TSA Releases VIPR Venom on Tennessee Highways

by Rep. Ron Paul, October 25, 2011

If you thought the Transportation Security Administration would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym — VIPR — as a name for the program.

As with TSA’s random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained. They are, in effect, completely random. So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th Amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.

The slippery slope is here. When does it end? How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?

The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport two or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build an extra two or three hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?

Worse, some people are lulled into a false sense of security and are actually grateful for this added police presence! Should we really hail the expansion of the police state as an enhancement to safety? I submit that an attitude of acquiescence to TSA authority is thoroughly dangerous, un-American, and insulting to earlier, freedom-loving generations who built this country.

I am certain people will complain about this, once they have to sit in stopped traffic for a few extra hours to allow for random searches of cars. However, I am also certain it merely will take another “foiled” plot to silence many people into gladly accepting more government mismanagement of safety.

Vigilant, observant, law-abiding, gun-owning citizens defend themselves and stop crimes every day before police can respond. That is the source of real security in America: the 2nd Amendment right to defend oneself. The answer is for people to be empowered to protect themselves. Yet how many weapons might these checkpoints confiscate? Even when individuals go through all the legal hoops of licensing and permits, the chances of harassment or outright confiscation of weapons and detention of citizens when those weapons are found at a TSA checkpoint is extremely high.

Disarming the highways and filling them full of jack-booted thugs demanding to see our papers is no way to make them safer. Instead, it is a great way to expand government surveillance powers and tighten the noose around our liberties.

Comment:

Comrades, although I happen to agree with what Mr. Paul said, let's not forget that he is a politician who works WITHIN a corrupt, failing system. Assuming that he is sincere, like so many others, he wants to repair a system that should take it's place in the past, along with absolute monarchies, and communist states. That's a mistake. We all know what kind of state we need to save our Folk from extinction.

What gets me is that so many people say that if National Socialists came to power, the American people would be subjected to a dictatorship.

Look around everyone. We're almost there now. Our constitutional rights are being violated every time we turn around. First, we had the Patriot Act. It was so named because it was without a doubt a complete violation of our rights, but by giving it such a name, the government hoped that the people would go along with it - even though it was illegal, for "the good of the country." Nope, not me. As long as these rights exist, I expect to be granted ALL of them.

Next came the Department Of Homeland Security. Did you know the original name was going to be the Department Of Internal Security? Again, they decided on a more emotional name so as to stir people's patriotism so they would accept this unconstitutional department. Again, not me.

Then comes TSA. We were told that this was necessary because of the high risk of attack against civilians on foreign and domestic flights. Since the conception of TSA, it was already determined that their jurisdiction would eventually be expanded to railroads, buses, subways, and even highways. Well, that's exactly what's happening. All in the name of "protecting" the people.

One of the ways people make fun of National Socialism is to imply we're for dictatorships by saying in a mocking tone, "Vhere ist your papers?" Isn't that happening here right now? You can't do hardly anything without proper ID. The government even wants a national ID card, and to make it a criminal offense to be out in public without it. Sounds like dictatorship tactics to me.

The United States has already become a police state. The sad thing is that most Americans welcome these overkill security measures. Most people have become soft and cowardly in their materialism. These people deserve to live in a dictatorship. They allowed it to happen. They did nothing to stop it in the beginning when it would have been easier. And folks, that includes us. We too allowed it happen. The fault is ours as well as Joe Average's.

It's still not too late, but it will be sooner than you'd like to think. Let's act before it is. Support the ANP in any way you can.

"Those who trade their freedom for safety deserve neither." - Benjamin Franklin.

Dan 88!