TSA: Groping You Beyond Airports

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/tsa-swarms-8000-bus-stations-public-...

Surprise! TSA Is Searching Your Car, Subway, Ferry, Bus, AND Plane

| Mon Jun. 20, 2011 2:15 PM PDT

Scott Ableman/FlickrScott Ableman/FlickrThink you could avoid the TSA's body scanners and pat-downs by taking Amtrak? Think again. Even your daily commute isn't safe from TSA screenings. And because the TSA is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, you may have your immigration status examined along with your "junk".

As part of the TSA's request for FY 2012 funding, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress last week that the TSA conducts 8,000 unannounced security screenings every year. These screenings, conducted with local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration, can be as simple as checking out cargo at a busy seaport. But more and more, they seem to involve giving airport-style pat-downs and screenings of unsuspecting passengers at bus terminals, ferries, and even subways.

These surprise visits are part of the TSA's VIPR program: Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response. The VIPR program first started doing searches in 2007, and has grown since then. Currently, the TSA only has 25 VIPR teams doing these impromptu searches: in 2012, it wants to get 12 more.

The searches are in the name of passenger security, and the TSA says it wants to prevent incidents like the 2004 Madrid train bombings. But if the airports' TSA searches miss security risks like large knives, loaded guns, and explosives, there's certainly the chance that screenings at train stations would be similarly flawed.

Not to worry: security isn't the only goal of VIPR. A recent VIPR operation/screening at a Tampa Greyhound bus station was conducted with US Border Patrol and ICE. "What we're looking for is threats to national security as well as immigration law violators," said Steve McDonald from US Border Patrol. An ICE representative said that they were also looking for smuggling, and Gary Milano from Homeland Security said that although that was the first time the Tampa bus depot had been screened, VIPR would be back again sometime in the future and was using the element of surprise as a deterrent to "the bad guys."

Although one man at the Tampa screening said he felt "safer," VIPR operations are not without their naysayers. A VIPR screening at a Des Moines Greyhound station last week is alleged to have targeted Latinos. Another TSA/Border Patrol VIPR screening on a trolley in San Diego resulted in three teens being handcuffed and deported while on their way to school. Around 20 others were also deported, according to local news outlets.

The trolley is part of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System. "We believe this is a flagrant violation of human rights, when we have a situation in which children are being separated from their families without the proper due process rights being afforded to them," said a spokesman for the girl's family. The three teens nabbed in the San Diego VIPR operation were deported to Tijuana, but later allowed to re-enter the United States on humanitarian visas.

More children, this time train passengers disembarking at Savannah, Georgia, were treated to questionable TSA treatment in February along with their families. While the passengers (who again, had just gotten OFF a train) were lifting their shirts and having bras handled during pat-downs, their luggage was sitting unattended on the train platform.

The TSA later admitted that the VIPR operation should have ended before the train entered the station, but told the public that the Savannah passengers didn't have to enter the screening area... even though an eye-witness says a TSA agent instructed them to go into the screening area to collect their luggage... the luggage that was actually waiting somewhere else.

VIPR operations are now even targeting freight trucks on highways. In addition to the random checks on public transit systems, it makes you wonder: can private vehicles be far behind? Will there be any mode of transportation beyond the reach of the TSA?

UPDATE: According to at least one news report out of Brownsville, Texas, TSA/VIPR has already conducted unannounced inspections of private passenger cars and trucks. Thanks for the tip, reader @jwindz.

UPDATE 2: Welcome, Drudge Report readers! If you liked this story, check out our story on how the TSA is scanning your face in an attempt to read your mind, our explainer on the safety of the new "porno-scanners," our report on the TSA missing a man's loaded handgun, our investigation of the people who are profiting from the new scanners, and Kevin Drum's anti-anti-TSA rant.

For more of stories from Jen Quraishi, click here or follow her on Twitter, @the_hip_hapa.

Noa's picture
Noa's picture

http://www.naturalnews.com/034323_National_Organization_for_Women_TSA_il...

TSA

TSA strip-searches 85-year-old woman in wheelchair while National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) remains shamelessly silent

 

Monday, December 05, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)

Share

(NaturalNews) For a federal government that has gone insane with criminality, no act of violating fundamental human rights is too outrageous anymore. In the latest chapter of the U.S. government's police state humiliation of innocent American women, an 85-year-old woman in a wheelchair, Lenore Zimmerman, was strip-searched by TSA agents who left her bleeding from a painful gash in her leg. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201...)

