TSA Raids Austin Amtrak Station

[chakk]

It is interesting all the TSA activity is taking place at Austin; do they have training camps or facilities there?

Austin is the state capital of Texas, so there may be a lot of visibility with state officials to do random searches there. And, of course, this search was not entirely "random" -- the news media were obviously tipped off in advance to the expected presence of the VIPR team that morning. When I arrived in Austin on the eastbound TX in early January, I saw no evidence of TSA presence.

 

[benjibear]

If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't have to worry. The only reason to complain is if you have something illegal.

When they start doing random checks targeting a certain group of people and "finding" something wrong which results in these people being hauled off to somewhere out of site then you can compare us to Hitler's Germany. The reason you had to show your papers was to prove you weren't a Jew or other undesirable.

 

[MattW]

I'll say that I do not consider a procedure to be entirely "voluntary" when the potential consequence is denial of carriage. I will say that I don't necessarily resent a security presence at major stations like NYP or CHI, but that's more to deal with the transient/panhandler issue and other incidental crime than anything.
Of course, with that said, as much as I hate the TSA I also very much hope that the first Jihadi who tries to pull anything at a major station ends up with more holes in them than a line of political argumentation has these days...but I've got markedly more respect for the NYPD, Amtrak Police, and even the Guard/Army often put at NYP than I do for the TSA (which is to say that I do have respect for those non-TSA groups).

*SNIP*

However, when anyone signs up to travel by Amtrak, one agrees to the conditions of carriage. Those include being searched at the discretion of an Amtrak employee. If you don't like those conditions, don't take Amtrak. It's pretty simple. If one doesn't want to leave a credit card deposit, don't rent a car. If you don't like the possibility of being either searched or denied boarding, don't take Amtrak. If you don't want to go through a metal detector and have your bags X-rayed, don't fly. It's pretty simple.

I've been to other countries where we went through metal detectors and sometimes had our bags X-rayed taking the bus or train. It frankly wasn't that big a deal.

Where does it end? We're at if you don't like it don't fly. So now we're going to if you don't like it, take a train. Then where? Take a bus? Take a car? Walk? Never leave your house? Before you laugh at me for the absurdity of tsa establishing highway or sidewalk checkpoints, let me remind you it's already happened. It started with commercial vehicles, but their sister agency, cbp, already does highway checkpoints "near" the borders for all vehicles. How much longer until they move them inland and place them under tsa? If I had suggested on 9/12/01 that naked pictures would be required of passengers attempting to fly, I would have been laughed off the internet...

 

[jis]

Until the nation and society as a whole evolves to be not ruled by paranoia and fear none of this will change. That is the unfortunate truth. TSA is a symptom, not the root malady.

 

[OBS]

Until the nation and society as a whole evolves to be not ruled by paranoia and fear none of this will change. That is the unfortunate truth. TSA is a symptom, not the root malady.

very well said!

 

[Trogdor]

If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't have to worry. The only reason to complain is if you have something illegal.

Bulls**t. Our constitution and our laws do not support such a notion. That's why we require search warrants rather than allowing cops to randomly go into people's homes to look for evidence that they might have done something wrong.

But, since you're okay with it, I'll have the cops go to your home and look through everything you own in search of something illegal.

When they start doing random checks targeting a certain group of people and "finding" something wrong which results in these people being hauled off to somewhere out of site then you can compare us to Hitler's Germany. The reason you had to show your papers was to prove you weren't a Jew or other undesirable.

No, by then it will be far too late. I don't know why we have to wait until we're locking up large masses of people and killing them before we should be able to complain.

But then again, with views like "the innocent have nothing to hide," it really doesn't surprise me that you'd wait right up until that moment before you'd even think that something was off.

Remember the old adage about a frog in boiling water.

Until the nation and society as a whole evolves to be not ruled by paranoia and fear none of this will change. That is the unfortunate truth. TSA is a symptom, not the root malady.

Basically, this. Fear sells. Fear keeps certain people in power, and it's a much easier emotion to play on than anything else (especially that which is logic-based). It's fear (and the subsequent promise that those in power can protect you if you only cooperate) that leads to such anti-freedom sentiments as "the innocent have nothing to hide." But still, it's sad how quickly people buy into such garbage.

If anyone ever gets the chance, look up the BBC Documentary "The Power of Nightmares" to see how ridiculous the whole thing is. It's three one-hour segments. The first two segments provide some very interesting historical context, and the third segment deals with what was then present-day anti-terror politics (mid 2000s).

