Rail's handling of TSA should be a model

cnn.com ^ | February 6, 2012 | Don Phillips

[MamaDearest]

Snips from Excerpt only website: For reasons that have never been publicly explained, a squad of VIPR agents showed up at a Savannah Amtrak station one day …….Everyone who entered the station was thoroughly searched. It didn't seem to matter whether people were getting on trains or getting off trains, or just looking for a place to go to the bathroom.

….freight railroads were having their own problems with the VIPR teams. The TSA demanded that VIPR agents be allowed to enter yards at any hour of the day or night without notice and to watch employees from hidden positions. The railroads told the TSA to go to hell. Yards are dangerous places for amateurs, they said. It is easy to lose a leg or be crushed between couplers, not to mention that many yard employees unofficially carry guns to kill rats, and they could kill a rat in the weeds that turned out to be a human being.

[MamaDearest]

Emphasis mine. Link to article

[Paladin2]

TSA = 'Rats

Makes perfect sense to me.

[hinckley buzzard]

Dumbass gubmint scum. Railroads have traditionally had their own police/security forces, and they know their business. They don't need a bunch of gibbering affirmative action crooks and amateurs mucking about the railyards.

[SeeSharp]

I’ve been to BNR rail yards. They are almost completely automated now. The only employees around are crane operators and yard dogs. Trucking companies send trucks in and out through automated security gates and scanners. You could get run over in a place like that and it might be days before anyone finds you.

[Ken H]

It is easy to lose a leg or be crushed between couplers, not to mention that many yard employees unofficially carry guns to kill rats, and they could kill a rat in the weeds that turned out to be a human being.

And the problem is...?

[SERE_DOC]

"Railroads have traditionally had their own police/security forces, and they know their business"

Strangely enough a free people don't need the likes of TSA either.

We don't need government jack booted oxygen thieves groping and prodding us as we go about our day.

[RetiredTexasVet]

Probably should be a bigger bounty for two legged rats ... say $3.00 instead of $2.00!

[jmax]

.

>>>> "The TSA demanded that VIPR agents be allowed to enter yards at any hour of the day or night without notice and to watch employees from hidden positions...." <<<

Given the theft reputations of TSA at airports, just imagine what would be going on in a railroad yard: Picture about midnight on a dark night and all the personal AND government vehicles backed up to the jimmied doors of freight cars and the TSA guys loading up on big screen TV's and cases of cell phones, booze, iPads and everthing else you can imagine.

The TSA is a taxpayer-funded criminal organization. If Al Capone were still around today, he'd give up everything in Chicago and put in an employment application for an entry level job at TSA.

[Surrounded_too]

Must have been sleeping when VIPR was spoken of..

What are they? Obama’s secret extralegal SS? His hidden Army?

[ArmyTeach]

VIPR - Visible and Intermodal Prevention and Response, falls under Homeland Security and is the land-based version of TSA. They set up roadside search stops. They try to muscle in on train and bus depots unannounced and set up searches. AMTRAC CEO just banned them from AMTRAC premises.

[Defiant]

Well, you can’t spell Rats without a TS and A.

[alamogal]

This is a little off topic, but I was in line boarding a plane at Houston Hobby last Saturday, when the vermin TSA approached and demanded a guy drinking a Coke in a paper cup, show his drivers license and remove the lid from the Coke, so they could look in the cup. Absolutely insane, and blatant harassment. Others in line literally groaned.

[PapaBear3625]

Again, the TSA had no choice. It is not well known, but the TSA must have permission to go onto private property. That makes no difference at airports because the TSA must approve any new airport security arrangements if the agency is ordered to leave. The TSA has made it known that it will immediately move its equipment out of any airport that tells it to leave, and it will take weeks or months to approve any new security arrangements and equipment. At railroads, however, all the security equipment is owned by the railroads.

Outright extortion.

[Surrounded_too]

Then it’s his not so secret police. The secret police must really be a secret so much so that we won’t know it exists until they do us in with a bayonet.