The equivalent of Hitler’s SA is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a group of poorly trained molesters and drug runners who are supposedly keeping us safe from the al Qaeda terrorists trying to blow up airplanes with firecrackers in their underwear.
Drawing this connection is far from hyperbole as the TSA has begun to move outside of their sole prior dominion: American airports.
Now these goons, who are not sworn law enforcement officers, are going to be rolling out into other public places unannounced like bus stations, train stations, etc.
These groups of TSA agents are known as VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams. Personally I don’t think that it is a complete coincidence that the agency’s acronym harkens to a deadly, vicious snake.
The actual name of the TSA is an initialism, not an acronym, just as the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. are all initialisms. Why would the TSA create a different acronym for their stormtroopers other than to associate the image of a viper with the VIPR teams?
You are free to dismiss this as just a coincidence or meaningless acronym that just happens to be pronounced the same as an infamously dangerous snake. There is a wealth of damning evidence even if we completely ignore the agency’s interesting choice of acronyms.
According to the statements of John S. Pistole, Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on June 14th, 2011, these VIPR teams have been deployed a whopping 8,000 times this year alone.
These 8,000 VIPR operations in the past 12 months include over 3,700 operations in “mass transit and passenger railroad venues.”
According to Mr. Pistole, the operations are performed “in conjunction with local transportation security stakeholders and conducted jointly by TSA, local law enforcement and transportation security resources.”
This is just another example of how the federal government is ignoring state’s rights while blending with local law enforcement into a homogenous body of jackbooted thugs. One of the most telling aspects of these VIPR teams is the first initial: visible.
Why do security measures need to be visible to the public who they are supposedly protecting? I see no reason to throw these security measures in the face of the innocent American public unless this is an intimidation tactic, one which perfectly exemplifies their role as the American SA.
Not too long ago, one of these VIPR operations involved harassing and patting down families when they disembarked form a train.
To any sane person this should be beyond absurd. How on Earth would performing invasive grope-downs on children and families including off-duty firefighters and policemen after they got off the train keep anyone safe?
If these families and the true American heroes that accompanied them intended to commit a terrorist attack, why would they wait until they got off the train and were leaving the station?
What were they going to blow up the lavatories, vending machines, and uncomfortable bench seating? I’m not sure how anyone can be so incompetent as to think that searching people after the fact would prevent anything.
That is like if a police officer searched someone after they were leaving prison but not before. It just makes no sense whatsoever.
Recently there have been so many blatant examples of police brutality and police state tactics, not the least of which is arresting people for feeding hungry, downtrodden, homeless Americans. However, these VIPR teams make all of that pale in comparison.
Sworn police officers are not, on the whole, bad people who seek to subjugate, humiliate, and harass innocent Americans. I have family members who are law enforcement officers and they are great people who are loved in their communities for giving their fellow citizens the respect and kind treatment they deserve.
That is not to say that there are bad apples out there as obviously that is the case, but luckily for me, I have never been assaulted or falsely imprisoned or detailed by a police officer.
I cannot say the same for the TSA. I have not met a single TSA agent who showed me the slightest bit of respect or the kindness normal human beings afford to one another.
I have been groped, had my genitalia grabbed, been pressured and harassed for refusing to go through a naked body scanner, and somehow every single time I go through any airport across the nation I end up being picked out of the line for “enhanced screening.”
For the record I consider myself far from intimidating and with my long curly hair, audiophile-quality headphones, and laptop bag by my side, I do not think I fit the profile of your average terrorist, domestic or international. Then again, their profile of terrorists includes 6 year old girls, old women, disabled persons in wheelchairs, etc.
Now we can look forward to these invasive grope-down procedures at the hands of power-tripping TSA agents who receive less effective training than your average mall cop at a wide variety of locations other than airports! I’m sure there are some people out there who would enjoy having a stranger grab their genitalia but unfortunately for me, I am not one of them.
This rise of the TSA from incompetent, ineffectual airport security to the equivalent of Obama’s brownshirts is no surprise to me, and is likely not surprising to any of our readers. Obama announced that he would do exactly this on the campaign trail, something that is dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” or a quote that is taken out of context by tragically ignorant souls.