 

[BCL]

I'll say that I do not consider a procedure to be entirely "voluntary" when the potential consequence is denial of carriage. I will say that I don't necessarily resent a security presence at major stations like NYP or CHI, but that's more to deal with the transient/panhandler issue and other incidental crime than anything.
Of course, with that said, as much as I hate the TSA I also very much hope that the first Jihadi who tries to pull anything at a major station ends up with more holes in them than a line of political argumentation has these days...but I've got markedly more respect for the NYPD, Amtrak Police, and even the Guard/Army often put at NYP than I do for the TSA (which is to say that I do have respect for those non-TSA groups).

*SNIP*

However, when anyone signs up to travel by Amtrak, one agrees to the conditions of carriage. Those include being searched at the discretion of an Amtrak employee. If you don't like those conditions, don't take Amtrak. It's pretty simple. If one doesn't want to leave a credit card deposit, don't rent a car. If you don't like the possibility of being either searched or denied boarding, don't take Amtrak. If you don't want to go through a metal detector and have your bags X-rayed, don't fly. It's pretty simple.

I've been to other countries where we went through metal detectors and sometimes had our bags X-rayed taking the bus or train. It frankly wasn't that big a deal.

Where does it end? We're at if you don't like it don't fly. So now we're going to if you don't like it, take a train. Then where? Take a bus? Take a car? Walk? Never leave your house? Before you laugh at me for the absurdity of tsa establishing highway or sidewalk checkpoints, let me remind you it's already happened. It started with commercial vehicles, but their sister agency, cbp, already does highway checkpoints "near" the borders for all vehicles. How much longer until they move them inland and place them under tsa? If I had suggested on 9/12/01 that naked pictures would be required of passengers attempting to fly, I would have been laughed off the internet...

We're a nation of laws. Someone can't be randomly searched on the street or in their home. There has to be reasonable suspicion to do so on the street and there needs to be a warrant in the home.

However, once you're not on the street or in your home, it's a different story. Airport personnel are authorized to search all passengers and go through their bags. When you take Amtrak, you have agreed to allow for a search of your belongings or otherwise denied boarding or further transportation. If I visit a military base, I implicitly agree to a search of anything (my person, my vehicle, etc). And before anyone asks why, the Presidio of San Francisco used to be effectively open to the public when it was an active military installation.

Heck - if you drive a vehicle, you always agree to be currently licensed and in most states are required to carry your driver license. In the majority of states you are required agree to a sobriety test and an alcohol screening.

You want to take a shared transportation system? Then it comes with conditions.

 

[user 1215]

Having a new Chief of Police at Amtrak seems to be a disaster. The previous Chief said after the RAID on Savannah back in '11 was way over the top and no more "screenings" would take place until the TSA and Amtrak agreed on scope. Apparently none of that has happened and things are back to where they were. Enjoy the New Age

Savannah was all kinds of wrong. It, too, was "voluntary" if you wanted to leave your bags in the station. You could walk out to the parking lot and avoid the search if you didn't have checked bags. They were also harassing passengers AFTER the ride rather than prior to boarding. That's the problem with this nanny state that we're in. Too much testosterone and not enough brains.

REF: http://news.travel.aol.com/2011/02/28/why-did-tsa-pat-down-kids-adults-getting-off-train/

To a degree, crime prevention has merged WAY too closely with law enforcement. They should remain separate. LOOKING for crime isn't the same as deterring crime through applicable laws and punishment.

 

[JoeBas]

Its still ridiculous hyperbole that's offensive to people that survived that time.
There's an entire universe between "a dog sniffed at my luggage while I misinterpreted a TSA agent's disinterest as him looking at me like i'm guilty!" and "Alexandria Nick is secretly a ***** agent and has reported all of you for questioning the state. You'll be arrested without charge, tortured, and in a labor camp within 36 hours."

Yes, but no society goes directly from your first scenario, to your second. There are a number of signposts on the road that leads to that latter destination.

And some folks really need to look at the map.

 

[JoeBas]

However, when anyone signs up to travel by Amtrak, one agrees to the conditions of carriage. Those include being searched at the discretion of an Amtrak employee. If you don't like those conditions, don't take Amtrak. It's pretty simple. If one doesn't want to leave a credit card deposit, don't rent a car. If you don't like the possibility of being either searched or denied boarding, don't take Amtrak. If you don't want to go through a metal detector and have your bags X-rayed, don't fly. It's pretty simple.

Actually, it's not that simple. You can either roll over and accept the mandate, or you can challenge the thinking behind it and get it changed. Protest what you see as injustices. Fight against policies that are wrong-headed. Challenge in court practices which push the envolope to the breaking point and violate the law.

 

[JoeBas]

"And how do you know they "found nothing'."

