"TSA to Start Fondling Drivers Now, Too?"

[TBoneTX 45,568]

TSA TO START FONDLING DRIVERS NOW, TOO?

Lawmaker introduces STRIP Act to stop agents from abusing their power

by DREW ZAHN

A U.S. congresswoman was alarmed to learn that blue-shirted Transportation Security Administration agents had left the airports in her native state to begin inspecting cars and trucks, as well.

“Many of my constituents discovered this firsthand this past fall, as those familiar blue uniforms and badges appeared on Tennessee highways,” writes Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., in a Forbes editorial titled “The TSA Is Coming to a Highway Near You.”

“In October,” she continued, “Tennessee became the first state to conduct a statewide Department of Homeland Security Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) team operation [that] randomly inspected Tennessee truck drivers and cars.”

TSA representative Nico Melendez confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that these VIPR teams have also branched out to conduct security checks at subways, trains and cruise ship ports.

Businessweek reports the total number of TSA agents more than tripled in the last decade, from 16,000 to 51,000, while the Times further reports that VIPR teams conducted more than 9,300 checkpoints and other ops in 2011 alone.

Yet Blackburn is concerned not only with the increasing presence of the TSA, but also with the perceived power they have over Americans. For despite the fancy uniforms and tin badges, she asserts, the TSA’s transportation security officers, or TSOs, aren’t police and shouldn’t appear to be.

Many TSOs, she points out, have had less training that it takes to become a security guard, let alone a law enforcement officer, and yet they stand equipped with uniforms and badges, asserting the authority to scan, X-ray and even pat down travelers in ever-more invasive ways.

“While TSOs may have the appearance of [police], they have neither the authority nor the power,” Blackburn writes. “As TSOs continue to expand their presence beyond our nation’s airports and onto our highways, every American citizen has the right to know that they are not dealing with actual federal law enforcement officers.”

Blackburn explains that when the TSA administratively reclassified its airport screeners as TSOs seven years ago, it also changed the agents’ uniform from black pants and white shirts to the familiar, police-like, blue shirts with metal badges – a change the congresswoman has now resolved to reverse.

Blackburn, therefore, has introduced H.R. 3608, the “Stop TSA’s Reach in Policy,” or STRIP Act, as a way of putting the TSA back in its place.

“This bill will simply overturn the TSA’s administrative decision by prohibiting any TSA employee who has not received federal law enforcement training from using the title ‘officer,’ wearing a police-like uniform or a metal police badge,” she explains. “At its most basic level, the STRIP Act is about truth in advertising.”

H.R. 3608 has garnered 39 cosponsors – all Republicans – and has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Transportation Security.

“Despite the fact that TSOs are ‘officers’ in name only,” Blackburn explains on her website, “some have chosen to abuse their limited authority against the unsuspecting public. Earlier this year in New Jersey, a TSO was arrested for impersonating an officer, and days before Thanksgiving, a Virginia woman was brutally raped after a TSO approached her in uniform, waving his badge.”

“It is outrageous that in a post 9/11 world … the American people should have to live in fear of those whose job it is to keep us safe,” Blackburn continued. “Congress has sat idly by as the TSA strip searches 85-year-old grandmothers in New York, pats down 3-year-olds in Chattanooga and checks colostomy bags for explosives in Orlando. Enough is enough! The least we can do is end this impersonation, which is an insult to real cops.”

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http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/tsa-to-start-fondling-drivers-now-too/

Drew Zahn is a former pastor who cut his editing teeth as a member of the award-winning staff of Leadership, Christianity Today's professional journal for church leaders. He is the editor of seven books, including Movie-Based Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching, which sparked his ongoing love affair with film and his weekly WND column, "Popcorn and a (world)view."

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

[luckytxn 2,264]

Yeah. The TSA has already started to practice at weigh stations to inspect our big trucks. We have been told that it will be a general truck inspection but the TSA can if they want to interrogate me and search the vehicles and even my personal stuff and I am not to interfere. Way to go sheep. Thanks for allowing these civil rights to be taken away from us.

