TSA: coming to a roadway near you

[VMI77]

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/15725 ... -statewide

I feel safer already; all those terrorists on the interstate are finally going to get theirs. Yet, wait, they're deploying VIRP, but the random inspections aren't any more thorough than normal, so I'm confused. Does that mean extra manpower and other resources to conduct the same inspections, or is someone just lying? Our "watchdog" media is breathlessly telling us it's all good, so nothing to worry about. All the interstate terrorists will be rounded up as quickly as they've rounded up the airport terrorists.

PORTLAND, Tenn. – You're probably used to seeing TSA's signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR).

[hpcatx]

"Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

This finally ought to get those who just say "don't fly" concerned. That simplistic solution is not practical for many business travelers. Should those that need to fly be denied the same freedom of travel as drivers and make them subject to invasive and abusive TSA inspections?

Hopefully, articles like this and the fact that the TSA is coming to a highway near you will put the focus back on the real, underlying problems. We need discussions regarding true fixes and the balancing of our liberties with security. Where are our real law enforcement officials? Who knows, maybe before long the TSA will be tasked with stopping bicyclists for scans and pat-downs.

[Heartland Patriot]

Does seem to be getting a bit out of hand...I know all the arguments that people are going to make in defense of this thing, but I'm just not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling, you know? Isn't keeping our highways safe in Texas the reason we have DPS?

[C-dub]

I wonder how ling it will before this gets abused. I can just see it now. Someone gets a little road raged and call these folks and say the other guy made a gesture with his hands like he had a bomb and would blow him up. This other guy gets hassled big time and he didn't even do anything, but how's he going to prove it?

This is a mess.

[AEA]

TSA is turning into Obama's Jack Booted Civil Police Force he talked about. Right before our eyes with nothing being done to stop it!

We'd better wake up soon, or it will truly be too late.

[bilgerat57]

Hmmmm.....Govt agency recruiting civilians to monitor their neighbors and surroundings and report "suspicious" activity.........Holy Bolshevik! What country did I wake up in? I don't like this, I DON'T LIKE THIS ONE LITTLE BIT!

[n5wd]

Hmmmm.....Govt agency recruiting civilians to monitor their neighbors and surroundings and report "suspicious" activity.........Holy Bolshevik! What country did I wake up in? I don't like this, I DON'T LIKE THIS ONE LITTLE BIT!

Yeah, I remember when Grapeland took down all those "Citizen Crime Watch" signs because of the Bolshevik connection. Yeah, unh huh.

[txjim42]

Argh. What in the world???

What's next? Moms at the mall with dangerous looking diaper bags getting pulled over by the TSA golf cart?

[Razgriz]

Hmm, I was expecting cavity searches before this. Looks like I owe someone a fiver.

Being serious for a second, this is stupid. Why we need to give the rent-a-cops more power when they can't stop *People with guns on their person from boarding planes even with their fancy x-ray machines and metal detectors* is beyond me. But then again, this is the federal government, logic is out of their reach by a few light-years.

[atticus]

Let me get this straight. They refuse to defend the southern border, but choose to sue Arizona and Alabama for those states' enforcement of immigration law. They refuse to build the Congressionally mandated border fence, but they put Smokey and the Bandit on the road in Tennessee to catch those wascally roadrunners. They run guns to Mexican drug cartels, but they refuse to beef up the ports of entry across the southern border. OK, fine, now I really do feel safer. Thanks Janet Napolitano. Thanks so much.

[mamabearCali]

I knew this would happen you could literally sit there and read the documents they put out that said they wanted to do this type of stuff. Now What..."Don't like it --don't leave your house?" Really. Why don't we just get some saftey scissors and go cut out the 4th amendment of the constitution entirely. Why bother having it if the gov't is going to find any and every way around it to do what it wants to do. I highly doubt these guys have been trained in what citizens are/are not permitted to have on their persons in daily life (knitting needles, water bottles, and even pistols with a CHL carrier are perfectly legit). We have enough trouble in our country educating the real police officers on the law--now we have to deal with rent-a-cops too with pseudo police authority?

[PappaGun]

Strip searches on the side of the road?

Pat downs?
Feeling up kids?
Removing old ladies diapers?

