Houston Bus Riders Have Enough of TSA Security Theater

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Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, April 27, 2012

Dozens of outraged residents attended a Houston METRO board meeting yesterday to express their disgust at how TSA workers were used to interrogate passengers on buses during a so-called “anti-terror” exercise last week.

Complaining of how their fourth amendment rights were violated, residents were joined by several prominent lawyers in an extraordinary backlash against the federal agency and local authorities.

The meeting was dominated by more denials on behalf of METRO that warrantless bag searches had occurred during the drill, labeled BusSafe, which was billed as a counter-terror exercise yet only managed to snag alleged prostitutes and drug users.

Despite the fact that the METRO’s official website stated after the exercise that “Law officials performed random bag checks,” in addition to a press release before the exercise that stated bag checks would take place, METRO officials continued to deny that any bag searches had occurred besides those where the passenger had been coerced into giving permission.

“On April 13, the METRO Police Department invited TSA to be a part of its bus-safe exercise. METRO said then and repeated for days afterwards there would be random searches of bus and train passengers’ bags,” reports ABC 13.

What definitely did take place was police officers and TSA agents interrogating passengers about their behavior and journey details.

“METRO and TSA were going onto the buses and questioning people about their normal routes and their normal behavior, and it just kind of creates an atmosphere of fear,” said METRO rider Derrick Broze.

“I don’t feel like by purchasing a ticket or riding a bus that I have to forfeit my Constitutional rights and my protections and be subject to search or seizure,” Broze told METRO board members. “We don’t plan on letting this issue die if the TSA stays in our city.”

A photo taken by Broze’s friend shows a ‘TSA Inspector’ looking at a passenger’s bus ticket.

“You’ve gone one step too far by bringing the TSA into our house,” another resident fumed.

“The good citizens of Houston are not stupid enough to believe Metro was actually expecting to find terrorists at a bus stop here. Instead, it was used as a pretext to harass people,” said Robert Fickman, past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, adding that the exercise was clearly unconstitutional. “Metro police can do all the police exercises they want on each other: They can sic dogs on each other, they can Taser each other, they can throw rocks at each other for all I care. What Metro cannot do is practice their police exercises … on innocent Houstonians who just happened to be riding bus or rail.”

Fickman’s colleague Earl Musick then received rapturous applause after he presented the METRO board with a copy of the Constitution.

The notion that the event was merely a one off “exercise” is a misnomer. Police Chief Victor Rodriguez has already confirmed that the program will be put into operation again and it’s clearly designed to become a routine practice, although METRO President and Chairman George Grenias promised that warrantless bag searches would not occur, despite Rodriguez telling ABC 13 last week that “he does have the right to search your bag and may tell his officers to do it.”

The treatment Houston residents were subjected to is set to become more commonplace with the expansion of the TSA to become a literally occupying army across America. The federal agency was responsible for over 9,000 checkpoints last year alone, with extra funding from Congress guaranteed to increase that figure and open the door to more TSA goons harassing Americans at transport hubs across the country.

12 COMMENTS

  1. The new Judicial Watch blockbuster feature documentary, District of Corruption, directed by Stephen K. Bannon, lays bare the lawless and unconstitutional Obama administration and makes the case for more openness, integrity, and honesty in government and leads the way for changing the climate of corruption that has gripped Washington, D.C. for far too long.

    http://www.judicialwatch.org/districtofcorruptionmovie/

  2. I just can’t wait! When the TSA guys put their hands down my pants it just makes me all tingly inside! If it weren’t for Barack Obama my life would just be boring. Wow! Finally we’re getting what we pay those taxes for! This is wonderful news!

    I think I just soiled my underwear.

      • You know, now that I think about it I can understand the fear. They’ve taken away a lot of our freedoms and will continue to take away more. Home grown so called terrorism germinates in these conditions. Anything other than submit/obey is now considered terrorist action! I think by the time Americans start making a stand for their rights the infrastructure of the police state will already be in place!

        Not looking forward to sitting around the FEMA campfire telling back in the day stories!

      • You need to subtract the millions that work for government and the millions more drawing government pensions.

        The rest of us are the terrorists.

    • Well, they had their hands down my pants in Salt Lake last Christmas, does that count? Then there was the guy who just got pissed off after 3 or 4 go rounds and stripped naked in the middle of the airport. I heard they tried arresting him for indecent exposure, then found out nudity was legal in Portland. That’ll teach the Feds to read the local laws before they call the Sheriff. Hah!

      I think the official number is, uhhhh, wait for it now… zero.

    • Hey Dom, this just in from a Forbes reader:

      —–

      Scooby Playhere 1 week ago

      TSA Report
      Listen up all you naysayers. Those of you who whine about airport body scanners being an infringement of your rights under the Constitution, who rail about unwelcome and illegal invasions of your privacy, who complain of egregious and unwarranted government intrusion- you need to lighten up. The TSA performs a useful function on behalf of air travelers.
      TSA Report for The Year 2011 is over. Homeland Security has provided their end-of-the-year statistics on airport screenings here in the U.S. It is truly amazing what those full-body scanners have shown.

      * Terrorist Plots Discovered: 0
      * Transvestites: 743
      * Enlarged Prostates: 19,249
      * Breast Implants: 209,350
      * Colon problems: 27,298
      * Natural Blondes: 3

      • Wow, I’m shocked! Only three natural blondes…

        That might be a good thing though. I think the fakes ones work harder to compensate! -doh

        • dom: I’m not buying that number. We need to allocate a couple of billion in taxpayer money to install peroxide detectors in all the porno-scanners. We need to be sure those “natural blondes” weren’t using chemical means to hide the worst terrorist threat out there; the dreaded “black box”.

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