'Dominate. Intimidate. Control.'
THE REAL REASON BEHIND PHONY AIRPORT SECURITY
The transition to a police state will not come about with a dramatic coup d'etat, with battering rams and marauding militia. As we have experienced first-hand in recent years, it will creep in softly, one violation at a time, until suddenly you find yourself being subjected to random patdowns and security sweeps during your morning commute to work or trip to the shopping mall. The latest test of our tolerance comes from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the same agency that continues to make headlines with its intrusive airport searches of travelers. Most recently, for example, TSA agents at a Florida airport forced a 95-year-old wheelchair-bound cancer patient to remove her adult diaper during the course of a security check. This comes on the heels of numerous reports about travelers of all ages most of whom clearly do not in any way fit the profile of a terrorist being subjected to equally invasive searches and unreasonable demands by government agents, what one journalist refers to as "ritualized humiliation of travelers." Perhaps you have yet to experience being manhandled by government agents, having your personal possessions pawed through, and your activities and associations scrutinized. If so, not to worry. It's only a matter of time before more and more Americans will experience such a military task force knocking at their door. Only, chances are that it won't be a knock, and they might not even be at home when government agents decide to "investigate" them. Indeed, as increasing numbers of Americans are discovering, these so-called "soft target" security inspections are taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat. Worse, not only is this happening with the blessing of the Obama administration but at its urging. Something that was once limited to authoritarian regimes is only possible thanks to an unofficial rewriting of the Fourth Amendment by the courts that essentially does away with any distinctions over what is "reasonable" when it comes to searches and seizures by government agents. The rationale, of course, is that anything is "reasonable" in the war on terrorism. Americans remain oblivious to is the fact that by constantly pushing the envelope and testing the limits of what Americans will tolerate, the government is thus able to ratchet up the level of intrusiveness that Americans consider reasonable. Now, thanks to TSA Chief John Pistole's determination to "take the TSA to the next level," there will soon be no place safe from the TSA's groping searches. Only this time, the "ritualized humiliation" is being meted out by the serpentine-labeled Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) task forces, comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams. At a cost of $30 million in 2009, VIPR relies on 25 teams of agents, in addition to assistance from local law enforcement agencies as well as immigration agents. And as a sign of where things are headed, Pistole, himself a former FBI agent, wants to turn the TSA into a "national-security, counterterrorism organization, fully integrated into U.S. government efforts." To accomplish this, Pistole has requested funding for an additional 12 teams for fiscal year 2012, bringing VIPR's operating budget close to $110 million. TSA and VIPR searches also indoctrinate children to accept pat-downs, full-body scans, and the like, as a regular component of the relationship between government and its citizens. In this way, police state tactics will gradually grow in acceptance as simply "the way things are." A child who has been molested by government officials since before he could read is unlikely to question such activities as an unjustified exercise of authority when an adult. The goal of VIPR is to have an omnipresent anti-terrorist force deployed at every moderate or high-density site: malls, stadiums, restaurants, grocery stores and so on. Expanding VIPR to its logical conclusion necessitates a police state. Additionally, VIPR, by expanding intrusive searches beyond the spatially circumscribed confines of airports, regularizes abusive behavior by government officials and promotes submissiveness and subservience on the part of the average citizen. In effect, VIPR paves the way psychologically for the implementation of totalitarian apparatuses of control. Furthermore, by entrenching frequent, intrusive searches in the American mindset as an unquestioned component of everyday life, programs like VIPR actually serve to reduce the level of protection afforded citizens by the Constitution. And once VIPR has accrued a sufficient bureaucracy, it will be virtually impossible to eradicate.
TSA-VIPR "Looking for Cash" (listen closley)
TSA CHILD GROPING CONTINUES DESPITE PROMISE TO STOP
Gate rape is not about bombs or national security. It’s about domination. It’s about exercising control. It’s about sending you a message – the Fourth Amendment is dead and you have no expectation of privacy. It’s about acclimating you to the presence of Gestapo goons – in the airport and on the bus and train platform today, at the mall and on the corner of your neighborhood tomorrow.
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