by Becky Akers
Becky Akers writes often about the American Revolution.
The government suffers no shortage of gall.
Barely a week after air marshals from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) gunned down passenger Rigoberto Alpizar at Miami’s International Airport, the agency announced that it will expand the reach of its marshal program. That's right: slaughter a man, then, while the investigation is still going on, seek new venues.
The TSA is embarking on a three-day pilot project to test the agency's ability to assist State and local authorities by quickly deploying federal assets in response to a specific threat, a press release said. No word on whether those threats include Americans who distress the Pentagon with their protests against the Iraq war, or homeowners who refuse to leave their property when eminent domain evicts them. The release continues, The pilot will run from Dec. 14-16 and will involve Federal Air Marshals, surface transportation inspectors, and TSA canine teams. In a sop to the local fiefdoms affected, one of their cops will also join in. These squads are invading selected Amtrak stations as well as bus depots and mass transit in Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, D.C., and Baltimore. Even ferries in Washington State aren't safe from them.
The TSA may promote this as a pilot program, but anyone familiar with Leviathan's expansionist ways knows that's merely a term of art. We just want to develop the capability to enhance security outside of aviation, said air marshal spokesman David Adams. He's on a roll after the Alpizar killing. This is the guy who insisted that Mr. Alpizar hollered about having a bomb, thus inviting the marshals to shoot him, despite unanimous testimony from eyewitnesses that Mr. Alpizar never said any such thing. Yet Adams's credibility remains high: his version of events is the one most of the media is parroting.
And why would the TSA want to enhance security outside of aviation? Has the government heard that terrorists are planning to attack Houston's bus lines or Philadelphia's subway system? No. Instead, as AP reports, the TSA is trying to expand the role of air marshals, who have been eager to conduct surveillance activities beyond the aircraft. . . .
Indeed. Why settle for monitoring only 2 million airline customers each day when you can spy on bus and train ones, too?
And so we have additional proof, were any needed, that the S in TSA stands not for security but for surveillance. If the TSA were truly interested in passengers' safety, it would never force them to wait in long lines at its checkpoints, offering suicide bombers a ready target. The fact that millions routinely survive such waits casts devastating doubt on the government's scenario of a country rife with terrorists. To further demonstrate its concern for Americans' safety, the TSA might also abandon its ridiculous No-Fly List. Containing upwards of 100,000 names, this roll sounds like something out of Soviet Russia: it is so secret even its victims don't know they're on it, who put them there, nor why. (Then again, the silly pretexts that earn one a listing may explain the secrecy: babies whose names are similar to terrorists' have been denied boarding, as have women who told TSA gropers–ah, screeners–to keep their hands to themselves.) Banning folks from flying forces them to find other ways to their destinations; most likely, that other way will involve a car, and driving is much more dangerous than flying. The year 2003, for example, saw about 40 folks die nationwide in commercial plane crashes versus almost 43,000 in car accidents. Most importantly, if the TSA values safety over surveillance, it will ground its excitable air marshals before they kill more Americans who, like Mr. Alpizar, are guilty of nothing worse than trying to leave their flights.
Instead, the TSA is enlarging the marshals' scope. According to the Washington Post, a memo from the TSA's Federal Air Marshal Service flight operations office brags that they are trained to covertly detect potential criminal terrorist pre-attack surveillance and other suspicious activity. Unfortunately, the training seems to have skipped the part about not shooting passengers who become upset or distraught. Then there's the suspicious activity. Remember that the nervous nannies who comprise our government define suspicious activity the way your grandmother would: anyone showing high levels of stress, anxiety or deception draws the attention of the TSA's screeners, according to the Post (see previous link). Look for every parent trying to calm a cranky, colicky kid at the TSA checkpoint to be hauled aside for a pat-down.
Two Now Dead
The idea that government workers can study us as we go about our business and determine who among us is going to blow the others up now has two deaths to its credit: those of Mr. Alpizar and of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian citizen shot by London's police this summer because they didn't care for his looks. Yet Leviathan in general and the air marshals in particular will continue to use that tactic.
TSA is going to extend its outreach into other modes of transportation, Adams threatened. We think this is a very good approach to test our tools and quickly deploy resources in the event of a situation or a threat.
The innocent passengers from American Airlines Flight 924, who were frisked, interrogated, and detained as though they, and not the air marshals, had killed Mr. Alpizar, could attest that the last entity you want quickly deploy[ed] . . . in the event of a situation or a threat is the government. The victims of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in New Orleans and vicinity would probably second that.
Adams continued, [Extending the TSA into other modes of transportation] shows we could be at any of these places. That’s got passengers rather than terrorists trembling.