Because A) The article said so, and B) If they had, they'd be trumpeting it from the highest parapet in order to justify... more.

"There could have been many reasons they were there that day."

The spokesman admitted they were there "Showing the flag".

Just get over it, and get over your lame "WW2 Germany" nonsense. Okay?

To some degree, this is a valid point. The current situation is getting to be much more along the lines of the Iron Curtain, with internal documents needed to travel internally, and intense personal searches at the whim of whatever authority is present.

However, that being said, long before there were gas chambers and concentration camps, the first target of the WW2 Germany regime was, actually, not the Jews, but th Gypsies. People who were in the country illegally without papers, who were perceived to be the enemy of the true citizens, who were accused of being responsible for much of the crime, and who were questioned by the authorities and taken off trains for not having documentation.

Sound familiar?

 

[JoeBas]

If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't have to worry.

Not sure if serious...

 

[JoeBas]

We're a nation of laws. Someone can't be randomly searched on the street or in their home. There has to be reasonable suspicion to do so on the street and there needs to be a warrant in the home.

Tell that to the NYPD and their Tetrahertz scanners:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-readies-scan-and-frisk-article-1.1245663

That's where all this leads. Give an inch, find yourselves miles behind.

 

[leemell]

I'll say that I do not consider a procedure to be entirely "voluntary" when the potential consequence is denial of carriage. I will say that I don't necessarily resent a security presence at major stations like NYP or CHI, but that's more to deal with the transient/panhandler issue and other incidental crime than anything.
Of course, with that said, as much as I hate the TSA I also very much hope that the first Jihadi who tries to pull anything at a major station ends up with more holes in them than a line of political argumentation has these days...but I've got markedly more respect for the NYPD, Amtrak Police, and even the Guard/Army often put at NYP than I do for the TSA (which is to say that I do have respect for those non-TSA groups).

*SNIP*

However, when anyone signs up to travel by Amtrak, one agrees to the conditions of carriage. Those include being searched at the discretion of an Amtrak employee. If you don't like those conditions, don't take Amtrak. It's pretty simple. If one doesn't want to leave a credit card deposit, don't rent a car. If you don't like the possibility of being either searched or denied boarding, don't take Amtrak. If you don't want to go through a metal detector and have your bags X-rayed, don't fly. It's pretty simple.

I've been to other countries where we went through metal detectors and sometimes had our bags X-rayed taking the bus or train. It frankly wasn't that big a deal.

[snip]

It started with commercial vehicles, but their sister agency, cbp, already does highway checkpoints "near" the borders for all vehicles. How much longer until they move them inland and place them under tsa?

[snip]

The CDB's jurisdiction currently extends to 100 miles inland from the border,

 

[BCL]

The CDB's jurisdiction currently extends to 100 miles inland from the border,

What division? It's a big agency and they tossed in a bunch of smaller agencies that used to be part of Treasury (Customs), Justice (Border Patrol), and even Agriculture (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service).

I've always seen customs at US airports and I'm pretty sure at other ports of entry such as cruise ship terminals. An old HS friend of mine had a father who worked for Customs in San Francisco as a scientist. I saw his lab once.

 

[leemell]

The CDB's jurisdiction currently extends to 100 miles inland from the border,

What division? It's a big agency and they tossed in a bunch of smaller agencies that used to be part of Treasury (Customs), Justice (Border Patrol), and even Agriculture (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service).

I've always seen customs at US airports and I'm pretty sure at other ports of entry such as cruise ship terminals. An old HS friend of mine had a father who worked for Customs in San Francisco as a scientist. I saw his lab once.

Border Patrol for this question.

 

[chakk]

However, that being said, long before there were gas chambers and concentration camps, the first target of the WW2 Germany regime was, actually, not the Jews, but th Gypsies. People who were in the country illegally without papers, who were perceived to be the enemy of the true citizens, who were accused of being responsible for much of the crime, and who were questioned by the authorities and taken off trains for not having documentation.

Sound familiar?

When the **** Party took power in Germany in the 1930s, the government initially sought to expel the Jews from the country. Many did leave the country -- mostly to the few places in the world, such as Shanghai, China, -- where they could gain admittance without visas. The vast majority of countries would not issue entry visas to let Jewish immigrants enter. My wife's father and his parents and some cousins were some of the lucky ones who were able to purchase rail passage from their homes in Berlin to Italy and ship passage from there to Shanghai -- other relatives who stayed in Germany were later sent to concentration camps in the 1940s where they died.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

When they start doing random checks targeting a certain group of people and "finding" something wrong which results in these people being hauled off to somewhere out of site then you can compare us to Hitler's Germany.