[TBoneTX 45,568]

Yeah. The TSA has already started to practice at weigh stations to inspect our big trucks. We have been told that it will be a general truck inspection but the TSA can if they want to interrogate me and search the vehicles and even my personal stuff and I am not to interfere. Way to go sheep. Thanks for allowing these civil rights to be taken away from us.

Holy mackerel, gee man. Are they given law-enforcement powers in the states in which they're operating?

What recourse do you have? Who told you that you are not to interfere? Who told them to tell you?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Holy mackerel, gee man. Are they given law-enforcement powers in the states in which they're operating?

What recourse do you have? Who told you that you are not to interfere? Who told them to tell you?

It all started when lucky got involved with that white slavery ring.....

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Seems like a major 4th amendment violation to me......

I question whether they actually have any legal authority.

[Leatherneck 693]

Boy was he right.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild, and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, Paris 27 May 1788."

[Darnell 8,478]

moonshine and uranium pellets - Tennessee has both. Hopefully TSA clerks have been trained on how to inspect a vehicle.

[Pooky 3,812]

moonshine and uranium pellets - Tennessee has both. Hopefully TSA clerks have been trained on how to inspect a vehicle.

There's 2 hopes of that - No, and Bob died in 2003.

[luckytxn 2,264]

Holy mackerel, gee man. Are they given law-enforcement powers in the states in which they're operating?

What recourse do you have? Who told you that you are not to interfere? Who told them to tell you?

The TSA started inspecting trucks in Tennessee as a test to train their interior inspectors. Lot of truck drivers not happy. The article doing the TSA doing this was in our company newsletter along with the company stating their policy. The company policy is that the trucks are company property. Anything in that truck is subject to search. The company feels that if they feel a reason to search than there is no need to interfere. To do so could and may bring disciplinary action.

The company has given an OK to allow any company vehicles to be searched.

Edited March 4, 2012 by luckytxn

[luckytxn 2,264]

moonshine and uranium pellets - Tennessee has both. Hopefully TSA clerks have been trained on how to inspect a vehicle.

They also grow a lot of pot. Considered some of the best.

[natty bumppo 297]

The TSA started inspecting trucks in Tennessee as a test to train their interior inspectors. Lot of truck drivers not happy. The article doing the TSA doing this was in our company newsletter along with the company stating their policy. The company policy is that the trucks are company property. Anything in that truck is subject to search. The company feels that if they feel a reason to search than there is no need to interfere. To do so could and may bring disciplinary action.

The company has given an OK to allow any company vehicles to be searched.

company vehicle with posted policy ... well you are kinda in a bind there.

personal vehicle is another story.

questions start with:

why do you wish to check my vehicle?

what is the probable cause?

let me see the warrant.

am i under arrest?

you want me out of the vehicle? please step back so I may properly exit (immediately shut door and lock vehicle on exiting).

please bring your boss here ... and I wish to contact my lawyer. We will wait on the roadside for both.

you have no objection to my recording this incident?

please state for the record how long you can detain me without probable cause or being charged.

the basic drill for keeping the thugs police out of your car whey they try to gain "innocent and approved entry" during a normal traffic stop ...

even tsa doesn't like ugly paper trails .....

[Glyn and Kathy 288]

This country is turning into a very scary place!

[slim 1,530]

I'm surprised you guys are all disgruntled over this. You gave them permission to do it at the airports and now that they're doing it on the highways you're offended. Why?

Just think, someday they'll have the authority to search your privately owned vehicle while it's sitting in your driveway.

You asked for it.

[luckytxn 2,264]

I'm surprised you guys are all disgruntled over this. You gave them permission to do it at the airports and now that they're doing it on the highways you're offended. Why?

Just think, someday they'll have the authority to search your privately owned vehicle while it's sitting in your driveway.

You asked for it.

I saw this travesty coming. I also see much worse. It is after all just dirty nasty truck drivers for now. No one can see what this can turn into apparently.