
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/tsa-swarms-8000-bus-stations-public-... (link is external)
Surprise! TSA Is Searching Your Car, Subway, Ferry, Bus, AND Plane
Scott Ableman/Flickr (link is external)Think you could avoid the TSA's body scanners and pat-downs by taking Amtrak? Think again. Even your daily commute (link is external) 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 (link is external)".
As part of the TSA's request for FY 2012 funding, TSA Administrator John Pistole told Congress (link is external) 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 (link is external), ferries (link is external), and even subways (link is external).
These surprise visits are part of the TSA's VIPR program (link is external): 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 (link is external), loaded guns (link is external), and explosives (link is external), 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 (link is external)/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 (link is external) 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 (link is external) 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 (link is external). Around 20 others were also deported (link is external), according (link is external) 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 (link is external) to re-enter the United States on humanitarian visas.
More children, this time train passengers disembarking at Savannah, Georgia (link is external), 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 (link is external) 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 (link is external) 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 (link is external) on highways. In addition to the random checks on public transit systems (link is external), 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 (link is external) 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 (link is external), our explainer on the safety of the new "porno-scanners (link is external)," our report on the TSA missing a man's loaded handgun (link is external), our investigation of the people who are profiting from the new scanners (link is external), and Kevin Drum's anti-anti-TSA rant (link is external).