I wonder what your view is on our modern gulag at Guantanamo, our previously hidden network of CIA black sites and extraordinary renditions, our use of prisons for political and religious persecution such as at Abu Ghraib, and our defense of torture so long as it was just shy of organ failure. Every country has its own version of crazy. Just because ours may not be identical to another's doesn't make it any more sane.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

Its still ridiculous hyperbole that's offensive to people that survived that time.
There's an entire universe between "a dog sniffed at my luggage while I misinterpreted a TSA agent's disinterest as him looking at me like i'm guilty!" and "Alexandria Nick is secretly a ***** agent and has reported all of you for questioning the state. You'll be arrested without charge, tortured, and in a labor camp within 36 hours."

Yes, but no society goes directly from your first scenario, to your second. There are a number of signposts on the road that leads to that latter destination.

And some folks really need to look at the map.

Slippery slope. Just because A happens, it does not mean B is going to happen.

 

[benjibear]

There is a difference from the authorities coming into my property to search then me going to a place that is not my property where authorities are trying to keep everyone safe.

While there there have been no major terror acts against Amtrak, it is still a very potential target. I can see potential terrorist bringing bombs onto trains.\ for example. Don't you think this can happen? While the very limited random searches are not going to prevent this, if this type of action ever happens, you better get ready for security screaning at all Amtrak stations.

I do agree that this is sad that need to lose freedoms but it is somewhat of a neccessary evil in order to protect people. Has the TSA gone too far? Maybe. Could it be more efficient? Probably. Do we still need an agency to oversee all this? Unfortionatly, yes.

 

[Ryan]

There is a difference from the authorities coming into my property to search then me going to a place that is not my property where authorities are trying to keep everyone safe.

The Constitution disagrees.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The 4th amendment applies to us everywhere, not just on your property.

 

[Trogdor]

I do agree that this is sad that need to lose freedoms but it is somewhat of a neccessary evil in order to protect people.

It truly saddens me that anyone could possibly believe this.

 

[benjibear]

There is a difference from the authorities coming into my property to search then me going to a place that is not my property where authorities are trying to keep everyone safe.

The Constitution disagrees.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The 4th amendment applies to us everywhere, not just on your property.

My security and safety is reason enough for me. You may not agree.

 

[Trogdor]

My security and safety is reason enough for me. You may not agree.

I do not agree.

Nor does Ben Franklin, among our other founding fathers.

Then there's the old saying, if you have nothing to die for, you have nothing to live for.

We (as a society, not necessarily individuals) trip over ourselves all the time thanking soldiers for their service "to protect our freedom." We, as a nation, have had guys lay their life on the line to (ostensibly) protect our freedom. Yet we have people in this own country who don't give a damn about that freedom, and would just give it up for, as Ben Franklin said, "a little, temporary safety."

Make no mistake, they will continue to find ways to claim that you are unsafe, and use that as a justification to further restrict freedom.

There is no such thing as 100% safety. It never existed, and it never will. There will always be the chance that something bad will happen. The chance is small, but nonzero. Even on airlines. The security that existed on 9/11/2001 is the same security that had existed for decades before that. The limited security on railroads is well-known. Plenty of things are possible. Things haven't happened, yet. Doesn't mean something never will (in fact, there have been cases of sabotage in the past).

Still, we're more likely to get killed crossing the street in front of our house than we are to be killed by an act of terrorism, even with pre-9/11 security.

Yet we have people who want to live in fear, and at the slightest hint that something might go wrong, they just surrender everything in hopes that someone else won't hurt them (and, to think, Americans like to make fun of the French for surrendering early during WWII; I'd hate to think if these folks had been in charge during the American revolution: "Sorry, Mr. British Soldier. I'll pay taxes to the king. Please don't shoot me! Here, have my house! Please don't shoot me!")

Why do people feel that it's okay to sacrifice everything worth living for in order to attain something that's impossible. What happens if you've given up every last bit of freedom you have, and they still say "well, you're not totally safe, so we need to do more"?

 

[Ryan]

There is a difference from the authorities coming into my property to search then me going to a place that is not my property where authorities are trying to keep everyone safe.

The Constitution disagrees.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The 4th amendment applies to us everywhere, not just on your property.

My security and safety is reason enough for me. You may not agree.

Searching the bags of passengers as they're getting OFF of a train does exactly nothing to increase your security or safety.

Searching millions of bags, pockets and body cavities as people have boarded airplanes in the last 12 years have found nothing.

I'm all for reasonable security measures that actually provide security. Measures like this VIPR crap that only provide the illusion of security at the expense of our privacy need to go.