areas of airports.

Screeners have also been accused of committing crimes, from smuggling drugs to stealing valuables from passengers’ luggage. In 2004, several screeners were arrested and charged with stealing jewelry, computers and cameras, cash, credit cards and other valuables. One of their more notable victims was actress Shirley McClain, who was robbed of jewelry and crystals.

One of the screeners confessed that he was trying to steal enough to sell the items and buy a big-screen television.

In 2006, screeners at Los Angeles and Chicago O’Hare airports failed to find more than 60% of fake explosives during checkpoint security tests.....

“We are one of the only countries still using this model of security,” Mica said, “other than Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and I think, Libya.”





http://www.humanevents.com/2011/09/12/tsa-creator-says-dismantle-privatize-the-agency/
http://patriotupdate.com/2011/09/tsa-creator-says-dismantle-privatize-agency/


It's been securty theater from the beginning and it's spreading like a cancer.

Are we serious about wanting it to go away. it won't if we keep the status quote D's and R's in congress and the white house.

[revelarts]

http://www.debatepolicy.com/showthread.php?30098-TSA-at-the-Bus-Stations-too&highlight=airport+security
TSA at Bus stations in 2010

http://www.debatepolicy.com/showthread.php?33041-TSA-begins-random-ROAD-inspections-in-Tennessee&highlight=airport+security
TSA Highway Road side Inspections across the country


http://www.debatepolicy.com/showthread.php?30823-TSA-wands-pats-children-AFTER-trip-at-train-station&highlight=airport+securityTSA
TSA At Train stations As People GET OFF the train

federal police force in the name of security, hooked people with FEAR of terrorist. convince folks to trade freedom of unmolested air travel for FAUX security and we lose freedoms of ALL unmolested travel. the people have allowed this grow. trust the guberment NOT.

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. The freeman of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents.
James Madison

[jafar00]

How many of you guys complaining about this, fully supported Bush and his Patriot Act and War ofn Terror?

Can you only now see how your rights have been lost since 9/11 now that a Democrat is in charge and continuing the same policies?

[aboutime]

How many of you guys complaining about this, fully supported Bush and his Patriot Act and War ofn Terror?

Can you only now see how your rights have been lost since 9/11 now that a Democrat is in charge and continuing the same policies?


jafar. No complaints from me. As long as someone is sharp enough to stop one of your Buddies before they have a chance to become a candidate for a 70 Year Old Virgin. Or, 70 Virgins. Whatever the case may be today???

[revelarts]

GOOD News from the TSA,
they are removing the Back scatter radiation devices from some airports..



(NaturalNews) (http://www.naturalnews.com/037741_TSA_naked_body_scanners_airports.html) After months of complaints, negative feedback, bad press and no small amount of controversy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced it will begin removing its naked body scanners out of key airports around the country.
Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security – which oversees the TSA – made the decision in recent days to pull the scanners from New York City’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports.
The question is why. Why did it take so long? And what’s the reason for the move? Understand that the machines are not being retired (at great taxpayer expense); they have simply been moved to other, less busy, airports where, presumably “far fewer passengers will be exposed to radiation,” reported the non-profit investigative media organization ProPublica, which added that the dangerous machines were already removed from Boston’s busy Logan International Airport earlier this month.
The Chicago Sun Timesis reporting that the backscatter machines are going away from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport as well.
Oh, they’re not dangerous – Move is ‘strategic’
The TSA’s “official” excuse is that the machines were causing unacceptable delays at the two NYC airports and that removing them is an effort to speed up the lines.
Since when has the TSA given two hoots about customer service? This is the agency that allows its staff to grope kids, grandmothers and busty women, while allowing the criminals it hires to rob passengers blind before heading home to download child pornography.
No, some other reason that the agency feels is threatening – or potentially threatening – has forced this decision. Could it be that critics like us have been right all along – that the revealing backscatter x-ray machines actually do cause harm?
The agency says no, that’s not the reason. But when was the last time a federal agency admitted a mistake?
“They’re not all being replaced,” TSA (http://www.naturalnews.com/TSA.html) spokesman David Castelveter told ProPublica. “It’s being done strategically. We are replacing some of the older equipment and taking them to smaller airports. That will be done over a period of time.”
“Older equipment?” The backscatter machines, which only came online beginning in 2009, are supposed to be state-of-the-art.
“Strategically?” Wouldn’t you like to know what this term is supposed to mean? Like, what’s the strategy?
This sounds an awful lot like the TSA’s way of reducing a known health threat while allowing itself an “out” by saying, in essence, “Hey, we never said they were dangerous…in fact, we’re still using them.”
http://libertytactics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/scanners-technology-wave-full.n-300x224.jpg (http://libertytactics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/scanners-technology-wave-full.n.jpg)Why do they have to be backscatter machines?
Granted, the agency does still utilize them in 25 of the nation’s busiest airports (http://www.naturalnews.com/airports.html) (though the agency won’t confirm which ones, according to ProPublica).
And, in late September, the TSA awarded three U.S. companies contracts that could potentially be worth as much as $245 million to develop the next generation of scanners; one design by American Science & Engineering uses backscatter technology.
But there are other, safer machines out there that are more than capable of screening passengers. One type utilizes millimeter-wave scanning technology, which emits less radiation and is far less invasive while still incredibly effective at finding objects on passengers.
Some scientists can’t figure out why the TSA won’t use this viable alternative.
“Why would we want to put ourselves in this uncertain situation where potentially we’re going to have some cancer cases?” David Brenner, director of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, told ProPublica last year. “It makes me think, really, why we don’t use millimeter waves when we don’t have so much uncertainty.”
We agree.
One final note: If they’re so safe, why doesn’t the TSA allow some independent, non-affiliated third party test the safety of the backscatter x-ray machines?