In reality this is not a conspiracy theory, nor was it taken out of context. Obama said exactly what he was going to do, and unlike many of his campaign promises he actually carried this one out.
I guess we should give Obama a little credit for actually following through on one of his campaign promises, although this is the one I hoped he wouldn’t actually carry out.
The TSA has been unleashed in ways never thought possible before, including massive coordinated exercises between multiple agencies. On June 16th, 2011 over 300 military and law enforcement agents conducted an exercise over a 100 mile portion of the Ohio Valley.
This included, “brief visual inspections of power and chemical plants, rail and riverboat terminals, lock and dam complexes and natural gas pipelines from New Haven in Mason County to Russel, [Kentucky]. The Kanawha River from Point Pleasant to the John Amos power plant near St. Albans also was covered.”
This VIPR team flexing of power involved helicopters, aircraft outfitted with reconnaissance gear, emergency vehicles, and patrol boats courtesy of the Coast Guard and the Divisions of Natural Resources of WV and OH.
In the words of Michael Cleveland, federal security director for TSA operations in West Virginia, as reported by the WV Gazette, “We wanted to get as many key players together as possible to have a visible presence and let people know we’re out here. It can be a deterrent.”
Clearly the point here is not to keep us safe from terrorists, it is to have “a visible presence” and to “let people know [the TSA] is out [there].”
The WV Gazette reveals the following laundry list of agencies involved in the massive exercise (which of course resulted in massive amounts of taxpayer money spent for absolutely no reason):
“[…]the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Air Marshal Service, FBI, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Ohio Highway Patrol, West Virginia State Police, Ohio Department of Transportation, Ohio Emergency Management Agency, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Columbus Fire Division’s bomb squad, Columbus Regional Airport Authority Public Safety Department canine teams, Ohio National Guard, West Virginia National Guard, West Virginia Division of Transportation, and West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.Several nongovernment entities also took part in the exercise, including American Electric Power, Marathon Petroleum, CSX railroad police, Norfolk Southern railroad police, El Paso Pipeline, Duke Energy and Sunoco.”
More than 15 government agencies participated in this absurdist display of the overreaching federal government, all of which were being paid with our non-existent funds, effectively signing us on to even more debt. Then again, we shouldn’t be at all surprised by the federal government burning through tax-payer dollars as if we had any to spend.
The gradual progression towards a society in which you could be pat-down by a TSA agent at any public place should be concerning to anyone who cares about their privacy and freedom.
If the TSA and their VIPR teams continue down this road of tyranny, we will not be able to escape the grope-down procedure if we take any public transportation whatsoever. Watch this news report from last year about the TSA invading a Greyhound bus station:
It seems that in a few years we will not have any choice of public transportation that does not involve having our privacy violated by a bunch of uniformed goons. There have also been talks of installing agents in public “soft targets” which include malls, grocery stores, movie theatres, and just about any public place in which people gather.
This is nothing new either, there have been illegal checkpoints erected around the United States in which people are stopped and questioned without any probable cause whatsoever, a flagrant violation of our 4th Amendment rights.
Is it just me or are we already progressing frighteningly far down the dark road towards a total and complete police state? The TSA is, in my opinion, more worrisome than the out-of-control police officers we all too often hear about, as the TSA doesn’t even have to swear an oath like a sworn law enforcement officer does.
This leaves the TSA with a sense of lawlessness, as if they can treat Americans in ways which would get any police officer thrown off the force and/or sued. This is not conjecture; we have already seen the TSA performing searches that no sworn law enforcement officer could carry out unless there was probable cause.
The TSA does not need probable cause to do anything, they think they are above the law and Washington seems to support this. Without the people taking an active role in resisting the encroachment of the federal government and their TSA brownshirts, we will never see change. Our “respresentatives” in Washington couldn’t care less about us being groped and harassed when we travel, since many get to take their private jets and never have to deal with the TSA’s grope-downs.
The TSA goons seem to be quite happy with their erosion of the most essential rights protected by our Constitution, maybe someone should remind them what happened to the SA after Hitler didn’t need them anymore. Hint: they were all exterminated.
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