"They took me into a private room and strip-searched me," says Zimmerman. "They took my pants down... and then they took my underwear down." (http://www.local10.com/news/85-year...)

The TSA responded with what can only be a carefully-worded lie, claiming, "While we regret that the passenger feels she had an unpleasant screening experience, TSA does not include strip searches as part of our security protocols and one was not conducted in this case."

Oh, so now Lenore is a liar? Why would an 85-year-old grandmother lie about being strip-searched by the TSA? So the TSA blames her for inventing all this, claiming it essentially never happened. (http://www.local10.com/news/85-year...)

"Why would I make up this story?" Zimmerman responded in a NY Daily News article. "In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t think of such a thing happening." (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/len...)

Let me get this straight: So if the TSA takes your grandmother into the back room and has their way with her, she might have an "unpleasant experience" but it's all 100% approved by the TSA which then denies the whole incident even took place? This is the yet another sign of the runaway criminality of the TSA and the entire federal government which now feels it is above the law and answerable to no one.

That more people aren't engaged in a massive outcry against this also shows the extreme desensitization of the public which has already been achieved. Had this event happened just a decade ago, the national media would have been in an uproar. That it happened in 2011, during an era when the TSA routinely conducts illegal molestations of air travelers, apparently doesn't even raise eyebrows anymore. And that's pathetic (more below...).

Secret laws that can never be challenged

The federal government currently claims that when you enter an airport, you are essentially "government property" and its agents can do anything to you that they want, with zero protections, no boundaries and no recourse.

In fact, in dismissing Gov. Jesse Ventura's recent lawsuit against the TSA, a federal court recently put forth the following astonishing points in its ruling:

1) TSA's laws are "secret" and you cannot know what they are. (It's "national security" didn't ya know?)

2) TSA's laws can be changed at any time without notice. (And you still can't know what they are.)

3) You must abide by these secret laws even though you do not have any right to know what they are. (We don't have to tell you what the rules are, but you have to follow them anyway!)

4) These laws may never be challenged by anyone, even if they violate federal law, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution or even basic human rights.

In other words, technically speaking the TSA could pass a "secret" administration rule right that gives all TSA agents the right to have unrestricted deviant sexual intercourse with all selected air travelers as a "right" that cannot be challenged (just like with the kings in the Dark Ages). Under these perverse rules, the TSA could declare all Middle Eastern people to be a sub-human species, or require all teenage boys to be "thoroughly searched" Sandusky-style. I'm not making this up. The TSA now has the "administrative right" to do all these things, according to federal courts. And none of it can be challenged. (Outrageous!)

This is obviously a total violation of U.S. law and the very principles of freedom upon which this country was founded. The Fourth Amendment means what it says. It is not subject to "administrative nullification." We are living under a police state system right now, as you read this...

Obscene violations of the rights of women

Getting back to the grandmother in the wheelchair, she had asked to avoid the microwave radiation naked body scanner because she has a heart defibrillator surgically implanted in her chest, and she was concerned the machine's radiation might interfere with her medical device. So in what now appears to be a clear punishment for daring to request "special" treatment, Lenore Zimmerman was subjected to an 11-minute humiliation and psychological torture session by thuggish, criminal-minded TSA agents who have been repeatedly caught engaging in other criminal acts such as distributing child pornography (http://www.naturalnews.com/030787_c...), stealing the valuable electronics of air travelers (http://www.naturalnews.com/032947_T...), planting fake bags of cocaine in travelers' luggage (http://www.naturalnews.com/030302_T...), and even flashing their TSA badges and then raping women (http://www.wjla.com/articles/2011/1...).

The TSA is an out-of-control agency that openly violates the rights of women in particular, respecting no boundaries of human decency or personal privacy. It openly violates the core tenants of the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights which specifically protects the People from "illegal search and seizure" schemes dreamed up by tyrannical government. In fact, the Fourth Amendment was written into the Bill of Rights for precisely this kind of scenario which also existed pre-1776 when occupying British soldiers raped and fondled colonial women as they pleased, then claimed they had the "king's right" to engage in such behavior.

Our forefathers said, "Enough is enough!" And before they put this rule on paper, they put more than a few musket bullets through the thick skulls of the British soldiers who learned the hard way what "justice" really means. Such is history of revolution.

