Thursday, August 23, 2012

Government agents moving out of airports and into the streets

For some time we have been warning that the TSA is systematically moving beyond the nation’s airports and conducting operations on the streets of America. The latest example of this kind of activity occurred at an event organized by Mitt Romney’s GOP running mate Paul Ryan this past weekend in The Villages, Florida. The Shark Tank blog reports that TSA officers showed up alongside Secret Service and the local Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, and proceeded to do what they do like no one else does. “A big WTF is in order here.” the blog notes, adding “We heard that the TSA was going to expand its ummm, ‘reach,’ but to assist in political campaigns is quite the jump in broadening their ‘transportation security horizons.’” “I counted no less than (6) TSA agents alongside the usual uniformed Secret Service detail-not to be confused with the ‘Men In Black’ looking agents.” blogger Javier Manjarres notes, with a picture of the agents in action (below). As we have previously documented, airport security style checkpoints and inspection procedures are already in place at bus terminals , train stations , and are rapidly being expanded to the streets of America. Agents have even been spotted roaming around at public events such as sports games and music concerts, and even at high school proms. The TSA even moved beyond its own borders this summer as agents were dispatched to airports in London for the Olympic Games. The TSA has also announced its intention to expand the VIPR program to include roadside inspections of commercial vehicles, setting up a network of internal checkpoints and rolling out security procedures already active in airports, bus terminals and subway stations to roads and highways across the United States. These internal checkpoints, run by Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the TSA, involve trucks being scanned with backscatter x-ray devices in the name of “safety” and “counter terrorism”. Homeland Security is also developing technology to be used at “security events” which purports to monitor “malintent” on behalf of an individual who passes through a checkpoint. Since its inception in the US after 9/11, the TSA has grown in size exponentially. The agency was slammed in a recent congressional report for wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on security theatre. If people think they can avoid the TSA by staying away from airports, they’re going to be in for a rude awakening. TSA is clearly engaged in a total takeover of society and plans to have its agents searching, patting down, scanning and harassing Americans at all levels of society, not just at transport hubs but at public events, in the street and on highways and roads across the country. The implementation of ‘Checkpoint USA’, where citizens are routinely stopped, searched and radiated by federal VIPER teams is further evidence of how America is crumbling into a Soviet-style police state where the presumption of innocent until proven guilty is abolished and the 4th amendment eviscerated. http://www.infowars.com/tsa-rifles-through-bags-conducts-pat-downs-at-paul-ryan-event/

6 comments:

  1. ‘Checkpoint USA’, where citizens are routinely stopped, searched and radiated by federal VIPER teams"

    Thanks Obama

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  2. Thanks Obama? WTF are you talking about TD? The enormous secret powers the government is now abusing were brought into being because of the way the Bush administration chose to deal with 9/11. You can't have it both ways. You can't both embrace fear and whip people into a frenzy over it and then bitch about it when the result is that you lose freedom to an agency like the TSA. Since 9/11, there has been an endless crusade to keep people terrified in order to exploit them financially and to encourage them to give up their freedom.

    You think Obama sent the agents there? Are you telling us that Romney's own people are not putting the village in lockdown mode to keep out unsavory Democrats? Since 9/11, this is the new America. I'm sorry TD, but this is pure bullshit to put on Obama. I will not disagree he has not moved to dismantle what has been started, but you should vent your misguided anger on Dick "Mushroom Cloud" Cheney. Nobody has used fear more then that dirt bag to advance a militant agenda of mass control.

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    1. At least we can balance all of the loss of our freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism with cool drone assassinations of terrorists in their own countries. Of course we do have drones flying over us too...and all government agencies armed to the teeth...and the Patriot act...maybe those assassinations aren't so cool after all...

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    2. Those drone strikes are acts of war, but we don't even question it anymore. We get away with it because of who we are and because of the reality that most of the world is not going to overly grieve the death of a Saddam or some goat farmer who was killed for being unable to get away from being used as a human shield.

      Rachel Maddow, not a favorite of any conservative, wrote a really good book called Drift: the unmooring of American Military Power. If you can separate message from messenger, it's a really look at how we have gotten to where we are today. Then again, Eisenhower made it clear what was happening decades ago. It won't be easy to pull back from where we are now, but it's not impossible.

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    3. Max... I have developed an affinity for Rachel and Ben Swann over the last year. The have been holding the RNC on a very tight rope over its treatment of Ron Paul and his campaign. I have no doubt that she stretches the liberal truth just as right leaning commentators 'embellish' the truth to get a desired effect. She has been on point in reporting the underhanded tactics used by the republican party at local state and national level, to keep Ron Paul's name out of the news and have successfully muzzled him at the Republican convention....... Of coarse one of his planks is the pull back of the military.... Don't think that plays well with the power structure of either the left or the right.

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    4. I have to admit, she's become like a cavity that I can't stop running my tongue over. I agree with you that she does find interesting angles and presents an intelligent case, most of the time, on whatever she's covering. It might just be my attitude, but lately, I feel like she's started to cross that line between very informative and smarmy. A line, BTW, the Olberman finally crossed and could not seem to pull himself back from.

      When she's on a show like Bill Maher's, she tends to be very thin skinned and comes across a little entitled. I still appreciate the stories that she and O'Donnell cover, but I also keep getting a nagging feeling that they are going to keep drip drip dripping their way into just being another pair of sensationalists. By the end of last week, I was really freaking annoyed at the coverage of Akin. Maybe it's just our culture today that a good journalist is unable to mantain an independence when they are being pushed to fight for ratings.

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