T.S.A. Expands Duties Beyond Airport Security
As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds.
The squad was not with the Washington police department or Amtrak’s police force, but was one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR teams for short — assigned to perform random security sweeps to prevent terrorist attacks at transportation hubs across the United States.
They are not there just to see if you are carrying unauthorized mineral water.
With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy.
T.S.A. and local law enforcement officials say the teams are a critical component of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts, but some members of Congress, auditors at the Department of Homeland Security and civil liberties groups are sounding alarms. The teams are also raising hackles among passengers who call them unnecessary and intrusive.
The VIPR teams were first created in 2005 in response to the Madrid train bombing. They have been expanding to various transportation hubs and other venues such as major sporting events. Looks like they didn't manage to fit the Boston Marathon into their busy schedule.
The teams, which are typically composed of federal air marshals, explosives experts and baggage inspectors, move through crowds with bomb-sniffing dogs, randomly stop passengers and ask security questions. There is usually a specially trained undercover plainclothes member who monitors crowds for suspicious behavior, said Kimberly F. Thompson, a T.S.A. spokeswoman. Some team members are former members of the military and police forces.
T.S.A. officials would not say if the VIPR teams had ever foiled a terrorist plot or thwarted any major threat to public safety, saying the information is classified. But they argue that the random searches and presence of armed officers serve as a deterrent that bolsters the public confidence.
This raises a lot of questions about the basis of their legal authority to conduct random searches and questioning of people in public areas without probable cause. It would seem to have a lot of parallels with stop and frisk operations.
The new immigration act passed by the senate and now languishing in the house makes provisions for expanding the jurisdiction of the US border police to a variety of points in the interior of the country such as airports and their vicinity. This could turn into a federally funded version of the Keystone Kpos.