All for a "terror" threat that's 100% imagined

The real shocker in all this is that the TSA's security mandate was put in place in response to an imagined threat that was entirely fabricated by the U.S. government itself. This government has virtually the entire nation running scared of imaginary "terrorists," believing there are terrorists hiding under ever bed, around every dark corner, and plotting to kill everybody if not for the presence of all these thuggish police who are somehow protecting us from terrorists and maybe demonic leprechauns, too. OMG, there could be terrorists hiding in your pants! Hadn't we better check there?

And yet, look around you. Have you ever seen a terrorist? Seriously. Have you EVER seen a terrorist? Have you ever seen a mad bomber? Have you ever seen the FBI actually stop a terror plot that it didn't dream up itself to begin with? (http://www.naturalnews.com/033751_F...)

Don't you get it? There is no terrorism in America other than what the government itself has been creating!

The whole thing is an "Emperor Has No Clothes" mirage that has the public acting out some sort of shared delusion that we're all under assault by these evil, imaginary terrorists. Janet Napolitano insists "if you see something, say something" but in reality, nobody even sees anything because the war on terror is a complete fabricated fraud. To see something, you'd have to dream it up first, just like the FBI does.

The very best article ever written on this topic was penned by Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associated editor of the Wall Street Journal. Entitled, "In the War on Terror a Hoax?" (http://www.infowars.com/?p=62008), this article exposes the total fraud and fabrication of this falsely engineered war.

I've posted comments on that spot-on analysis at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034321_w...

Only read it if you really want to know the real truth behind the fabricated war on terror.

For how long will the American sheeple allow government criminals to strip-search their wives, mothers and grandmothers?

Even in North Korea, the tyrant police state administrators don't reach down the pants of civilians who are merely trying to travel. That form of sexually-perverse tyranny is unique to the United States of America, to the great shock of the rest of the world.

It is astonishing that woman's rights groups aren't marching in the streets over the TSA's sexual molestation of women -- palming their breasts, back-handing their genitals, strip-searching them for no logical reason. These are not merely crimes against Americans, they are crimes against women in particular.

Where is the National Organization for Women in all this? The utter silence of the N.O.W. on this issue -- as grandmothers are being strip-searched, detained, bloodied and badgered -- is nothing less than a total indictment of the false agenda of that entire organization. If the N.O.W. will not stand up for women in their time of need right now, as they are being physically and mentally abused by the federal government in airports across the nation, then the organization's entire reason for existence is a total fraud. It might as well just dissolve itself and admit it only "selectively" stands up for women when such a stance is politically expedient.

Or perhaps it should rename itself to be the "National Organization for Women Except for Those Being Abused by Government." N.O.W.E.T.B.A.G, in other words.

Why are women who travel by air not given the same protections as those who work in offices?

What is it about N.O.W. that prevents it from speaking out against corrupt, criminal government in the first place? If N.O.W. existed in 1943 as a non-profit in Germany, I suppose it would have stood for "protecting women unless they are Jewish, in which case they can all be gassed to death" because that was the government's policy at the time, right?

I ask: What gives the government the right to abuse women who would otherwise be protected if they were subjected to similar behavior in the workplace? Why is it WRONG for a suit-wearing executive to grab the tush of a co-worker in the office, but it's perfectly okay for a butch TSA she-brute to fondle the vagina of an innocent traveler and smirk while she calls it "security?"

The silence of the N.O.W. in all this is so shameful that I wonder how the top executives and directors of that organization can look themselves in the mirror each day, remaining silent while their own sisters, daughters and mothers are being groped, fondled, abused and tormented by thuggish, psychopathic government agents known as the TSA? Just because the TSA claims to be fighting an imaginary war on an imaginary enemy that they claim lives inside your pants doesn't make it true. It's absurd from the start.

The situation with N.O.W. is actually even worse than what I've describe here: The TSA was an exhibitor at a National N.O.W. Conference in 2009 where it maintained an information table or booth (http://www.now.org/organization/con...). Is the TSA recruiting at the N.O.W. conference? Is this not the ultimate in total hypocrisy and a conspiracy of crime against women?

Hey women: If you're sexually abused in a GOVERNMENT workplace, that's suddenly okay

The upshot of all this is apparently that if you are a woman, and your "workplace" is a government office claiming to be fighting terror, you can now be sexually abused, groped, tormented and even stripped naked against your will and the N.O.W. won't say a word, apparently. Suddenly it's all magically okay because of an imaginary "terrorist" enemy that's no more real than the Easter Bunny or the cartoon elves from Rice Krispies.

