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

 

 

 

Think 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 gonads.

 

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 a 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... as 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.

 

 

 

The land of the free and the home of the brave ...

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"We" went into Afghanistan because the Taliban were openly supporting Osama and allowing al Qaeda to set up training bases there. At least it made more sense than invading Iraq, where Sodom left the US alone.

 

Supported some sort of military strike/retaliation on Afghanistan. But not occupation. We know history, a very recent history, yet still mimic the Soviets stupidity in the recent past (Ironically Osama Bin Laden was trained by the US in the insurgency against the Soviets). How fucking stupid can we be. Where does it go long term?

 

9/11 gave some real dipshits an opportunity to craft and influence foreign policy. A la Dick Cheney. Their constant mantra was 'you can't appease the terrorists' and they portrayed anyone who disagreed with them as a modern day Neville Chamberlain. You gotta love a war on an abstract idea. Maybe next we can declare war on fear and use it to justify even more bullshit. Fuck it, just invade everybody.

 

I like to think that 50 years from now historians will look at US foreign policy the past decade with one conclusion --> dumb.

 

 

 

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This guy robbed a bank just to get medical care in jail.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110621/ts_yblog_thelookout/man-robs-bank-to-get-medical-care-in-jail

 

Some people who need medical care but can't afford it go to the emergency room. Others just hope they'll get better. James Richard Verone robbed a bank.

Earlier this month, Verone (pictured), a 59-year-old convenience store clerk, walked into a Gaston, N.C., bank and handed the cashier a note demanding $1 and medical attention. Then he waited calmly for police to show up.

He's now in jail and has an appointment with a doctor this week.

Verone's problems started when he lost the job he'd held for 17 years as a Coca Cola deliveryman, amid the economic downturn. He found new work driving a truck, but it didn't last. Eventually, he took a part-time position at the convenience store.

But Verone's body wasn't up to it. The bending and lifting made his back ache. He had problems with his left foot, making him limp. He also suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.

Then he noticed a protrusion on his chest. "The pain was beyond the tolerance that I could accept," Verone told the Gaston Gazette. "I kind of hit a brick wall with everything."

Verone knew he needed help--and he didn't want to be a burden on his sister and brothers. He applied for food stamps, but they weren't enough either.

So he hatched a plan. On June 9, he woke up, showered, ironed his shirt. He mailed a letter to the Gazette, listing the return address as the Gaston County Jail.

 

 

I can understand the fight against ObamaCare. I get that. I really do. Especially from a quasi libertarian such as myself. However, it has to be said that medical costs in America is astronomical. I did some research and 60% of bankruptcies are medical bill related. These are bankruptcies from all strata of society.

 

God forbid if you get sick in America. So, conservatives, talk me into why I shouldn't give Obama care a shot? What is the Republican alternative? Medical savings plans? Can this honestly seriously cut into medical costs? Especially major surgery.

 

Medical tourism is now a thriving industry. Americans are having to leave America for major medical issues.

 

I started picking jobs based almost on how good the benefits were. I would gladly take a 5k or even 10k a year lower salary for Job 1 against Job 2 if their medical and dental plans were far superior. Its gotten that bad and this is from a very healthy guy who works out regularly and never (knock on wood) had call in sick from work a day in his life (inherited those genes from my dad who had one sick day in almost 25 years at his job).

 

HOwever, I have seen friends and family go into serious debt, unrecoverable holes because of some major medical issue. Its insane.

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I started picking jobs based almost on how good the benefits were. I would gladly take a 5k or even 10k a year lower salary for Job 1 against Job 2 if their medical and dental plans were far superior. Its gotten that bad and this is from a very healthy guy who works out regularly and never (knock on wood) had call in sick from work a day in his life (inherited those genes from my dad who had one sick day in almost 25 years at his job).

 

 

Thank God when Ron Paul becomes the 45th POTUS, he is going to fix that by instituting a single payer health care by the gubbermint.

 

Or, he may support the good old days of the 19th century where employers paid their workers in script instead of greenbacks or goldbacks. (That Lincoln sure was a Commie)

 

Hmmmmmmmmm, which side of the shorts does Paul hang? Only Borat knows for sure.

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I started picking jobs based almost on how good the benefits were. I would gladly take a 5k or even 10k a year lower salary for Job 1 against Job 2 if their medical and dental plans were far superior. Its gotten that bad and this is from a very healthy guy who works out regularly and never (knock on wood) had call in sick from work a day in his life (inherited those genes from my dad who had one sick day in almost 25 years at his job).

 

 

Thank God when Ron Paul becomes the 45th POTUS' date=' he is going to fix that by instituting a single payer health care by the gubbermint.

 

Or, he may support the good old days of the 19th century where employers paid their workers in script instead of greenbacks or goldbacks. (That Lincoln sure was a Commie)

 

Hmmmmmmmmm, which side of the shorts does Paul hang? Only Borat knows for sure.[/quote']

 

 

No health plan will work until the powers that be (AMA, Big Pharma, HMO chains, etc.) who control what is written into law by Congess changes.

 

We can have more doctors without lowering the quality of doctors. One possible suggestion is have an alternative to the AMA in licensing who becomes a doctor. In federal, state and city hospitals who are government run, develop a licensing system akin to the AMA. In state universities med schools they can increase the level of acceptence. The schools keep the numbers accepted arbitrarly low so as not to have too many doctors. Also, allow more doctors to emigrate to the U.S. from other countries and accept their medical license of their home countries as long as they have had no incident of malpractice. Also, pay for medical school of any doctor, nurse, pharmacist, etc. who will work for a certain length of time in areas in need of more doctors. Rural aras like the Dakotas, poor states like West Virginia and parts of other states like Kentucky, Mississippi, etc. inner city. Guarantee them a decent wage and forgiveness of their medical school loans.

 

I have posted on here before an idea of the UN to grant a one time award for any new medical breakthroughs, medicines and cures to any company, medical institution or even country in exchange for full use, patent free, of that cure. Say, 50 billion for cancer or AIDs. Spread amongst all nations its nothing. That amount (or some other amount), awarded tax free should be an amount that would be a huge financial windfall. I've read as much as a couple billion can go into a big cure. Therefore 50 billion is more than enough incentive.

 

Reward healthy living financially via reduction of fee charged. A non smoker, non drinker for example.

 

Make the American medical industry compete on price by allowing a modest percentage of the cost to do a major surgery in India, Europe or Thailand to be written off. What ever is quoated by in America, other local hospitals as well as overseas hospitals can compete on price. We comparative shop for cars and homes all the time.

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