[atticus]

Used to be a standard nazi phrase in the movies: "papers please." Well, we may see the day here in the U. S. when citizens have to carry their papers (but not any of the illegals!!!) I suspect there are lots of citizens who have had enough of this. There are entire communities in California made up of 99% illegals. Any government that tolerates such flouting of the law, and yet wants to impose heavy-handed measures on its citizens, no longer governs by consent of the governed. They are ruling with an iron fist. It's time to see a change.

[gemini]

Scary stuff. The TSA does NOT need to be involved.

[The Annoyed Man]

"Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

This finally ought to get those who just say "don't fly" concerned. That simplistic solution is not practical for many business travelers. Should those that need to fly be denied the same freedom of travel as drivers and make them subject to invasive and abusive TSA inspections?

Hopefully, articles like this and the fact that the TSA is coming to a highway near you will put the focus back on the real, underlying problems. We need discussions regarding true fixes and the balancing of our liberties with security. Where are our real law enforcement officials? Who knows, maybe before long the TSA will be tasked with stopping bicyclists for scans and pat-downs.

I have said words to that effect, but I have also protested mightily against TSA's policies and procedures at airports.....not to mention anywhere else. I have stated on many occasions that Janet Napolitano is toad, and that TSA is merely a front excuse for government to gain more control over what it views to be an unruly population.

I don't fly precisely because of TSA. But I'm not going to stop driving. OTH, I don't have to visit states where TSA does this. I have no business calling me to Tennessee, so I'll just avoid it.

This begs the question..... Since federal law enforcement are not fully vested LEO by Texas law, if TSA were to put up such road blocks say in DFW, would a CHL be required to show both IDs to a TSA officer if stopped at such a checkpoint?

Last comment......... I do not desire or want there to be a violent revolution to overthrow our government. I may consider myself a Texan by choice (since Texan by birth is not something I can claim), but I am an American first. I love my country unapologetically. But, I will also say that if this crap spreads nationwide, I can't think of a more likely way for one to start. The constant and deliberate provocation of the public while exercising their constitutional right to freedom of movement, even in their daily local travels, will not last for long before some sort of militia movement or other decides to do something about it. If that ever happens, the responsibility for it will lie squarely on the shoulders of a monstrous and ever more encroaching government, not on the people. The people, for the most part, just want to be left alone to enjoy their lives. When the quality of life's liberties is eventually ground away to what the soviets "enjoyed" before the collapse of communism, what happened there will someday happen here. I very clearly remember the pictures of Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank on August 19th during the 1991 coup in Russia, when their people spoke loud and clear about what they were and were not going to put up with any longer:


If DHS in general and TSA in particular do not back away from this gradual soviet style control of the peoples' movements, that is where we are headed. I don't like it one bit, and I don't want to see it happen. But it will happen if someone doesn't get control over this runaway bureaucracy and reform it. BTW, here is what happened in Russia just two years later.....Boris Yeltsin found the continued existence of the Russian parliament to be inconvenient to his particular ambitions, and so he ordered it dissolved. When they refused to be dissolved, he sent tanks to fire on the same building in the above photo:


People who entertain with relish the possibility of an armed rebellion never include in their fantasy the actual likely outcome—the emergence of a strongman who is averse to either a democracy or a republic. This is part of why it would be far, far better to solve the nation's problems politically. The problem with this is that, for better or for worse, politics is the art of compromise, and ideological purists of whatever stripe are not ever going to get everything they want. I consider myself a purist, but I recognize that others may not agree with me. Somehow, we have to figure out how to make it all work. But I firmly do believe that the existence of DHS and TSA is a threat to our national stability. The idea is a noble one—to ensure national security, and to force all the different agencies to cooperate with one another in the common goal of defending us from external threats. But we pride ourselves on being an open society. We cannot possibly defend ourselves from every possibly conceivable internal threat; nor am I convinced that we should be doing so. The reason I am not convinced we should do so is that every effort, even with the most pure, noble, and selfless motivations, to prevent internal terror by monitoring and clamping down on the movement of the people is a step in the direction of a closed and restrictive society—exactly what the soviet citizens endured for 75 years. At some point, we are no longer the free people we claim to be.