TSA Invades Roads & Highways With VIPR Checkpoints

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 1, 2011

The TSA has announced its intention to expand the VIPR program to include roadside inspections of commercial vehicles, setting up a network of internal checkpoints and rolling out security procedures already active in airports, bus terminals and subway stations to roads and highways across the United States.

Up until now, commercial trucks and other vehicles only were subject to warrantless searches and radiation scans at specially designated “state-owned inspection stations” traditionally set up at rest stops next to highways. These internal checkpoints, run by Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the TSA, involve trucks being scanned with backscatter x-ray devices in the name of “safety” and “counter terrorism”.

These inspection stations are now being expanded to normal roads and highways, unleashing an army of TSA agents who will be given a free hand to litter America with internal checkpoints in a chilling throwback to Soviet-style levels of control over the population.

“Inspectors from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are likely to be more involved in roadside inspections of commercial vehicles, according to TSA officials,” reports the industry website BulkTransporter.com.

”VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams can be extremely effective, serving as a visible presence that is random and unpredictable,” says William Arrington with TSA. “VIPR teams are an essential part of protecting highway transportation vehicles and other critical infrastructures.”

The video below shows the truck inspections which will now be expanded to cover the country’s road and highway network.

The report also notes that, “VIPR team members may or may not be in uniform,” stoking fears about the use of secret police manning checkpoints which would be more befitting of the Soviet Union or the former East Germany.

As we have documented, airport security style checkpoints and inspection procedures are already in place at bus terminals, train stations, and are rapidly being expanded to the streets of America.

Since the launch of the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” program, the DHS has also released promotional material which depicts would-be TSA agents conducting searches at public events, including a Buccaneers football game.

Homeland Security is also developing technology to be used at “security events” which purports to monitor “malintent” on behalf of an individual who passes through a checkpoint. The video below explains how “Future Attribute Screening Technology” (FAST) checkpoints will conduct “physiological” and “behavioral” tests in order to weed out suspected terrorists and criminals.

The clip shows individuals who attend “security events” being led into trailers before they are interrogated as to whether they are terrorists while lie detector-style computer programs analyze their physiological responses. The subjects are asked about their whereabouts, and if they are attempting to smuggle bombs or recording devices into the “expo,” proving that the technology is intended to be used at public events and not just airports. Individuals who do not satisfy the first lie detector-style test are then asked “additional questions”.

If people think they can avoid the TSA by staying away from airports, they’re going to be in for a rude awakening. TSA is clearly engaged in a total takeover of society and plans to have its agents searching, patting down, scanning and harassing Americans at all levels of society, not just at transport hubs but at public events, in the street and on highways and roads across the country.

The implementation of ‘Checkpoint USA’, where citizens are routinely stopped, searched and radiated by federal VIPER teams is further evidence of how America is crumbling into a Soviet-style police state where the presumption of innocent until proven guilty is abolished and the 4th amendment eviscerated. The DHS program also represents a complete violation of the 10th Amendment in that it brazenly contravenes states’ rights.