METRO’s official website stated after the exercise that “Law officials performed random bag checks”
A Press release before the exercise stated bag checks would take place,yet METRO officials continued to deny that any bag searches had occurred besides those where the passenger had been pressured 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.
“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.”
The Chief of Police, Victor, Rodriguez, has already confirmed the unconstitutional searches and ID-ing will continue to take place and quite possibly become routine. METRO President and Chairman George Grenias promised that warrantless bag searches would not occur, even though Rodriguez told ABC 13 last week that “he does have the right to search your bag and may tell his officers to do it.”
In the 2011 congressional report trashing the TSA, the purpose of the agency is stated:
“TSA‘s mission is to establish screening security standards for all modes of transportation. When originally established in the Department of Transportation, TSA was given the broad leeway to complete that mission. In March of 2003, TSA was integrated, along with 21 other federal agencies, into the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS)”
Don’t think it won’t happen in your city. There were more than 9,300 TSA/VIPR checkpoints conducted in the USA,000 checkpoints last year alone
Posted by Yvonne Mae Friedembeck
The Time Times 