Shame on N.O.W. for its inexcusable silence as our nation's women are being sexually and psychologically abused -- even bloodied -- by government agents. Shame on the thuggish abusers who take these TSA jobs and carry out this police state agenda in exchange for a paycheck and the promise of a pension (which will one day be stolen from them, of course). Shame on the mainstream media for whitewashing this story, ignoring the muffled cries of all the women, teenage daughters, moms and grandmothers who are being routinely abused in all this, almost as if Penn State's football coaching staff were directing the TSA's strip-search protocols.

Shame on America for allowing this to go on, day after day, in complete and blatant violation of the Peoples' Fourth Amendment rights (not to mention fundamental human rights).

A nation of people who will routinely let the government stick their hands down their pants -- and excuse it all by claiming there are invisible "terrorists" hiding around every corner -- is a nation of cowards who have forgotten what freedom really means.

While tyrants run rampant, America sleeps...

Will America ever awaken to protecting innocents against tyrants?

I can only wonder, what event of overreaching tyranny will awaken the sleeping People? Will it take a TSA agent openly raping little boys in the back room? Or would that be okay, too, as long as somebody claims they're "fighting terror"? Maybe Napolitano should be replaced by Sandusky, and then we'd have even better security in America because all the young boys would be checked for bombs inside and out, huh? Yeah, it's sick. I apologize for even needing to draw these parallels, but this is the level of insanity that has now been achieved by the TSA and its open molestation and torture of innocent travelers.

At what point has it gone too far, I ask you? If the TSA claims it can merely write its own supreme rules that are subject to no law, no legal review and no courts challenge, then what's to stop the TSA from just ruling over the entire nation as a criminal police force that routinely rapes daughters and children on street-corner TSA checkpoints? Is there no requirement for the TSA to abide by any laws whatsoever? Are we honestly supposed to believe that the actions of the TSA will be held in check solely by the "ethics" of the TSA itself? Are you kidding? Are you insane?

This is the whole point of checks and balances, folks. The Bill of Rights is a check against tyrants who, throughout history, have "gone TSA" on their own populations and ended up raping their own innocent civilians merely because nothing stopped them from doing so. The whole point of the Bill of Rights is to HALT government attempts to overreach its limited mandate, and today, nothing is stopping the TSA from getting worse by the day.

If the courts will not intervene, and all laws are openly ignored, and the local police and sheriffs will do nothing to stop these criminals operating at the airports, then I must ask the inevitable question: At what point must obedience to the LAW be enforced by the citizens themselves?

I can only wonder what it's going to take before the sheeple of America decide they've had enough and they march into their local airports with the local Sheriff and bunch of armed deputies carrying M4 rifles and they ARREST THE TSA AGENTS and charge them with not just the crimes they have committed, but conspiracy to commit those crimes as well.

TSA agents, after all, would feel right at home in prison where getting gang raped is part of the culture. Heck, it might be so familiar to them all that they would mistake prison for a "federal workplace!"

Noa's picture

Good news is scarce these days so I thought I should share a little.  This came from the PEER's e-newsletter.  Is it me or is truth really crazier than fiction?  Look at the name of the manufacturer for these naked body scanners... RAPISCAN!  Sheesh, ya gotta wonder at the mindset of these people!

~ Noa

 

TSA removing 'virtual strip search' body scanners
January 19, 2013, CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/18/travel/tsa-body-scanners/index.html

 

Airport body scanners that produce graphic images of travelers' bodies will be removed from checkpoints by June, the Transportation Security Administration says, ending what critics called "virtual strip searches." Passengers will continue to pass through machines that display a generic outline of the human body, raising fewer privacy concerns. The TSA move came after Rapiscan, the manufacturer of the 174 so-called "backscatter" machines, acknowledged it could not meet a congressional-ordered deadline to install privacy software on the machines. "It is big news," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It removes the concern that people are being viewed naked by the TSA screener." Currently, the TSA uses the 174 backscatter machines in 30 airports, and has another 76 units in storage. It uses millimeter wave machines in 170 airports. The decision to remove the backscatter machine will make moot, at least temporarily, travelers' concerns about the health effects of the machines. Backscatter machines use X-rays, while millimeter wave machines use radio waves. The TSA has long maintained both machines are safe, but recently signed an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to study the scanners. The study will continue even though the machines are being pulled, the TSA said, because they could be reintroduced in the future.

Note: Each of those machines cost $175,000. Someone sure made a lot of money on these machines which had a very short lifespan.

 


The Gathering Spot is a PEERS empowerment website
"Dedicated to the greatest good of all who share our beautiful world"